Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $1B as Capital Rotates Into HYPE, SOL, XRP

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]On today's public keys at the New York Stock Exchange, it's day one for Fed chair Kevin Worsh. Investors are pulling out of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs and rotating into hype Salana and XRP and we break down margin trading and downside protection inside a Bitcoin ETF. I'm Jen Sassie. Let's get into it.

[00:00:23]Happy Tuesday, everyone. Today's episode is brought to you by Kraken Pro regulated spot margin trading. It's finally available to us traders. Size your trades to match your conviction.

[00:00:33]Trade margin on Kraken Pro. All right, a lot happened over the long weekend.

[00:00:37]Let's get into it. Bitcoin is trading at around $78,000 this morning, above where it closed out last week, but well off session lows from the weekend when it briefly dipped below $75,000. The bounce has been helped along by some geopolitical relief. US and Iran negotiators are signaling progress towards a peace deal which sent oil prices sliding around 5% on Monday. Less energy pressure means some breathing room on inflation. Now the headline story that everyone is talking about is SpaceX. Elon Musk's company officially filed its S1 with the SEC last week. And buried in that paperwork were 18,712 Bitcoin on the balance sheet worth about $1.43 billion at current value. The company bought an average cost of around $35,000 per coin, meaning it's sitting on a tidy, unrealized gain. SpaceX is targeting a June 11th pricing date for its NASDAQ debut under the ticker SPCX.

[00:01:33]That's a massive IPO to watch, not just because it could be the biggest IPO ever, but for what it signals about corporate Bitcoin adoption as a mainstream treasury strategy. Meanwhile, the SEC pumped the brakes on something a lot of people in this industry were watching closely. The agency was expected to release an innovation exemption last week. a framework that would have let US crypto firms trade tokenized stocks that's been pushed.

[00:01:55]Regulators said they need more time to absorb feedback from stock executive stock exchange executives. And there's the macro backdrop which just got a new main character. Kevin Worsh was sworn in as Federal Reserve chair on Friday. His first full week on the job starts today.

[00:02:11]Worsh is arguably the most cryptofluent person ever to hold that role, calling Bitcoin a sustainable store of value.

[00:02:19]Markets are pricing virtually zero chance of a rate cut at the June FOMC meeting, which wors will chair for the first time on June 16th and 17th.

[00:02:30]All right, let's talk hype ETFs. They saw $72 million in net inflows last week with the Hype token up almost 50% in one month. Bitwise is one of the two issuers here in the United States and it recently announced that it will dedicate 10% of its management fees to purchasing Hype. Here with more is Bitwise head of research, Ryan Rasmusen. Hey, Ryan. Hey Jen, great to be here.

[00:02:50]>> Great to have you here. Hype, it's like I can't get away from talking about hype. So, let's let's talk about this. I mean, be hype launched recently along with T-H. So, we have two hype ETFs here uh in the United States, and they really have come out with a bang while Bitcoin and Ether have been bleeding. So, just talk to me about what you've been experiencing, what you've been seeing uh when it comes to adoption and interest in the ETF.

[00:03:13]>> Well, of course, so many people are excited about Hyperlid at Bitwise.

[00:03:17]really excited about the launch of the Hyperlquid ETFs. Being able to bring an ETF that stakes the underlying assets in a regulated wrapper that gives investors exposure to hype is a huge deal. It's part of this broader shift that we've seen now that we have the pro crypto SEC that allows us and other ETF issuers to bring these types of products to market.

[00:03:36]So, we're really excited about that. I think the market is extremely extremely hyped about Hyperlid as are we. It's an incredible innovation. and it's one of the great breakthrough technology uh crypto apps of this run and so we're really excited about that.

[00:03:52]>> We had Ellie from 21 shares on the program last week and we talked to him a little bit about competitiveness, right?

[00:03:58]Two issuers now in the United States. Uh more are coming. How are you thinking about remaining competitive with this product?

