The discussion highlights the significant progress and future potential of asset tokenization, emphasizing the parallels with the evolution of ETFs and the need for clarity, market integrity, and investor trust for mainstream adoption.
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Samara, thank you so much for joining us
here today. Um, we had you here last
year as well at the Ando Summit.
Obviously, a lot can happen in 12
months. Black Rockck's always been very
forwardleading into the space. You guys
launched the Bitcoin ETPs back in 2024,
I believe. uh you had the tokenized
treasury fund with Bidd and then most
recently quite frankly some of the
isshares ETFs have been tokenized via
the on the global markets platform. So
how do you look back over the past 12
months? What changed? What didn't? Just reflections.
reflections.
>> So uh thank you so much Ian for having
me today. I have to tell you I uh uh the
only thing that feels the same about
last year is the like snowy landscape
which I explicitly remember. But this
weekend when I was gathering my thoughts
for this conversation, I thought to
myself, was it really only last year
that I was here? because like an
extraordinary amount of progress has
been made over the course of the year
and I you know um there's a lot of
things to to credit with that and I
think it's something to celebrate and
and you know um and has played a really
important leadership role in that but if
I think about what's happened over the
past year um and some of this you know
has really been covered over the course
of the day the big pieces are number one
obviously the progress on um the
legislative front with the passage of
Genius Act and broadly speaking,
regulatory um engagement and progress.
Lots more to do, but that was a huge
milestone of progress. Number two has
really been the um industry engagement
and collaboration
um with all different types of market
participants. I think frankly in the US,
genius was a bit of a wakeup call like
this is happening and if you haven't
been involved, it's time to get
involved. And I think that's been
productive over the past, you know, call
it eight months. Since then, I've been a
part of many more conversations with
both TRDFI and, you know, um, uh, uh,
DeFi and and crypto players, uh,
represented. And I think that's been
really productive. And lastly, you know,
really to your point has been the
innovation that has actually happened in
the market, um, including on the on the
tokenization side. And so I think, you
know, we're at a moment where we're kind
of on the precipice of what that looks
like. And I'm going to add, I love that
you referenced I bit our ETP because it
shows that you know my passion for
labeling because like 99% of the rest of
the world, my family, my kids will call
IBIT our ETF, but technically it's not
an ETF. It's an exchangeraded product.
Um and and in all seriousness, in a
world where it is terrific how much
innovation and choice is available to
investors, I think the burden on us as
an industry with, you know, help and
partnership from the regulators, but I
actually view this as more of an
industry prerogative is to really be
clear on our labeling and what we're
talking about. And so I think you know
fast forwarding to uh I mean there's
lots of developments for us to talk
about but last week the uh the piece
that the SEC put out uh guidelines for
tokenized securities was it tokenized
securities or tokenized equities. It was
helpful especially like it wasn't
thousands of pages. It was six pages in
reasonable font 28 footnotes. I'm not a
lawyer. I was able to read it. I needed
clarifying help on on two of the
footnotes, but I think that um as an
industry, we can still come up with
something a little bit um more consumer
friendly, especially when it comes to
things like ETFs because I think what um
you have done and there are uh there are
different models uh in what has unfolded
on chain over the past year in terms of
providing call it tokenized price
representations to investors and there
you know I would say you guys have
really set what you know in my view is
kind of the the gold standard in that
you know there are models that are
permissioned yours is permissionless
there are models that are actual
tokenized securities there are some that
are derivatives you know yours is is
securities um and there are some that
have more robust mechanisms than others
for um alignment in the secondary market
and I think progressing taxonomy with
respect to what's trading on chain and
then you know how we think about um
natively tokenized products when they're
introduced is going to be uh what I hope
we're talking about if you have me back
next year.
>> I love that a lot. No, I mean I I can
only echo what you mentioned. There's a
lot of talk about tokenization in the
US. Clearly there's a lot of different
models. Ono has gone for a model that
right now only works offshore. At some
point we hope to bring that to the US.
