0:09 So welcome everyone to today's panel on
0:11 bringing trillions on chain uh from an
0:14 asset manager perspective. For this
0:16 discussion we have leaders of four of
0:18 the largest global asset managers uh
0:20 Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Wisdom
0:22 Street and and State Street. Um
0:24 cumulatively just to give a sense of
0:26 order of magnitude these asset managers
0:28 represent over 12 trillion in assets
0:30 under management. Uh and maybe before we
0:32 start, I'll ask each of you quickly in
0:34 30 to 60 seconds briefly introduce
0:36 yourselves and what your firms are doing
0:37 in digital assets.
0:39 >> Okay. Um good morning everybody. Uh my
0:42 name is Cynthia Loboet and I am in
0:45 charge of the digital asset management
0:48 division um at Fidelity. Um as Matio
0:50 said, uh Fidelity is one of the largest
0:52 asset managers uh in the world. And it
0:54 only made a tremendous amount of sense
0:56 that we stood up a unit uh within asset
0:59 management uh to focus on um this new
1:02 ecosystem of digital assets both native
1:04 assets uh for which we are bringing uh
1:07 exposures to uh customers across our
1:08 retail and our institutional platform
1:10 through traditional vehicles. And now
1:13 what we're really excited about um
1:15 through tokenization and onchain vault
1:18 structures is the ability to bring um
1:21 new exposures to onchain investors. um
1:24 compro composed of digital assets both
1:27 tokenized and um uh natively digital
1:30 assets and all of this is driven by our
1:34 research uh driven culture of uh comp um
1:36 composing financial solutions for our customers.
1:37 customers.
1:40 >> Great. Hi, I'm Sandy Call. I head up
1:43 innovation at Franklin Templeton. Um and
1:46 and innovation is broad because this
1:48 digital asset universe is now expanding
1:51 into every part of our business. Right?
1:54 So we are thinking about the interface
1:56 of where digital assets touches our
1:58 investment management, where it touches
2:00 our product development, where it
2:02 touches our marketing, uh the way that
2:05 we engage with new audiences and new
2:07 distribution venues and and so we are
2:10 looking at this holistically um and
2:12 thinking about how it plays into some
2:13 existing industry trends around personalization
2:15 personalization
2:18 uh and customization of portfolios and
2:20 obviously wallets offer tremendous
2:22 potential in that regard. Uh so all of
2:24 those different functions report up to
2:26 us. Our digital asset unit is part of
2:29 our innovation team. Um and like
2:31 Cynthia, we are exploring a whole
2:34 variety of new offerings and excited to
2:36 be here.
2:38 >> Uh thank you everyone. Uh I'm Will Pek.
2:40 I'm head of digital assets at Wisdom
2:43 Tree. Wisdom Tree uh is a $160 billion
2:45 asset manager. So that's our part of the
2:47 12 trillion. Uh we are one of the kind
2:49 of original ETF pioneers. I see some
2:51 people in the audience who helped kind
2:53 of make that happen at Wisdomree in the
2:55 ETF industry more broadly. Uh we saw
2:58 tokenization kind of similarly to how uh
3:01 we saw ETFs 20 years ago uh compared to
3:03 mutual funds being the next evolution in
3:05 the rapper, the next evolution in asset
3:07 management as a technology. So uh for us
3:09 we've got a focus around tokenized
3:10 registered funds here in the United
3:12 States including our money market fund.
3:14 We make those available to US retail
3:16 through an app we have called Wisdomree
3:18 Prime, also to global businesses through
3:20 a platform called Wisdom Tree Connect.
3:22 And um I don't know, just very excited
3:24 and bullish on the space.
