Welcome to FinTech TV.
Bitcoin is seeing broad adoption across Wall Street, with 20 of the 24 largest US financial institutions now offering digital asset services.
And as we wrap up the year, Bank of America is set to enable wealth advisors to recommend regulated Bitcoin products.
Vanguard listed select Bitcoin ETFs and PNC, a bank set to launch direct spot Bitcoin trading for private bank clients.
At the same time.
Private market companies are building the infrastructure that will support long-term institutional adoption.
Well, joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange to weigh in is Elise Killeen, founder and managing partner at Stelberg.
Great to have you here, Elise.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Wonderful to be here.
Well, 2025 is set to end, and we are looking ahead to next year.
But before we kick off 2026, tell me why the big banks.
As well as financial institutions are starting to offer Bitcoin products now.
There's a couple of things going on.
One of the stories of 2025 certainly was institutional adoption.
We've seen the incumbents adopt or deepen their exposure to Bitcoin, and that's driven by a couple of forces.
One, of course, is anticipation of regulatory clarity, which we now see a path towards rather than regulation.
By evaluation of a specific trade or product we are seeing the framework emerge that institutions can rely on and find comfort in in offering Bitcoin financial product exposure to their clients.
Something else is happening though in that there is maturation in the private markets.
The private markets are developing core.
Fundamental products and infrastructure that allows for maturation of the bitcoin field and ease of use in adoption for institutions that includes ease of on-ramps or more familiar on-ramps for institutions and for retail and the basic infrastructure that exists in the traditional system being replicated in a purpose-built for purpose-built way for Bitcoin.
Yeah, and Elise, you just mentioned private market innovation.
So tell us what's gaining traction and why.
One of the things gaining traction from Stellmark's portfolio is Bitcoin life insurance, and that's relevant to the broader market.
So portfolio company meanwhile raised $120 million this year to expand distribution of life insurance.
What that means for the broader market is the introduction of long duration credit.
Life insurance companies, different from banks have a long term capital base.
They take money in from clients and return it with a guaranteed yield many years later in the form of a death benefit or over a defined term in incremental payments via annuities.
That makes them a natural long-term debt provider, which the industry had been lacking and helps mature the broader field.
We also are seeing.
Infrastructure develop in more nascent companies.
For example, a company by the name of Five Bells was recently launched by executives coming from Ny to introduce a trade communication and execution platform to mitigate counterparty and settlement risk as you would see in traditional finance and trading that has the effect of enabling more efficient trades and opening the market.
And that's really fascinating to hear about what's gaining traction when it comes to these private market innovations, but tell us a little bit more about how these Bitcoin uh denominated insurance products work, because it's very interesting from the perspective of the institutional side as well as the retail side.
Yes, of course, so meanwhile's initial product is a 10 pay whole life insurance product.
And what that means is that clients pay in Bitcoin over 10 payments, and they get a guaranteed yield, the exact same as traditional life insurance.
So there's a 2% yield annual yield produced denominated in Bitcoin, um, which allows families to preserve and preserve and grow their wealth in a meaningful way and without concern of inflation.
And so we've seen very significant adoption of the product and a broader interest in distribution and in markets outside of the United States.
Meanwhile, we'll develop a broader array of products and also as a result of the business they've already built is one of the largest um uh uh credit providers of duration.
And of course while I have you here, I do want to ask you about the Lightning network.
So can you explain to our viewing audience how it actually works and what it's doing for crypto networks out there?
Of course, so this will be one of the stories of 2026, I believe.
So as institutions in 2025 work to greater adopt Bitcoin asset, the future will be around the adoption.
Of Bitcoin, the technology, and so one of the most important technologies to emerge from the Bitcoin space is the payment network Lightning, which enables fast payments and instant settlement.
With Lightning, there are many possibilities for use case adoption, but one of the interesting things that we're seeing is the ability for Microtransactions to be settled at scale.
What that means in terms of current technology trends is that lightning can service the demands of AI or of agentic agentic agents, so agentic AI where there's an agent working on behalf of a business or an individual, that sort of.
Sci-fi future will need to be accompanied with financial rails that can accommodate the way the way that transactions will flow, and Lightning can uniquely do that because it's built as a hub and spoke network and does not require settlement on a blockchain, which means that it's not exposed to a fee market in the same way that transactions settled on a blockchain are.
And Elise, as we wrap up this year, we continue to pay attention to the trends as well as catalysts that are assured to affect digital assets moving forward.
But what do you think are some of the main challenges when it comes to bringing Bitcoin into tradly as well as corporate treasuries?
So the challenges, there's two core challenges that we've been paying most attention to.
One is regulatory clarity, which we touched upon very.
Really briefly before, but if regulatory tone and intention changes between administrations, it's very difficult for institutions to adopt.
We're seeing that change with the introduction and advancement of regulations like the Clarity Act, and we're hopeful that institutions will be prepared when such an act passed.
And I believe we are seeing that happen, including with the December announcements.
Institutions also need proper infrastructure and so they need to be able to offer their clients if they are providing Bitcoin product exposure to clients.
They need to offer them an easy experience, and they themselves need an ease of experience in incorporating the technologies into their own business flows.
What we're seeing in the private markets though is entrepreneurs really understand that and work to make sure that the technologies they're introducing fit within the existing business systems, and an example of that is the company I mentioned, Five Bells, thinking about the traditional financial system, how it works, how it should work in a Bitcoin native environment and building the infrastructure and tools to make that happen.
And finally, before I let you go, you just mentioned entrepreneurs.
So give us your take on what you expect to see not just heading into 2026, but also beyond, especially given the fact that a lot of entrepreneurs have their own respective visions, and there are so many expectations for regulatory clarity moving forward.
Sure, so we're, so One is preparing for a world in which regulations are better defined.
We're seeing a lot of enhanced connectivity between private market products and between companies that countries that have adopted these technologies, and that's relevant, especially in the payment space.
So for example with Lightning Network.
There's clear network effects with additional users, businesses, or countries coming on board.
Lightning has historically been used for cross-border payments, and one of the things that we've seen sort of under the radar is greater connectivity between countries with payment systems working on the rails of lightning.
Well, fascinating conversation.
So thank you so much for joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange and as always, thank you so much for sharing all of your insights and perspectives.
Thank you so much.
