Bitcoin Hits Record Highs: What’s Next for Crypto?

Let's get to the big story breakdown.

Earlier this week, Bitcoin tore through key levels, hitting record highs well above 120,000 before pulling back and regaining some traction.

Now cryptoweek hitting bumps this week.

The House set a new record Wednesday night, spending almost 10 hours on a single vote as Republicans struggle to unite behind a package of crypto bills.

Now we saw Speaker Mike Johnson scrambling to win over holdouts, including members of the Freedom Caucus and key committees at the center of the.

And offs include a ban on a CBDC and the Genius Act.

Well, Trump struck a deal to add those provisions to a separate bill, but the move has frustrated House committee leaders and deepened the divide.

The House will vote on the Genius Act today, and the Clarity Act may receive a vote next week.

Well, joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange on this Thursday morning is Andy Beer, head of product and research at Coin Desk Industries.

Andy, great to have you back.

Thank you.

We're setting all kinds of records.

Record long vote in Congress or record inflows for ether.

So crypto just keeps, you know, setting new records.

And speaking of which, let's take a look at Bitcoin because we saw record highs earlier this week, but given all the activity happening in the nation's capital, tell us what's happening when it comes to breadth here.

Yeah, first of all, for Bitcoin, good news, you can still buy Bitcoin, Bitcoin for less than 120,000.

That pulse up to 123, I'm sure.

Viewers had heard about this earlier in the week was largely caused by short positions that kind of got squeezed up.

It's found kind of a happy home in between 117 to 119,000 and it's kind of paused there, definitely setting a new base level, so that's constructive.

Ether saw yesterday record inflows into ETFs of over $700 million.

That's great.

This continues the ether rally that started at the beginning of the 2nd quarter.

That started.

Started as a short squeeze as well, but that created some momentum and the inflows into institutionally held products and retail products has really swelled since then.

So that's really the beginning of the of a movement with the lack of clarity about either staking yields being added into ETFs or in-kind creates and redeems.

This is all just based on, I think, better education about what Ethereum does and more interest in crypto outside of Bitcoin.

Yeah, and speaking of crypto outside of Bitcoin and also ES, tell us what's happening when it comes to the outcoin space.

So the Coin desk 20 index has outpaced Bitcoin over the last week and over the last month, and this feels a lot like last November, right?

Last November, Coin Desk 20 doubled between the day before Election Day and the end of that November, mainly because there was more enthusiasm and optimism that the regulatory framework in the United States would allow things like Capital formation, operation, and trading of other pieces of software, which is really what all the other pieces of, you know, the other blockchain assets are.

So that enthusiasm really hit in November.

It's cooled since then and it's come back in force over the last couple of weeks, whether that's related to what's happening in crypto Week or just a general recovery, better education process, or just sheer momentum, we're not sure, but we'd love to see it.

And you just mentioned cryptoweek, and that has been garnering plenty of headlines and we know with everything happening in the nation's capital, whether we're talking about policy or politics or even cryptoweek, there's a lot going on.

But what does all of this mean for the crypto landscape?

And we know that Congress is set to head out for recess very soon.

So what are your expectations?

You know, nothing's done until it's done, so we feel very close to done on these three major.

Initiatives that the Congress is trying to pass the stablecoin legislation, which is key. stablecoins have to settle on a blockchain, so they are very good for the environment and for investors who are thinking about blockchain assets.

The anti-CBTC portion of this ensures that stable coins remain in the private sector, which is good for, for, you know, the growth of those industries, and it keeps the public digital currency idea out of the mainframe and then The framework for regulating crypto assets and trading with regulators is, you know, it would follow what other countries are doing, what MICA is doing in Europe and what Hong Kong and Japan and Singapore have done long ago.

So that's all critical.

Getting these things done and finalized will be great.

Everybody will know the rules and we can go from there.

So it's exciting to watch.

Certainly there's been no lack of drama there, but by the end of the week we hope to see some.

OK, and finally, before I let you go, we've been getting a slew of economic data as well as earnings here.

But given that we saw Bitcoin hit those all-time highs earlier this week, we've been hearing about price targets that might seem lofty depending on the time frame.

But what do you make of all of this in terms of signal versus noise?

The best, I think, signal that we've seen is that investors are starting to look. on Bitcoin and think about crypto as an asset class they can invest in, we're getting more and more questions about it.

Well, how do I actually put a portfolio together and how do I take my sort of regular asset class like equities or commodities, how do I take the principles I use in those asset classes to put together the right portfolio.

So we're starting to do more and more work in this, looking at correlations and where they can be helpful and not so helpful.

So it's really the beginning.

Of trying to apply these investing standards to the digital asset class, that's the best signal because Bitcoin is going to take care of itself.

Don't worry about that.

We want to make sure that there's ample education and good portfolio construction practices taking place with with advisors and investors, and that that's that's accelerated quite a bit recently.

OK, Andy, always great to have you here at the New York Stock Exchange.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights and your perspective.

Thank you, Remy.

Thank you.