3:27 >> Thank you. I'm Kim Hawkfeld. I run our
3:29 digital asset initiative at State Street
3:31 Investment Management. Um, I'm going to
3:32 repeat a lot of the comments that
3:34 everybody here on the panel's already
3:36 said, but perhaps um, my own personal
3:38 journey into digital kind of sums up
3:40 state street's journey, which is I was
3:42 hired to run our cash business at state
3:44 investment management. We have half a
3:45 trillion dollars worth of cash assets
3:48 out of a five five plus trillion dollar
3:51 total. And I we really saw what
3:54 tokenized money funds could do for our
3:56 cash franchise. And that's really been
3:58 the journey, my personal journey as well
4:00 as State Street's journey into digital
4:01 assets, which has obviously then
4:04 expanded into tokenization as a rapper.
4:06 The whole theme of innovation, I'm going
4:08 to have to correct you, Will, and say we
4:11 invented that ETF rapper back in 1993
4:12 was fun.
4:13 >> Correction [laughter]
4:16 >> and um you know, it's part of of our DNA
4:17 in terms of innovating and thinking
4:19 about product rapids.
4:21 >> Excellent. We'll come back to the ETF
4:24 analogy a bit later. Um but maybe before
4:26 we kick off 2025 was a big year for
4:28 tokenization digital assets. I think
4:31 each of your funds firms have either
4:32 significantly scaled your tokenized
4:34 money market funds or announced launches
4:37 of products. If we take a bit of that
4:38 step back and think through a bit of
4:40 lessons learned we've gone from about
4:42 three billion in tokenized market funds
4:44 I think a year ago when we were at the
4:46 at the summit about 10 billion today.
4:48 What are some lessons learned from an
4:49 institutional standpoint, asset manager
4:50 standpoint to think through the next
4:54 wave of tokenized assets?
4:57 >> I'd start with um the the objective of
4:59 bringing assets on chain and I think we
5:02 heard a little bit that of this from the
5:05 team um earlier this morning is not just
5:08 um uh to tokenize an asset for the sake
5:10 of tokenizing it. um you know the idea
5:12 of bringing an asset and representing it
5:15 on chain um with a token is the easiest
5:18 part of the entire process. Um the the
5:21 hardest part um is really building the
5:24 ecosystem for a utility for the asset.
5:27 And um you know when we have talked to
5:29 um in our investors uh and and even when
5:32 we talk to you know our product teams um
5:34 you know when we talk about tokenization
5:36 uh we have to compare it with what is
5:38 the opportunity set that investors today
5:40 have in going to our brokerage platform
5:42 and being able to buy um every fund that
5:44 is available in the entire United States
5:46 every stock and every bond. um you get
5:48 access um through the brokerage account.
5:51 What you don't get is the utility of the
5:55 247 access, the um global access. Um the
5:58 ability to now deposit collateral and be
6:00 able to manage your balance sheet um on
6:02 a 247 basis because by the way, markets
6:05 are global. Um markets do not close at 4
6:06 p.m. Monday through Friday, the way that
6:09 our stock markets um and bond markets
6:11 close sooner than 4 p.m. uh Monday
6:13 through Friday. So, um I think that's
6:15 really what is exciting is unlocking
6:17 these new utilities and bringing the
6:19 infrastructure to be able to bring
6:22 investors these new opportunities.
6:24 >> Yeah, I I completely agree with
6:25 everything Cynthia said. I think they're
6:28 doing great work in exploring this space
6:31 and like Franklin Templeton um you know,
6:34 we realize that there's no one model
6:37 yet, right? That there are multiple ways
6:38 in which you have to think about
6:40 approaching this space and creating
6:43 product. So you need to be open to
6:45 thinking about taking today's products
6:47 and figuring out how to make them
6:49 available online that look very similar
6:51 to today's products. You need to think
6:55 about new access vehicles that allow
6:57 exposure to today's products but allow
6:59 it in a way that is permissionless so
7:02 that you can get those assets being used
7:05 as collateral in new models in DeFi and
7:07 in new lending models uh collateral
7:09 models and then you need to also think
7:12 about what does the next generation of
7:14 products look like right where do we
7:16 move furthest away from where the
7:18 existing paradigm sits in terms of how
7:21 you build an investment fund how you
7:23 implement an investment mandate, how you
7:27 manage the securities or the uh assets
7:29 coming in and out of the fund, right?