[00:04:05]>> Well, all ETFs for hype bring capital into the hyperlquid ecosystem, which is great. From Bitwise's perspective, there's a few different ways you can differentiate on these ETFs. Of course, fees or the the management fee that you charge is one of those. But at Bitwise, what we're really focused on is making sure that we can maxim maximize yield on the staking front. So, we stake the hype inhouse for our Hyperlquid ETF, which allows us to pass on more of those staking rewards to the end investor, which we think is really important. And then we also use 10% of our management fee to buy Hype assets and keep them on the Bitwise balance sheet to really align with the Hyperlid community and show that we have long-term conviction in Hyperlid as an asset and as an ecosystem. So there's a few things you can do to differentiate yourself. We also publicly publish the wallet addresses for the Hyperlid ETF and the hype that they hold so investors can see where those assets are on chain which we think is also really important from a transparency perspective. Those are a few things you can do to differentiate.

[00:05:01]>> What were the conversations that were happening when you were deciding to make the um addresses public so that investors can go and see what's going on with the ETF and what value does that bring to maybe a new investor who's sitting out there, they're interested in the hype ETF, but they don't really know why that would be of use to them?

[00:05:18]>> Yeah. So, the reason we p we publish the public address of the hype ETF because we get questions all the time from investors about this. A lot of financial adviserss want to know what are you doing with the assets that come into the hyperlquid ETF? Are you actually going and buying what you say you're buying?

[00:05:34]Right? They're kind of scarred by crypto's past of of of fiduciaries or for asset managers losing assets. Right?

[00:05:41]It's happened time and time again. And so we think it's really important to say here's where those assets are. We're going to be completely transparent with the public address of those. And so we just meet investors where that demand is. And the more important it is the to them the more important it is to us. And we do this across majority of our ETFs.

[00:05:57]We publish proof of reserves or the address so that investors can have full confidence that their assets are right there in front of them. They can see them. They can check in on them just as if it was in their personal wallet, but now it's in their brokerage account.

[00:06:10]>> All right. Well, it seems like you guys are seemingly bullish on Hype if you're holding 10% of those management fees in Hype uh on the balance sheet. A little bit of a treasury play here. Uh talk to me about your bullcase. Well, look, Hyperliquid is this new type of network that we really haven't seen, especially with how it's aligned with the the tokconomics or the incentives to hold hype compared to other crypto asset networks. And we think it's born in this new regulatory age for a crypto where you can actually go out and launch a token or a crypto asset that has incentives and economics tied to the underlying ecosystem. That wasn't possible four or five years ago without this huge fear of of regulatory enforcement and a government crackdown.

[00:06:51]And so we think that's one reason why Hyperlid's doing so well and why we're so bullish on Hyperlid. 99% of fees generated on this platform are used to buy and burn Hype tokens just like a traditional buyback. A that's an easy narrative to sell to investors because they understand stock buybacks, but it's also really great for the tokconomics of the Hyperlquid ecosystem and hype the asset. We're also just very bullish on the technology as a whole. You've seen their perpetuals business just take off at an extraordinary rate, but you've also seen other business lines come to market like spot trading, prediction markets now with HIPP4. And we just think they're going to continue to build on that infrastructure and they're really well positioned for pro- crypto regulatory environment and this transition of traditional markets on chain via stable coins, tokenization, derivatives, etc. So we think hyperlquid is really well positioned not just for this next 6 12 months but for the long term.

[00:07:48]>> From your view what's the bare case?

[00:07:50]What are some of the risks that investors should be aware of?

[00:07:53]>> Well the regulatory overhang or cloud is always a risk out there. So I think the further we get down that path the lower that risk is for hyperlquid investors.

[00:08:03]Right? If you're thinking about how the government's going to regulate perpetuals and that's a big part of their business then that's something to think about. So the regulatory risk is one element of it. Other macro elements of investing in crypto persist right now, right? There's uncertainty around what's happening in Iran. What's worsh going to do at the Fed? What's the impact on inflation of all of these things? So that plays a risk in all risk assets right now, including hyperlquid.

[00:08:28]But beyond that, I think there's really a lot more tailwinds than there are headwinds for the hyperlquid ecosystem.

[00:08:34]We learned recently that some of the exchanges are pushing regulators to look into the hyperlquid ecosystem and I've had some conversations behind the scenes where people think you know actually hyperlquid is going to be the technology that's powering uh 247 trading in the future. I would love to get your perspective there. What do you think of the traditional exchanges you know pushing regulators to look into the ecosystem and do you think it could be the underlying technology at some point in the future? Look, I think Hyperlquid will absolutely be one of the systems that most of traditional finance runs on in the future. Of course, you're going to have the incumbents of that industry fighting against that new disruptive technology. It's not unique to finance.