But ultimately it's good that these
different models exist. They should all
coexist just like they do in Trafi to an
extent and then you know once the likes
of Black Rockck start moving in with
native tokenization as well that is
absolutely that we as a company would
also be quite interested in in
collaborating on something like that and
moving part of our backing in those
assets. So can fully fully agree with
everything that you have said. Um, just
uh I think for the audience it could be
helpful because I've heard you
articulate this a few times and every
time I learn something new. Black
Rockck's pretty early in leaning forward
on both crypto assets and then more
recently tokenization. What really um
triggered that early engagement into
crypto and digital assets? Why was that
exciting for Black Rockck to do in the
first place? Well, we have a pretty
clear uh northstar as a firm which is to
help more people participate broadly in
the capital markets. Um and also to make
more of the capital markets accessible
to them. Um and so over the course of
you know the past uh I mean I we're in
2026 I guess you know we we built out
our digital assets effort in started to
build it out in 2017 and very typical
kind of tradi story I would say broadly
across the um investors and business
people inside the firm it was very much
a what are the exciting applications of
uh blockchain technology and much less
of a bitcoin or crypto investment story.
Um and that changed uh over the course
of you know call it 2019 2020 um when we
started to hear and then really acutely
into the um dual selloffs of 2022 when
equity markets and bond markets sold off
together and investors at a time then
that rates started to rise really had to
consider what does a diversified
portfolio look like over the course of
the next 25 years. Now, 2023, they kind
of got a pass because, you know, rates
were they could you could invest in like
short-term rates and still earn a
reason. You could be highly defensive
and earn some income, but then you have
to think longer term about reinvestment
risks risk. So, that kind of what
brought us to um really listening to our
clients and their interest in looking at
Bitcoin specifically um for its
diversification potential. And then we
asked ourselves the question how um and
uh really developed a strong view that
the ETP as a wrapper would be a really
helpful way for our clients to construct
portfolios that had allocations to
Bitcoin. So it started with the
investment thesis um and then and then
went to the rapper.
>> Yeah. Know I like uh I like that framing
of the rapper and a way to make an asset
more accessible. I feel like you guys
pioneered that really with Bitcoin,
wrapping a crypto asset into a
traditional instrument and making that
available to a broader uh audience. I
feel like right now we're almost doing
the opposite at Onondo, where we wrap
traditional assets into a wrapper that
can then be issued offshore in a
different format so it looks a little
bit more like a stable coin and can be
accessed permissionlessly. You've talked
a little bit about some of the parallels
that are happening between tokenization
as a technology and the concept of an
ETF. Would you mind just articulating
that a little bit more in terms of what
exactly that parallel looks like for you
and any type of advice that you have for
us as we try to continue down the path
of tokenization?
>> Yeah. So, look, I look out in this
audience and I know um a fair number of
you. So I'm not talking entirely to a
digital native audience which again says
something about the uh the convening
power of but like spoiler alert we have
been doing this with the ETP rapper for
you know 25 years and in particular um
the ETP rapper and ETFs um have been a
really critically disruptive technology
in the fixed income market. taking bonds
which were incredibly hard to buy and
putting them on exchange so that they
were uh more accessible, were more
easily used in diversified investment
strategies. importantly not only
delivered to investors but created a
virtuous cycle in the bond market itself
because the more investors uh wanted to
get their fixed income exposures in ETFs
the more the market ecosystem liquidity
providers trading platforms had to meet
that demand and because we were talking
about like thousands of bond light it
line items that go into an ETF it meant
that they had to develop algorithmic
pricing capabilities ities, portfolio
trading capabilities and this actually
ended up bringing a lot more
transparency and liquidity into the bond
market. So I think this is really
instructive at this moment and I think
you're exactly right. You know just as
we were excited to bring um crypto
exposures to um you know equity bond
investors who didn't have any crypto
exposures. We're incredibly excited to
help crypto investors diversify their
portfolios into global equity and bond
markets. So we share that aspiration. I
think the you know guiding principle for
us especially you know I love the the
mantra that you have around bringing uh
tradfi liquidity on chain is making sure
that we don't in the process of doing
that um fragment liquidity or undermine
transparency and that's one of the
reasons why you know you said all of
these models you know can coexist I kind
of think can they I >> [laughter]
>> [laughter]
>> some of them maybe
>> like I said I think you guys have put
out a gold standard type of you know
tokenized price representation but I
don't know that all of the models um you
know deliver at the same level and have
the same mechanisms for for investors
and you know some of this will be much
of this will be determined by the market
and I think we will certainly go through
a period of multiple models operating simultaneously
simultaneously
but even during that transitional
period. I think we have to work really
hard, you know, as partners and as an
industry to preserve onchain investor
experiences so that we and like Gracie
said this beautifully in the earlier
panel. Um, we kind of continue to earn
trust and build trust so that the
technology can actually scale.