7:32 There's new evolution happening in each
7:34 aspect of what it actually means to
7:37 trade a fund based on these technologies
7:39 and you need to be experimenting with
7:41 all three pathways simultaneously
7:43 because we don't know what's going to
7:45 really get traction in the long run. So
7:47 it's kind of an exciting space because
7:49 you really are being challenged to
7:52 constantly be thinking about not only
7:54 how have we done this traditionally and
7:56 can it be a new rapper but how do we do
7:58 this in all new ways that really
8:00 leverage this technology to create a
8:02 better financial system.
8:04 >> Uh yeah on my end I guess what I'd say
8:06 is that unlike you know when we sat up
8:09 here maybe a year ago there's um been
8:11 much more kind of actual organic client
8:13 like demand happening in the space over
8:14 the past year. think you can point to
8:15 the Genius Act for a lot of that. I
8:17 mean, stable coins have grown from 200
8:19 billion a year ago to 300 billion in
8:21 supply today. You know, maybe you'd like
8:23 them to keep increasing faster and uh
8:25 we'll see what kind of drives that next
8:26 wave of growth as more and more
8:27 businesses are actually implementing
8:30 things post the Genius Act passing. So,
8:32 um from my perspective, it's like you've
8:34 got clients and they're kind of, you
8:35 know, the balance between them telling
8:37 you what they want and also you kind of
8:38 forecasting based on what you understand
8:40 about your clients what they're going to
8:42 want in the future. So, I I do think
8:45 that kind of client-driven demand is um
8:47 happening much more now than it was a
8:49 year ago. And we always try to listen to
8:51 our clients and hear what's important to
8:54 them and build products for um that
8:57 helps them in their business.
8:58 >> I'm going to pick up on this comment on
9:00 client demand because we're not yet
9:03 seeing a a rush to the door, shall we
9:06 say, a huge amount of curiosity and
9:07 interest. And I if I could sum up our
9:09 journey in this space and what we've
9:12 learned is the value of education um as
9:14 Cynthia says you know the tech now is I
9:16 don't want to say standard but the tech
9:18 is the easy bit it's understanding how
9:20 it plugs into the broader infrastructure
9:22 and it's hugely complex you know Sandy
9:24 as you said we have to try different
9:26 things and figure out what works and I
9:27 think this journey for us has very much
9:30 been around education both internally
9:32 both and to our clients and also to our
9:35 regulators so so much of this is we've
9:36 got to experiment we've got to try and
9:38 see what works. We'll see what sticks.
9:40 We can see where the value is, but
9:42 perhaps our clients can't see that or
9:43 perhaps our regulators can't see that or
9:44 our legal and compliance colleagues
9:47 can't see that. So, it's very much been
9:50 a journey of discovery for us. Hugely
9:52 exciting. I suspect there going to be
9:53 lots of twists and turns in the road,
9:55 but I think keeping an eye on the the
9:58 clear end goal, which is replplumbing
10:00 our infrastructure and then seeing what
10:02 this new architecture can do in terms of
10:05 flow and new assets um is hugely exciting.
10:05 exciting.
10:08 >> So there's seems a bit of utility,
10:10 adaptability, I think experimentation
10:11 and I want to spend a bit more time on
10:14 on client demand. I think that we had an
10:16 initial dialogue there and it still
10:18 happens in in many forms where I go I
10:21 get the question which is usually quite
10:24 a leading question. I don't have demand.