[00:09:15]It's not unique to crypto. You've seen it time and time again across breakthrough technologies, first being fought by regulators, then being fought by incumbents, then being adopted, and then seeing breakaway uh breakaway traction and success. And I think that's what's happening with Hyperlquid. And so when these venues look to move their assets on chain, whether it's ETF issuers, whether it's companies looking to issue tokenized stock or stable coin companies, you just saw this big deal between Coinbase and Hyperlid a couple of weeks ago that's going to boost USDC on Hyperlid that's going to translate to higher revenues for the Hyperlid ecosystem. And those are the types of deals that I think show where this is headed. I do think that we'll see a lot of activity happening on Hyperlid as well as other blockchains in the future.

[00:09:57]I don't think it's a winner takes all market, but it's a winner takes most market, and I think Hyperlid is absolutely going to be one of those winners.

[00:10:03]>> All right. Hype reached a new all-time high recently. What's your outlook? I've had a few different folks say, I think $75, $100, those feel in reach now.

[00:10:12]Arthur Hayes, I believe, has a $150 outlook or target. What's yours?

[00:10:16]>> Well, look, we're very long-term bullish on Hyperlid. We think it has a lot of room to run from here. We we don't have a specific price target, but what we do know is that if you think prediction markets are going to continue to grow at the rate they've grown previously, Hyperlid has a a share of that market that we believe is going to grow. If you think perpetual futures are going to see more adoption and more traction in the future than they do today, which we believe they will, and you're seeing that with things like oil futures trading on Hyperlid and Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal and all of these traditional financial outlets quoting the price of oil on Hyperlid on the weekends for their source of truth. If you think the S&P 500 being tokenized and traded as a perpetual future on Hyperlid is a big deal and we're going to see more of that in the future, then you believe their purpose market's going to grow. And we believe both those two things as well as their spot trading and other products they likely will launch along the way are going to drive Hyperlid much higher than it is today.

[00:11:09]So we're long-term oriented. We don't have a short-term price target, but I do believe Hyperlid has a long way to run.

[00:11:14]>> All right, we got to go, but I quickly want to ask you two more things. Um, I know you spent a lot of time talking to financial adviserss and wealth managers, and for a long time, the conversation um around this cohort was really about education. And it seems to me in the conversations I've been having that we're past Bitcoin and ETH education.

[00:11:33]I'm just curious what you're hearing uh when you're on the road, when you're talking to adviserss and wealth managers, how are they looking at crypto these days?

[00:11:40]>> Oh, we're getting so many better questions today than we did 3 years ago or two years ago from wealth managers, which is really exciting. We're no longer just getting the questions is isn't this thing going to zero or won't the government just regulate this out of existence? That's a huge leap forward.

[00:11:54]That means they're off zero and now they're on one. Now the questions we're getting are about how much should I allocate to Bitcoin? Should I buy Ethereum, Salana or Hyperlquid or something else? How do I invest in stable coins or tokenization? Recently, I've gotten a lot of questions of how are tokenization and stable coins going to affect our business directly as an asset manager or a wealth manager and how can we not only invest in that technology from uh innovating on our business but also get exposure to the companies and the assets that are going to play a big role in that in the future. And so the questions are getting so so much better. Uh that gives us a lot of positive bullishness around where we think adoption is on the wealth manager front and of course they control trillions of dollars in assets. So small penetration that is a big deal for the crypto market and we think we're still you know very early in that adoption cycle. I know retail is very excited. Uh I mean just even over the weekend if you look on X on Near, Bit Tensor, Zcash are um financial adviserss and wealth managers asking about these assets like what's the conversation going on on that side of the coin?

[00:12:57]>> Yeah. So so retail investors super excited about these of course crypton natives I think they're excited to be making money again in this cycle. It's been a somewhat of a brutal bare market now for the past 8 months or so. So, I think investors are really excited to see some assets like Zcash and and Bit Tens or near uh starting to to show breakout uh breakouts and and traditional investors are and aren't asking about them, right? We do get the occasional investors saying, "Hey, I'm interested in Bit Tensor. Can you give me a write up on that?" Or, "How do I get exposure to crypto and AI? What's Agentic AI or what's Agentic Payments?"