>> No, 100%. And yeah, I mean, you make a
good point. I think ultimately the
market will decide which form of
tokenization it does actually works,
right? Um, so that's why I'm excited
that we've seen very good adoption. Um,
and I appreciate the kind words around
our tokenization model because it is if
you want to tokenize assets and really
make them globally accessible, you have
to tap into that chatfi liquidity really
built the bridge because to your point
ETFs have created so much liquidity in
the underlying it'd be a shame to
fragment all of that. I want to talk a
little bit about you know we talked a
little bit about the ETF parallel and
now we're entering a stage where
individual stocks are being brought
onchain ETFs are being brought onchain
and because of that fact they in a sense
also become programmable right they can
engage with smart contracts they can
engage with DeFi um but what does that
actually ultimately all mean for the
future of asset management to have these
programmable assets programmable stocks,
programmable ETFs living alongside
crypto all on the same rails. What does
that actually mean for asset management
going forward?
>> I think you know the the big picture is
it's going to make it easier to
construct um the broadest portfolios
possible. I mean, one of the reasons
that we and you know, by the way, I I
think I've told you this story. Um when
when the whole idea of a Bitcoin ETP was
first pitched to me, I thought I don't
get it. like isn't the whole point of
Bitcoin that it's so accessible? Like
doesn't the ETP rapper like potentially
like deprecate the promise of Bitcoin?
But one of the things we learned was
that um investors um really wanted a um
that that without a standard wrapper
within one ecosystem. it was very hard
for them to um manage their whole
portfolio to adjust risk and even to
understand um what risk they had in in
what environments. So I think this kind
of you know concept of the you know uh
um you know integrated exchanges and and
you know universal exchanges you know to
me I hear um just the opportunity to
build and customize
um broader and and more um specific uh
portfolios for investors.
>> Yeah. No, I think it's I mean obviously
it's something that you guys have done
for years already to have these model
portfolios that really represent
diversified exposure for the an investor
ultimately depending on their risk
appetite. It's interesting because I
think the broader retail audience
globally particularly the ones that are
crypto investors natively they have not
really had a lot of experience with just
a diversified portfolio more broadly. Right.
Right.
>> And it doesn't seem that fun. No, it
doesn't seem that fun, but it's hugely
important for your overall financial
returns, particularly over a long period
of time. Um, so it's very it's very
exciting to hear that you guys are kind
of looking around the corner and trying
to figure out how do all these assets
live together and how can we essentially
have diversified exposure for an onchain
user base. I
>> I guess to that point, I mean, we laugh
about it, but I think user experience
like as we all know from our lives and
you know, those of us who have, you
know, kids who are who are online, it
really matters a lot. So when I think
about like what it it's going to take to
make my kids actually like care and be
interested and engaged in their
financial health, I think as a
technology it's very promising on that
front too. So I actually am quite
bullish. I think that we see investors
who may come to the market because
they're excited to trade but hopefully
stay in the market because it encourages
them to invest in a durable way.
>> 100% agreed. So, uh, we're coming very
close on time, but I want to just give
you the opportunity for the next, call
it 12 to 24 months, let's say you're
sitting here next year again, hopefully
two years from now, what will need to
have happened in your opinion for
tokenization to really succeed and start
coming into the mainstream? So um first
of all again I think one of the things
that um has helped uh you guys be as
successful as you have is you've had
real clarity of vision and you've been
very specific about creating this
integrated ecosystem and bringing you
know equities first on chain when a lot
of people were kind of saying less
liquid assets are are the place to start
and I think that's that's something you
got right I think um to get it to a
sustainable place that can really scale
over the next 12 to 24 months. we need
to see mechanisms that provide um better
um and and more robust means of
maintaining that sort of market
integrity, price integrity, liquidity
and I do think ultimately and this is
going to take ecosystem work and
regulatory work but introducing um uh
issuer-led tokenizations that provide
some interaction in the primary market
with the fund and the underlying
securities could be that incremental al
mechanism with these models to um create
a reference asset to support that that
market integrity. So I hope we see that.
>> No, I I fully agree. It's kind of almost
what you guys did with Bidd and have
that be an anchor or backing asset for
other tokenized treasury funds. I'm very
much looking forward to the day where we
can start doing that with some of your ETF.
ETF.
>> You and me both.
>> Awesome. All right. Thank you so much,
Samara. That's a wrap.
>> Thank you for having me.
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