10:25 I don't clients tapping at my door and
10:27 asking for a tokenized product which is
10:29 usually a polite way of saying why are
10:32 we tokenizing like why should I care? Um
10:34 when we think of ETF which I think a
10:35 very interesting analogy would love to
10:37 hear from you but I doubt you had
10:38 clients coming knocking at the door and
10:40 saying oh can we create this product yet
10:42 we know the demand that has happened
10:45 since. So how do you think about
10:47 innovation and balancing that with
10:49 client demand? Where and when do you
10:51 start seeing client demand? I think will
10:53 you touched on early signs so maybe we
10:55 can start with you um of where there is
10:56 existing demand.
10:59 >> Yeah. So on the ETF point so I wasn't
11:01 there for the development of ETFs 20
11:03 years ago but um you know people that I
11:06 work with certainly my boss was and um
11:07 no one at the time was like saying like
11:10 oh I want like I want an ETF right like
11:12 it wasn't like they were knocking on the
11:13 door saying my mutual fund's not really
11:15 working that well for me like can you
11:18 give me an ETF? Frankly, the spider just
11:20 sat there for a long time after State
11:22 Street acquired it from the American
11:24 Stock Exchange and didn't really do
11:26 much, right? And it just kind of took,
11:27 you know, maybe a decade before more and
11:29 more people launched new products.
11:30 People kind of figured out, wow, there's
11:32 actually really something to like the
11:33 internet liquidity. Also, the
11:35 standardization, a lot of people talk
11:36 about the tax point, but I think the
11:37 standardization point might be the
11:39 biggest with ETFs, saying, hey, all I
11:41 need is a brokerage account and with no
11:43 new paperwork, I can access any liquid
11:45 asset class anywhere in the world.
11:47 That's like a very powerful concept that
11:49 I think people take for granted today
11:51 that was just not necessarily true when
11:52 the days when you had to kind of have
11:53 direct mutual fund wholesaler
11:55 relationships and things like that on
11:58 different platforms. So um we we do see
12:00 that kind of potential like you see a
12:03 similar trend here and um you know in
12:04 terms of client demand that we're seeing
12:07 I mean one is like stable coin issuers
12:09 themselves right you're seeing a lot
12:11 more kind of growth of new stable coin
12:13 issuers in the space white label firms
12:15 and others not just circle and tether
12:17 who are looking for reserve assets for
12:18 stable coins in kind of different
12:20 formats so that's certainly one
12:22 extending on that you're seeing a lot
12:24 more stablecoin native businesses so
12:26 people who are doing treasury operations
12:28 and stable coins who are looking for
12:29 yield bearing or other diversifying
12:32 assets above and beyond what they can
12:34 get with stable coins which can't pay
12:35 yield then they maybe pay yield through
12:37 rewards and it's kind of unclear and
12:38 like why not just buy a tokenized money
12:40 market fund right so that's a second
12:41 example that we're seeing and then also
12:43 there's a lot of people who are in DeFi
12:46 who are looking for remain on chain be
12:47 able to use their existing
12:50 infrastructure participate in DeFi who
12:51 are looking for other yieldbearing and
12:54 diversifying assets so that's the types
12:56 of clients that we're seeing. It's not
12:58 somebody who's sitting in their Fidelity
13:00 or Erade brokerage account saying,
13:03 "Well, I've got a S&P 500 ETF. Why don't
13:05 I buy an S&P 500 token?" Like, that's
13:06 just not the customer journey that's
13:08 going to happen in this space. The ETF
13:10 works extremely extremely well for
13:12 somebody who's well served by a
13:14 brokerage account. Um, I don't think
13:16 they care too much about trading at 2 in
13:18 the morning. Um, so, um, I think it's
13:20 really about serving different use cases
13:22 and different customers that you're
13:24 otherwise not able to access. So I know
13:25 I just give a really long answer but
13:28 those kind of Kim do you want to bounce
13:29 back? I'm I'm going to come back to the