[00:13:28]And then they start asking about, "Well, which one which blockchain ecosystem is best positioned for that?" That's where things like Near come up, right? So you do see them asking about it, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, but nonetheless, it's becoming more and more a part of the conversation. They're expanding beyond the largest crypto assets, and I think that's really exciting for where we're headed.

[00:13:47]>> Ryan, it's always a pleasure. Thanks so much for >> Thanks for having me, Jen.

[00:13:50]>> All right, that was Bitwise Asset Management's head of research, Ryan Russen. We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll unpack the rise of crypto margin trading.

[00:13:59]>> Ever had a trade you called right, but size too small? It happens all the time and it can change today. Regulated spot margin is finally available to us traders on Kraken Pro up to 10x the size your conviction deserves. Head to pro.raken.com and start trading today.

[00:14:40]Welcome back to CoinDesk's public keys at the New York Stock Exchange. This is 10X, a brand new segment brought to you by Kraken Pro. Now with up to 10x regulated spot margin in the US. Make the right read at the right size with margin on Kraken Pro. All right, over the upcoming weeks, we're going to be talking to some of the highest conviction traders in crypto to understand what they're sizing into and why. But first, today we're going to lay a foundation and discuss how margin trading works with Hyperlquid Strategy CEO David Sheamus. Hey, David.

[00:15:08]>> Nice to be here.

[00:15:09]>> Nice to see you again.

[00:15:10]>> Likewise. Great to see you as well.

[00:15:11]>> I know. Uh the I would say hyperlquid is a major theme in today's show, but you and I are going to talk margin trading first.

[00:15:18]>> Well, I love hearing that, by the way.

[00:15:20]That's great to hear and especially other people but me talking about it sounds even better.

[00:15:23]>> I know, right? All right. Uh David, we're talking margin trading on this segment. A lot of our viewers already know the ins and outs of of how this works, but I want to lay a foundation and just bring everyone back to the basics and and start here. You know, what is margin trading?

[00:15:38]>> Yeah. So, trading on margin is where you're basically borrowing money for some of your trade. So, you want to invest $1,000 to pick a number. You could put up $1,000 yourself or you can put up $500 yourself and borrow $500.

[00:15:54]Um, when it goes well, it works out really well because your return on that 500 is double what it would have been on the thousand. On the other hand, when it goes bad, it's the opposite effect. It goes down. Your your percent loss is actually a lot higher on the 500 than it would have been if you did a full thousand. So, it's just a more levered way to get your returns, higher returns faster.

[00:16:16]Is there any part of the mechanics that work differently when we're talking about crypto versus equities?

[00:16:22]>> Um, sort of yes, sort of no. I think that in equities there's sort of this old people, you know, people talk about trading on margin over time. First of all, in the US there are rules about how much you can have margin on a stock. I think it's still 50%, but I could that could be an old rule. Uh, in the crypto world you can do a lot more. It's really done. And then secondly, there's this whole sort of concept you hear about in equities where, you know, if your stock price goes below whatever level, you have to do a margin call. You know, you hear stories in the oldfashioned people getting phone calls from their broker saying you better put up margin by a certain time. In crypto, it's like that.

[00:16:58]You know, if you break margin, you get sold off, you get delevered, and there's no there's no phone calls. There's no giving you time. You got to do it immediately. And that's probably where the world in general is moving to. for people who are watching this and you know look looking to kind of make sense of their conviction, what would you weigh if you're looking at something you're highly convicted in, what are you weighing uh when you're deciding how levered you want to be on this trade?

[00:17:23]>> Yeah, look, I would say um when it comes to making it a put on position without leverage, you're making a decision that you have conviction that you think what you're buying is cheap and sometime in the future it'll be worth more. When you do it with leverage, you're both deciding, you have conviction, but you also have conviction around not just around the fact that it's too low and it's going to go up over time, but you have conviction over timing, right? So, getting the timing right becomes a lot more important when you have leverage.

[00:17:51]And the more leverage you have, the more important having that timing right. Uh, and you know, there's an old joke about economists that they say economists can predict everything but timing. you know, I know it's going to go up, I know it's going to go down, but being able to pick that timing is a lot harder. And the more leverage you have, the more important that timing becomes where you might have the trade right, you might have the conviction right on the on the underlying, but if you have too much leverage at the wrong time, you can still lose a lot of money. Even if you were right, which is a terrible feeling, by the way, to be right and lose money is a is a bad combination.

