Ether briefly crosses $3,000 for the first time since April 2022: CNBC Crypto World

CNBC Crypto World features the latest news and daily trading updates from the digital currency markets and provides viewers with a look at what’s ahead with high-profile interviews, explainers, and unique stories from the ever-changing crypto industry. On today’s show, Sandy Kaul, head of digital asset & investor advisory services, discusses the firm’s EZBC spot bitcoin ETF.

Chapters:
00:00 – CNBC Crypto World, Feb 20, 2024
0:21 – Bitcoin and ether fall
1:33 – Sandy Kaul of Franklin Templeton

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Ether briefly crosses $3,000 for the first time since April 2022: CNBC Crypto World

Today ether crosses above $3,000 for the first time in nearly two years in Sandy call of Franklin Templeton discusses the asset manager’s decision to enter the competitive Bitcoin ETF space with its EBC product welcome to cbc’s crypto world I’m Jordan Smith cryptocurrencies are in the red as we come off the holiday

Weekend with Bitcoin trading at about $51,500 that’s well off the weekend lows of about 50,7 from Saturday ether meanwhile trading flat at 2896 this morning but actually crossed above $3,000 earlier in the day and that’s its first time above the $3,000 Mark since April of 2022 then there salana which

Sank nearly 6% this morning to 106 now turning our attention over to Wall Street coinbase is moving lower this morning after that post earnings rally last week same with Robin Hood which was lower by about 1% at midday Marathon digital falling nearly 12% this morning amid that draw down in crypto markets

That pressure on bitcoin is of course also hitting the spot Bitcoin ETFs this morning but they continue to see strong inflows coin shares found that nearly 2 and A5 billion dollars flowed into digital asset investment products last week all right let’s jump right into our main story on Friday I spoke with Sandy

Call the global head of digital assets and investment advisory services for Franklin Templeton I asked her about the performance of the asset manager’s EBC spot Bitcoin ETF and whether we should expect to see more crypto ETF products on us exchanges after the company filed for a spot ether

ETF so Franklin Templeton among nearly a dozen asset managers bringing Bitcoin ETFs to market last month talk to me about how it’s going so far how you feel about EBC your ETF and its ability to closely track the price of Bitcoin so far great well thank you for having us

Um we have been very excited at Franklin Templeton about the success of our easy VC product um primarily because this is a brand new type of invest investment that is really bringing together the crypto world with the traditional Financial world uh and it has some nuances that have never really been

Attempted before in an ETF rapper uh that we had Faith would work but it’s always nice to see a month in that it is working as expected uh we’ve been super pleased with the mechanics of how the ETF is tracking uh the underlying index and price of Bitcoin uh we’ve been very

Pleased with how uh we are seeing steady growth in our product um and we are anticipating you know really seeing these offerings move into the advisor Channel where we will be doing most of our asset building over the coming months so uh we’re in the midst of working with advisers to really help

Them understand the investment thesis the product uh and how it fits into their portfolio yeah I want to talk about that thesis in just a moment but but sticking with the the competition side of this for just a moment can you elaborate on why Franklin Templeton thought that this

Was the right moment to bring a spot uh Bitcoin product to market right now especially with so many people also trying the same thing what about this environment right now made it seem like the right time so I think there’s three things that have really kind of brought

Us to this moment in time right I think the first uh is that when people began to get very excited about artificial intelligence last year um it really also opened up the dialogue around the other major I Technology Innovation that is working to reshape how Commerce operates which is

Blockchain and the associated blockchain ecosystems where even having gone through crypto winter we continue to see steady growth in the adoption and the expansion and the build out of these ecosystems and continued Innovation uh which is really creating all new models for the industry so there has been this

Entire domain uh of innovation that has been progressing for a decade now uh where most investors are unaware of of the extent of innovation that’s taking place and they have been unable to access it through channels that they would feel comfortable with particularly when they work with an advisor um so we

Think that the investment opportunity itself is becoming better understood uh and there is starting to be increased evidence that you really are going to need potentially this blockchain ecosystem to realize the full benefit of AI so those two innovation are really starting to come together uh the second

Reason that we thought this was the ideal timing is that there are some fundamentals underlying the Bitcoin Market itself that are coming into play uh over the coming months this has to do with the having cycle um and the idea that as Bitcoin uh transactions reach certain thresholds we see the reward

Being paid to miners cut that period is coming up in the past this has led to price increases um um you never know task performance is never a guarantee of the future but there is hope and expectation that there might be uh some impact on the pricing because you are

Going to see the supply potentially decrease the pace of Supply creation uh and then I think the third reason that people have become very interested in this is that we are going through an increased period of geopolitical uncertainty um and there has started to be in Many Nations that are experiencing

Economic impact from that uncertainty increased interest in using Bitcoin and using cryptocurrencies uh to help protect their wealth to help create uh a better way to move payment and remittances cross border uh and to help manage some of the high inflation in some countries and just as hopefully a store of value

In case of uncertainty so I think those three factors came together that really made this great timing and we have been engaged in space for quite some time but we thought the ETF would be a nice addition to our product offerings that could open this up this opportunity up

To more folks yeah you led me perfectly into investment strategy I mean where does this ETF fit into a diversified portfolio especially in this period as you mentioned where people are worried about lingering inflation rates remaining higher for longer and some of the geopolitical risks that have been

Going on for a couple of years now where does this ETF fit in that strategy yeah I mean one of the reasons we’ve been really fixated on building out our capabilities in this whole crypto domain um has been because we believe that there needs to be greater diversification in investor portfolios

Right we have seen particularly for individual investors most of that portfolio exposure limited to just stocks or bonds um we have not seen them benefit from the same benefits that institutional and very high net worth investors have been able to benefit from in terms of diversification into Alternatives and many of the alter

Alternative products that are being reconstituted and aimed at the wealth channel uh are still semi illiquid or a little bit more difficult to understand whereas we think this Bitcoin ETF creates an alternative exposure that people can put into the portfolio that is highly liquid uh that will allow them

To really begin uh to take some of that high concentration uh of vulnerability to just Equity Market market prices and Equity risk out of their portfolio so we think that there is uh some true diversification benefit and this ability to get into a new asset class by being

Able to move into these Investments you guys have filed for a spot ether ETF and and I won’t ask you to comment on that specific filing while it’s in the process but more broadly do you expect that Wall Street has a bigger appetite for crypto products Beyond just Bitcoin

Uh and and do you see maybe not just ether but crypto as a whole becoming more of a strategy for Wall Street players 100% I think that as the investment thesis becomes better understood and people realize that these are not speculative interests these are actually representations of value of a

Network uh the appetite to own that network and to own the different networks that are emerging and the infrastructure that they are providing for really running the next phase of the economy that appetite will grow and I think that as that understanding and appetite grows you will see the product

Suite grow uh and the access uh options grow as well all right that’s all for crypto world today we’ll be back again tomorrow and we’ll see you then