13:31 cash use case because I think that's
13:33 where the the use case for us is so
13:36 clear and I always like to relate the
13:38 the story of the money budget crisis in
13:41 the UK in September 2022 where saw a
13:43 huge dash for cash after an unfunded
13:45 budget was announced and what you saw
13:48 was a huge um pressure a systemic
13:50 pressure where the price price of guilts
13:52 was falling through the floor and all of
13:54 the LDI managers in the UK suddenly had
13:56 to liquidate a ton of cash to post as
13:58 collateral. Most of that cash was
13:59 sitting in sterling denominated money
14:01 funds. What then happened? The money
14:02 fund managers had to liquidate the
14:05 guilts in their portfolio, selling them
14:07 into a distressed market, causing more
14:08 price dislocation, and the Bank of
14:10 England eventually had to step in and
14:14 and um stop stop the the spiral. Now, if
14:16 you'd had tokenized money fund units
14:17 that could have been posted and received
14:20 as collateral without forcing the money
14:22 manager to sell the underlying
14:24 securities in their portfolio. From a
14:26 systemic perspective, you've got the
14:28 regulators that are happy. From a market
14:29 perspective, you got the market that's
14:32 not dislocated. And then from a money
14:33 manager perspective, you got a portfolio
14:35 that keeps going. And from a user
14:37 perspective, both the collateral pledger
14:39 and receiver are receiving their
14:41 collateral quickly, straight away. those
14:43 smart contracts would be programmed to
14:45 move the collateral. So here is your
14:47 perfect use case and this is not a small
14:49 use case. So the whole DeFi world
14:50 obviously is a world that's expanding
14:53 enormously. But the world of traditional
14:55 collateral is a multi- trillion dollar
14:57 opportunity where money funds are not
14:59 yet widely used as collateral for all
15:01 sorts of reasons. But put a tokenized
15:03 wrapper around them and here's your
15:05 perfect use case. So I don't think it's
15:07 any accident that that's where we're
15:09 seeing huge growth in this in this
15:11 market. We have a perfect use case. We
15:13 have a solution that suits money fund
15:15 managers, collateral pledgers and
15:18 receivers, regulators, central banks. I
15:20 mean, it's such a perfect positive
15:23 storm. So, that's where this whole thing
15:26 in my opinion is going to take shape.
15:28 >> Excellent. Um, go ahead, Sandy. I think
15:31 >> uh so I think that I think those were
15:33 both excellent examples. We we really
15:36 are seeing I think two newer things that
15:38 are starting to happen is I think that
15:40 last year was kind of the year of stable
15:41 coins and I think there was a lot of
15:43 interest in stable coins, a lot of
15:45 growth in stable coins but I think it's
15:48 evolving beyond that now. Uh we're
15:50 calling it this universal liquidity
15:53 layer and this universal liquidity layer
15:55 is much more interoperable. It's getting
15:58 to a lot of what Kim just spoke about in
16:00 terms of collateral. It's getting
16:03 towards more optimized use of cash. Uh
16:06 it's getting towards me multiple uh
16:08 options and pathways as on and off
16:11 ramps. It's getting towards a growing
16:14 set of yieldbearing products, right? And
16:16 it's really becoming this liquidity
16:19 layer that is enabling everything to
16:21 start to move on chain because the cash
16:23 and the payment rails are there to now
16:26 make it easy to buy other assets on
16:28 chain. like we almost needed this
16:32 evolutionary step to get this layer
16:34 working where the financial system
16:38 itself can start to optimize access
16:40 payment utilization of assets on chain
16:41 the things that Cynthia was talking
16:44 about earlier. So I think there's a lot
16:46 of demand in this universal liquidity
16:49 layer to really begin to plug these
16:51 rails in. uh a lot of the announcements
16:53 that Ian and the Ando team were making
16:55 earlier uh around what they're trying to
16:57 enable with prime brokerage, what
16:59 they're trying to enable with per that's
17:01 all, I think, illustrative of this
17:04 universal liquidity layer. And now