[00:18:24]>> When has that happened to you? I love an anecdotal story. Oh, it certainly happened in the So, so well, let's just talk. You know, there's trading with leverage, which is straight margin leverage. There's trading with leverage with buying options, right? Buying a call option is effectively the same as trading with leverage, right? Because there's an expiration date. Um, you're getting more exposure than you'd have otherwise, but if you don't have if if the if the thing hasn't moved the way you want it to by the expiration date, you're out of time, which is the same as leverage. Um, and then in the crypto world, um, there's what's known as PERPS, perpetual futures. They're not traded in the US, but they're traded in a lot of other places. They're very large on hyperlquid. Um, and that's another way to do it. Um, I I have to admit I've dabbled with all um I've never put a lot of my money in highly levered things. Uh, but it doesn't mean, you know, maybe I should have, maybe I have more today if I did.

[00:19:19]uh you know one thing that stands out to me is crypto markets trade 247. Talk to does that change the calculus of how you're looking at a lever trade?

[00:19:26]>> So it definitely tra it changes the sort of psychology. You know there's it it there's something about um you have a lever trade. It's more stress than a regular non-lever trade. You're worried about margin calls or whatever. You make it to Friday 400 p.m. you can take a breath and see where you are again at 9:30 on Monday morning. um the crypto world and I think over time more of the world in general is going to go to longer trading hours and maybe even 24/7 which where crypto is there's no breaks and what we found is you know you can look behind us right there were more a lot more computers here than there are people and that's not a new thing when you're trading something 247 it is not practical for a human being to do that so there's even more and more computers whether it's AI agents or whatever taking over a lot of the trading um you know and he just you can't have a lever trade where you say I just can't sleep for five days like that's not going to work. So there's no doubt when something's 247 you have to have a plan B besides just watching it yourself all day.

[00:20:29]>> Now you're the CEO of Hyperlid Strategies. I want to make a hypothetical uh situation here. If you were going to open a leverage position on hype right now, walk us through it, the thesis, the size, and what would have to happen for you to know you were on the right side of that trade or vice versa, the wrong side.

[00:20:47]>> Look, needless to say, we are very bullish on hype, the underlying token, and like almost every co in the world, my our own stock. Uh the ticker is per purr. So, um obviously we're bullish in general. I think it is very hard to trade with anything with leverage, but particularly, you know, a highly volatile thing like hype and and hyperlquid strategies. I'm not saying people shouldn't do it. You know, make your own decisions. That's what the world's all about. But, um, you know, when you're dealing with leverage, the path becomes really important, right?

[00:21:22]The difference between going up like that and going up like this, even though you ended the same place, is a very different thing. And you just have to be very very careful with overleveraging yourself. So I'm not I'm not g last I'm gonna do is go on TV and encourage people to you know overlever themselves and buy my stock. That that's not my style. I don't I don't shouldn't be anybody's style. Um but I look if you get the thesis right and you get the timing right you can make an awful lot high a lot of money and high returns by putting some leverage on. And this is not a new concept. People have been doing this for a long time. Some people probably correctly think this is what caused, you know, the stock exchange to crash, at least maybe at the very end.

[00:22:02]There's probably a lot more things leading up to that in 1929. But leverage is not new. Um, it just has to be done like anything else. All investing needs to be thoughtful. The more leverage you put on, the more thoughtful it has to be. And I don't mean to keep saying the same thing, the more timing dependent and path dependent that investment becomes.

[00:22:20]>> David, it was such a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for joining us and kicking off this segment with that very wonderful foundation. It was a pleasure having you here.

[00:22:28]>> Hope that was helpful.

[00:22:30]>> All right, that was Hyperlid Strategy CEO David Sheamus. Come back next week for 10X where we'll dive deeper into the mechanics of a margin trade. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, Bitcoin ETFs bleed more than a billion dollars. Ever had a trade you called right but size too small? It happens all the time and it can change today. Regulated spot margin is finally available to US traders on Kraken Pro.

[00:22:52]up to 10x the size your conviction deserves. Head to pro.raken.com and start trading today.

[00:23:24]Welcome back to CoinDesk's public keys at the New York Stock Exchange. Let's turn now to ETF flows. Spot Bitcoin ETF saw a choppy week, posting net outflows as institutional appetite showed signs of cooling after a strong spring run.

