Event Highlights
Bloomberg Crypto Summit
February 25, 2021
By Bloomberg Live
Top investors, analysts and industry experts joined Bloomberg moderators for an in-depth discussion of the crypto landscape at the Bloomberg Crypto Summit. With Bitcoin reaching all-time high valuations, institutional investors are showing more interest — but crucial questions remain regarding custodianship and regulation. Even central banks might get in on the crypto action as the idea of central bank digital currencies gains steam. This event showcased the latest thinking and industry trends in the crypto ecosystem.
Click here to view video of today’s event.
Speakers included:
- Glenn Hutchins, Chairman, North Island and North Island Ventures; Co-Founder, Silver Lake
- Michael Sonnenshein, CEO, Grayscale Investments
- Catherine D. Wood, CEO & Chief Investment Officer, ARK Investment Management LLC
- Mike Belshe, Co-Founder & CEO, BitGo
- Michael Moro, CEO, Genesis
- Michael Saylor, Chairman & CEO, MicroStrategy, Inc.
- Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto, Visa
- Sheila Warren, Head of Data, Blockchain, and Digital Assets, and a Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum
- Mike McGlone, Senior Analyst, Commodities and Cryptocurrencies, Bloomberg Intelligence
- Erik Schatzker, Editor-at-Large, Bloomberg
- Lewis Cohen, Co-Founder, DLx Law
- Colleen Sullivan, Co-Founder & CEO, CMT Digital Holdings LLC
- Peter Van Valkenburgh, Research Director, Coin Center
- Nic Carter, General Partner, Castle Island Ventures; Co-Founder, Coin Metrics
- Joey Krug, Co-Chief Investment Officer, Pantera Capital
- Caitlin Long, Founder & CEO, Avanti Bank & Trust
Bloomberg Moderators:
- Ben Elliott, Washington Policy and Equity Research Analyst, Bloomberg Intelligence
- Vildana Hajric, Reporter, Cross-Asset Team, Bloomberg News
- Olga Kharif, Reporter, Bloomberg News
- Joe Weisenthal, Executive Editor, News, Bloomberg Digital; Anchor, Bloomberg Television
- Katherine Greifeld, Markets & ETFs Reporter, Bloomberg News
Event Highlights:
- Veteran investor Glenn Hutchins said more people will embrace cryptocurrencies when they see more real-world applications. “What I think we have to do is show consumers use cases for this technology, then they’ll understand what it is.”
- For Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments, years in the digital asset space have largely inured him to the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) surrounding crypto-currencies, but he knows that education is still key for many investors. “I think every day that Bitcoin doesn’t die, gives all of us greater confidence that Bitcoin is going to continue to fulfill its ultimate potential and promise” he said.
“I’ve been involved in this space now for eight years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve either been told or read that Bitcoin is dead or somehow something has surfaced to become a Bitcoin killer. And so, for me, I think one of the biggest threats is probably just education and the lack thereof.” - ARK CEO Cathie Wood added that if the professional investor community is serious about Bitcoin, it will require them to provide the same kinds of support they provide to other asset classes.
“One thing that I think we will need to focus on in terms of keeping or sustaining Bitcoin’s blockchain as the most secure out there is we will need to provide support over time as an investment community for the health and sustainability of this network,” she said. “It’s a global monetary system. We’ve never seen anything like this before and it’s rules-based and it’s going to make the world a better place.” - BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said that his job as a prime broker is to get more people into the space. “I think we have the mission today — which is to make digital assets available to everybody around the globe,” he said. “So, whether you’re retail investors that are holding it on your own or whether you’re in the institutional space, we want everybody to be able to participate. Because once we have that ubiquitous conductivity, we can really start to see the innovation and change our curve.”
- MicroStrategy Inc.’s Michael Saylor says he will consider issuing more debt in order to help finance the company’s purchase of Bitcoin as part of its corporate strategy. “We’ve been pretty clear that we’ll consider equity and debt financings,” in order to buy more Bitcoin”, Saylor said. “It makes sense to buy as much of that asset class as we can.”
- Is Bitcoin digital gold? Coin Metrics’ Nic Carter thinks so. “Yeah, I think gold is a convenient and reasonable analogy for Bitcoin,” he said. “You can think of it as a dematerialized gold, that process of rendering it digital but still retaining some key monetary properties like the hardness of issuance, the supply schedule, the relative fairness of issuance. “But then Bitcoin introduces new properties because it is dematerialized. So it’s highly transmissible. It’s programmable. It’s very easy to verify and prove ownership of some value. That’s really critical. It’s easy to take physical delivery of the asset. So it contrasts really favorably with gold along those dimensions.”
This Bloomberg Crypto Summit is Proudly Sponsored By
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