17:06 because that is really advancing very
17:09 quickly, we're now able to start to be
17:12 launching the products on top of it that
17:14 are moving the assets out of these fragmented
17:16 fragmented
17:18 uh accounts that everything sits in
17:21 today into the wallet. And then getting
17:23 those assets into the wallet is where
17:26 new demand is emerging. Um new demand
17:28 from people who have wallets and want to
17:31 directly access assets. new demand from
17:33 people who have tremendous crypto
17:35 profits, whatever's left after the last
17:38 few days, but tremendous crypto profits,
17:40 uh that they're looking to get uh
17:42 diversified, right? We're going to start
17:46 to see now the product layer that sits
17:48 on top of this universal liquidity layer
17:50 expand a lot and there are multiple
17:52 demand sources emerging for that. So,
17:55 it's a very exciting time. Um what's
17:57 interesting is most of the demand
17:59 sources are still digitally native
18:02 demand sources and therefore it's flying
18:04 under the radar I think of a lot of the
18:06 traditional financial industry. You
18:08 really have to be aware of how the
18:10 infrastructure is developing to
18:12 understand where the pockets of demand
18:14 are coming from right now. But as things
18:16 move on chain that's going to become
18:18 better and better understood.
18:21 So it looks like demand we're seeing use
18:23 cases that are emerging well increasing
18:25 products on top of this universal
18:28 liquidity layer. As we think a bit ahead
18:29 of 2026
18:31 um what would you like to see happen
18:33 this year? What's feasible in your mind?
18:35 Uh so that next year at the summit I can
18:38 ask you the same question looking back.
18:41 Um maybe what I would add on from the
18:44 asset manager's lens and and this is the
18:46 the correlary to um all of the points
18:50 that Sandy just made is um when
18:53 when I look across um the innovation
18:55 that's happened in the asset management
18:57 industry over the last several decades
18:59 um asset management is really about
19:02 being able to deliver um professional
19:04 investment portfolio construction
19:06 professional ass investment management
19:09 um to investors in in packaged product.
19:12 Um so um we started with the mutual fund
19:14 um which was a tremendous innovation in
19:18 1940 um in the ability uh to be able to
19:20 aggregate a number of different clients
19:23 assets um and to deliver professional
19:24 investment management um through that
19:27 one vehicle one trade um you get access
19:29 to professional investment management.
19:32 Um next uh I would say comes the ETF
19:35 wrapper which gives you more real time
19:38 ability to trade that asset. Um I'd say
19:41 you know as as um I remember the days uh
19:44 when um Eyesshares was part of Barclays
19:46 and and Eyesshares um had a massive
19:48 retail campaign. Um but what was the
19:52 early um uh introduction to the ETF was
19:54 country baskets. It came out of the um
19:57 investment banking um um cash desks
19:59 where they were looking for ways to help
20:01 institutional investors hedge exposures
20:03 in more sophisticated ways than just
20:06 single assets. So from an asset manager
20:07 standpoint, that evolution of being able
20:10 to package that um into a daily um
20:13 intraday traded vehicle um advanced
20:16 better um uh investment and and trading
20:19 and and of course tax efficiency. Um
20:21 then came managed accounts which was
20:23 another massive innovation um in terms
20:25 of the technology that's um that it
20:28 takes to be able to say I can now manage
20:29 um hundreds of thousands in fact
20:32 millions of individual managed accounts
20:35 um personalized um somewhat based on the
20:38 technology um across many many investors
20:39 across the platform. So providing more
20:42 individualized ability to deliver that
20:44 professional investment that next
20:48 innovation that this now digital asset
20:50 market um and now with liquidity rails
20:53 facilitating the growth of this market
20:55 um is going to now allow us to provide
20:58 an onchain vault structure. That's the
21:01 next wrapper. We talk about the tokens.