[00:23:38]According to SOS so value data, the week saw $1.26 billion bleed from Bitcoin ETFs. That's more than $2.2 2 billion out the door in two weeks. Total net that assets have also dipped below the hundred billion mark as Bitcoin sits at around $78,000 this morning. Over to Ethereum now, ETH ETF saw just over $215 million exit last week. That's now two consecutive weeks of outflows for the the second largest crypto cryptocurrency by market cap. This comes as Ethereum co-founder Vitalic Buterin said the Ethereum Foundation will choose longevity over breadth and narrow its focus to censorship resistance, capture resistance, openness, privacy, and security. So, where's the capital going?

[00:24:19]Well, if you've been watching the show, you might have been able to guess it looks like it's rotating into Hype, Soul, and XRP ETFs, which saw $72 million, $22 million, and $15.6 million, respectively. Head of research at BRN Timothy Msur told CoinDesk that capital is rotating toward newer narratives and away from crowded large cap exposure. I agree that investors are reaching for newer stories, higher beta and fresher narratives. They might be starting to realize that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not the only trade worth looking at right now.

[00:24:53]Well, Bitcoin ETF saw more than a billion dollars in outflows last week.

[00:24:57]It's up about 25% from its lows earlier this year. For advisers and investors, they want exposure, but they also remember what it looks like when Bitcoin falls 40% in a matter of weeks. My next guest has spent his career solving this problem. Matt Kaufman is the global head of ETFs at Calamos, one of the firms that pioneered the idea of bringing downside protection to the Bitcoin ETF rapper. Hey, Matt.

[00:25:21]>> Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me.

[00:25:23]>> Thanks for being here. Now, I got to start with the elephant in the room. You heard me just take a look at ETF performance last week. More than a billion dollars bled from Bitcoin ETFs.

[00:25:33]Talk to me about how you're looking at that number. What are you taking away from it?

[00:25:38]Yeah, I think we are seeing people move away from spot bitcoin, but uh maybe good for Calamos. We're seeing people move into protected Bitcoin. The ability to get access to the price movement of Bitcoin, but with guard rails. So, we have three different levels that we've built. We built the world's first protected Bitcoin ETFs. You can get uh upside of Bitcoin with no downside risk.

[00:26:00]You know, you've got a little bit of upside. You can get a little more upside with 10% at risk and even more upside with 20% at risk. So while spot Bitcoin ETPs have remarkable levels of volatility, you have to weather those Bitcoin winters as you mentioned with protected versions, we're seeing a lot of advisers actually move into this space. So while the spot space saw a lot of outflow, we actually uh you know stayed relatively flat and saw some inflows as well.

[00:26:25]>> How many inflows did you see last week?

[00:26:28]>> Uh we've seen about 10 to 15 million come in over the last couple weeks here.

[00:26:32]>> All right. And you just talked to me about the three uh levels there. talk to me a little bit uh about the mechanics.

[00:26:38]How do these products work?

[00:26:41]>> Yeah, great question. We can demystify this ability to generate some upside relative to Bitcoin uh with built-in protection. Uh if we just take the two- layered approach that we have, we have a treasury base. So, if we uh take about 90% in treasuries, we can build you a 10% at risk level. That gives us a budget of about 15%. So 10% left uh plus about 5% risk-free rate. And that gives us a budget to then buy a call spread relative to Bitcoin. If you remember back to about a year ago, uh we did not have options on Bitcoin. You know, those are here now as the spot Bitcoin ETPs have taken off. But we actually built an index that ties itself to the price of Bitcoin and we listed flex options on that index. So that gives us the ability to deliver protected exposure to Bitcoin. You're getting nearly 100% uh price movement exposure to Bitcoin, but again with built-in protection. Uh we have one every quarter and then we also have laddered versions as well that people are using. So you know the laddered versions are great for model portfolios for advisers looking to add Bitcoin into the portfolio but in a way that doesn't add all of the risk. And then for investors, a lot of them are looking at our dashboard, seeing which ones might have payoff opportunities that work for them right now. So, a couple different ways to play it, but we have a number of protected Bitcoin funds that we're seeing people uh use every day.

[00:28:09]>> You know, I asked my first guest earlier on the show what financial adviserss and wealth managers are asking. I would love to hear that from your perspective. I mean, what kinds of questions are you hearing from that cohort and how does this maybe respond to some of their concerns and how they're thinking?

[00:28:26]>> Yeah, I would agree with your first panelist. You know, I had opportunity to watch the the first segments here. We are seeing a lot more advisor questions come in. They're a lot more sophisticated questions. We think that's a good thing. And if you look back a couple of years ago, people were curious about the Bitcoin asset, not really sure how to apply it to the portfolio. you know, the advisers were having those questions. Uh the platforms those advisers work for are having the same questions. And so just adding, you know, one to 2% of spot Bitcoin, we don't think is the solution. It was the early solution, the the easy easy one if you will. What we are seeing now is people are actually using different types of payoffs to Bitcoin that can create better sharp ratios, create better risk adjusted exposures. And then if you look at our protected Bitcoin ETFs, we have mapped those to traditional assets. So now you don't just have to sell off those MAG7 stocks, uh, which you might not have wanted to do over the last several months in order to get Bitcoin exposure, but now maybe you're moving out of broad equities into the 20 floor, out of bonds into the 10 floor, or uh, believe it or not, moving out of risk-free rate products like cash into a fully protected Bitcoin experience where you can get slightly higher than the risk-free rate tied to the performance of Bitcoin, but with no downside risk.

[00:29:47]So the benefit here is we are mapping uh these protected Bitcoin ETFs to traditional portfolios and advisers are using these in their models. They're finding real value uh and it's differentiating. It's giving people differentiated exposures uh relative to just holding spot outright.

[00:30:04]>> The evolution of the crypto ETF since the spot bitcoin ETF launched I think has been a great evolution. I we're seeing more sophisticated products hit the market. I'm curious from where you're sitting over at Calamos um what your road map looks like. Uh are you looking at some of the more sophisticated ETFs and will you be launching some of those in the future?

[00:30:27]>> Yeah, if you're if you've been watching Calamos at all, we launched the world's first autocallable income ETFs last June. Uh that space has taken off. There are a number of autocallable income ETFs in the market. A new way to generate income in your portfolio. When it comes to options, you can really bucket uh the goal of options into three categories.

[00:30:48]You can do risk management, you can do income, and you can do growth. And so what we did with the protected Bitcoin is obviously solved that protection piece for Bitcoin. Others have solved for the income piece where you can now generate an income based off of the high ball of Bitcoin. And then there's growth uh vehicles. So, we're exploring all of those uh angles. I think as the Bitcoin space and the crypto space grows in general, you're going to see a lot more ways that people are delivering exposures to that. Uh so, you don't just have to sit in the spot vehicle anymore and ride out those uh waves. You can have it in a way that actually can benefit your portfolio uh and meet your goals.

[00:31:29]>> All right, Matt, we got to wrap it up, but the last thing I'm going to ask you before we go is what your outlook on Bitcoin is. Do you maybe have a price target for us?

[00:31:38]>> Oh, price target. I think we're going to go back to uh our high at some point here. You know, nothing stays down forever. We've seen a lot of volatility over the the last several months. It's nothing new for Bitcoin. Uh if you look at the historical V of of the S&P, it looks like a bell. If you look like the V of Bitcoin, it's a smile. You've got feast or famine V on both ends of the tails. So, I think that volatility is going to tend to benefit people over time. I think we're going higher.

[00:32:08]>> Matt, thanks so much for joining. It was a pleasure having you on.

[00:32:11]>> Thank you.

[00:32:13]>> That was Matt Kaufman, global head of ETFs at Calamos.

[00:32:17]>> All right, before we go, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index sits at 34 today, firmly in fear territory. For anyone new to the metric, the index tracks everything from volatility and market momentum to social sentiment and trading volume, distilling it all into a score between zero, which is extreme fear, and 100, which is extreme greed. Historically, readings in the 30s tend to show up during periods of consolidation or cautious accumulation. That classic buy when others are fearful setup contrarian investors love to talk about. So, what's spooking the market right now? I mean, take your pick. macro uncertainty, rates, concerns, ETF fatigue, or just plain investor exhaustion after months of choppy price action. But here's the important distinction. Fear in the 30s isn't full-blown panic. It's just hesitation, and hesitant markets have a habit of catching people offguard.

[00:33:06]That's it for CoinDesk's public keys at the New York Stock Exchange. I'm Jennifer Sassie. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next week.