21:03 Um, the vault um is effectively a
21:06 non-custodial uh wrapper that allows you
21:07 to be able to deliver investment
21:10 management at more hyperpersonalized
21:12 scale and and I know Sandy you love to
21:14 talk about right the range the the
21:17 widely expanded range of assets now that
21:19 can be incorporated into these vault
21:21 structures through digital assets. And
21:24 so um nobody's going to ask us for a a
21:26 vault of tokens. um they're going to ask
21:29 us for um more personalized financial um
21:31 solutions to help people manage their
21:33 financial lives. And I think this next
21:35 innovation for for us as asset managers
21:38 is not just the product, but it's the
21:40 client interface. How is it that we're
21:42 going to allow a um investors to access
21:45 this new broader range of products?
21:47 >> 100%. And I think that, you know, when
21:48 you say what would we'd like to see
21:51 happen that I really think that this is
21:54 going to be the year that we start to
21:56 push beyond thinking about what has
21:59 existed in the past as a product and how
22:01 do I get it on chain, right? I think
22:04 that this is the year that we are going
22:06 to start to lose the differential
22:08 between public and private product and
22:10 be able to blend them in ways that have
22:13 never been possible before. uh and I
22:14 think that this is going to be the year
22:17 that we start to move beyond US dollar
22:21 into a far more diversified set of
22:23 underlying products that are available
22:26 in different underlying fiat currencies
22:29 to really broaden out participation in
22:31 the ecosystem. Right? One of the great
22:33 potentials of this technology is to
22:35 bring countries that have had difficult
22:39 time getting equal share of global
22:42 capital dollars into their u existing um
22:44 initiatives. I think this is the year
22:46 that we really start to see very
22:48 interesting models emerging that are
22:51 bringing more countries into this
22:54 ecosystem and getting capital to flow
22:58 more fluidly across more of the globe.
23:00 I'll I'll cover kind of a different
23:01 topic. I mean, I think what's would be
23:02 interesting for me to see this year
23:05 would be more stuff around digital
23:07 identity and reliance in the space. Uh,
23:09 and I don't mean like a kind of a
23:10 government-ledd like you have a digital
23:12 identity now forever. I mean more of
23:14 like the ability to selectively share
23:16 your information or have different
23:17 financial institutions talk to each
23:20 other in a more native way using some of
23:23 what we see on chain as a way to kind of
23:25 get to the promise of like no walled
23:28 gardens in the space. Um, right now if
23:29 you're signing up with a new centralized
23:31 crypto exchange, you're providing all
23:32 your new information. Then you want to
23:34 go to Fidelity or Wizent Tree, you're
23:35 providing all your information there,
23:38 too. And like it'd be good to get beyond
23:40 that in a way such that people aren't
23:42 trapped within kind of the walled garden
23:45 of their ecosystem. And this applies
23:46 across both crypto at least for
23:48 centralized products as well as
23:49 traditional products. And I think this
23:51 technology allows you to do much more
23:53 than that. And um, I don't think it's
23:54 going to get solved this year. We've
23:56 been talking about it for like 10 years
23:57 now. So, I don't think it's going to get
24:00 solved in 2026, but it'd be interesting
24:03 to me to see like real steps there this
24:05 year. And I think that would be a very
24:09 consumerfriendly thing to do.
24:10 >> Well, I have to admit that on my
24:13 Christmas wish list for 2025 was um the
24:15 global regulators to get together and
24:18 and coordinate their approach to digital
24:20 assets. So I think for us that's a major
24:23 challenge in really scaling what we
24:25 we're all trying to build here. So uh
24:27 especially sitting in London where we
24:29 have the European Union on one side the
24:31 FCA that's trying to decide where they
24:33 fit in between both sides of the
24:35 Atlantic what's happening here you know
24:37 really interesting how quickly some of
24:38 the regulators in the Middle East have
24:41 moved it's so much easier to launch new
24:42 products there um and what's happening
24:46 in Asia. So I think for us regulation
24:48 regulation
24:50 regulatory harmonization to some degree
24:52 and getting some standard setting would
24:54 be absolutely critical for 2026. So I
24:56 hope when we're sitting here this time
24:58 next year we've had some of those loose
25:01 ends tied up um and and start seeing the scale.
25:02 scale.
25:04 >> Excellent. So hopefully a lot of
25:07 innovation um on the product identity
25:09 and then regulation I'm sure all of us
25:11 um are very focused on. Maybe in the in
25:13 the last couple of minutes would like to
25:15 project ourselves even further. Imagine
25:17 we're in a world we have trillions on
25:19 chain. What does asset management look
25:20 like from a product standpoint,
25:22 experience standpoint and we start it
25:24 touching on personalization but would
25:26 love to get your view like your vision.
25:27 How can this transform the asset
25:30 management experience?
25:33 >> Um happy to start. Um I would say um
25:36 from the standpoint of the way that um
25:39 asset managers function and and operate
25:41 um you know our core competencies uh
25:43 remain the same research, portfolio
25:46 construction, risk management. How it is
25:49 that we are able to express um these
25:51 competencies in creating um portfolios
25:53 and and being able to deliver those
25:56 exposures um is what then um is that
25:59 next generation of Wall Street 2.0. um
26:02 is the ability now to hyperpersonalize
26:04 and deliver down to the individual
26:07 investor. Not just what your long-term
26:09 um uh short, medium, and long-term um
26:12 financial goals are um but how to
26:14 actually hyperpersonalize that to the
26:16 standpoint of personal liquidity
26:18 management. You can now really tie your
26:20 day-to-day objectives to the way in
26:23 which um your entire portfolio is
26:25 constructed and how you can access that
26:27 portfolio. And it's all through the ease
26:31 of one app. Yeah, I would say that you
26:33 know there's going to be no differential
26:36 between banking, wealth management,
26:40 asset management, personal investing. Um
26:44 each person's totality of their wealth
26:47 is going to be represented in these
26:50 wallets and the advice layer that's
26:52 going to be able to be brought into that
26:54 and around that. the degree of
26:56 personalization, as Cynthia says, that's
26:58 going to be applicable to that and the
27:00 ability for every one of us to bring
27:04 every asset we own into the portfolio
27:06 and have it considered as part of our
27:08 personal exposures. That's going to be
27:10 commonplace. You're not even going to
27:12 notice this. This is going to be handled
27:15 by agents, by smart contracts. This is
27:17 going to just be your portfolio and the
27:20 way that it enables your life is going
27:22 to be happening moment to moment in your
27:24 life and you're not even going to notice
27:25 it because it's going to be so seamless
27:28 and smooth. That's right.
27:29 >> Yeah. I mean, I think there's going to
27:30 continue to be a lot of change in asset
27:32 management. The role of an asset manager
27:34 has changed probably a lot over the past
27:36 30 years. You know, dating back to when
27:39 uh Jack Bogle started Vanguard to today.
27:41 You know, things have changed a lot. So,
27:43 um I I think that's going to continue to
27:45 change. I think the role of curation is
27:46 going to continue to be very important
27:48 in a world where like everything is
27:51 going to be available kind of retail
27:52 access to financial markets is much
27:54 greater than it's ever been. So I think
27:55 there still is going to be a really
27:58 important role for curation advice uh in
27:59 that world.
28:00 >> Yeah, I'll take I'll take the
28:01 institutional article for a minute
28:03 because that's our core client base and
28:04 you know institutions have always had
28:06 the luxury of having customized
28:09 portfolios. I think what you'll see is
28:11 that level of customization with much
28:13 greater efficiency and lower costs. Um,
28:15 and then that will be brought not just
28:17 to an institutional investor but to each
28:19 one of us.
28:21 >> Excellent. Well, on that note, I think
28:23 we're right on time. So, thank you to
