Wyoming is the place to be this week.
The Federal Reserve's annual symposium will be taking place Thursday in Jackson Hole, and right now the blockchain symposium is kicking off.
The event coming as the crypto industry presses for more clarity.
Now while Congress works on the Clarity Act and the anti-CBDC State Surveillance Act, the SEC's cryptomos says the agency is moving forward with or without Washington DC.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has provided a key catalyst in the form of crypto rolling into 401ks.
Meanwhile, Salon builders are working on scalability, so the blockchain becomes a cornerstone for institutional Defi.
Well joining me this morning from the Wyoming blockchain. is Kristen Smith, president of the Solano Policy Institute.
Good morning, Kristen.
Thank you so much for joining us all the way from Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
So first and foremost, tell us about the symposium and what you're hearing so far from some of the high profile guests that are attending.
Yeah, good morning, Remy.
It's a beautiful morning out here in Wyoming.
I think this is my absolute favorite crypto conference of the year.
It's a fantastic mix of people from the crypto industry, but we also have a lot of institutions.
There's a tremendous amount of interest.
The event kicked off last night and the programming starts this morning.
I'm going to be interviewing Anthony Scaramucci with SkyBridge and Arjan Safety with Kraken to get the conversation going, but I would say at a high level everybody's really looking at two things.
One is there are a lot of institutional and retail investors who are trying to get exposure to crypto through the traditional equities markets.
And so we're seeing a lot of discussions around ETFs around digital asset treasuries and more crypto companies going public.
And we're also having a hearing a lot about tokenization that seems to be a big topic in trying to figure out to help great our financial rails.
So a lot of excitement here and a really great crowd convening to have these conversations.
Yeah, and Kristen, it is a perfect time of year to be in Jackson Hole, so I do envy you.
But just building on what you just said, Solata is still awaiting the approval of a spot ETF.
But tell us a little bit more about the process, what you expect, and also the institutional adoption of the blockchain, given everything that builders are currently working on.
You know, I think the ETF process is well underway.
There are several Solana-specific ETF applications.
What's happened late in the game here is that the SEC is now reviewing a proposal for a generic listing standard, which means that any crypto asset that meets that standard could, you know, immediately be listed once a certain set of criteria are met.
And so, Through wider one of these paths, our best prediction is that sometime in September or early October, we will see um Salana ETFs trading and available in the marketplace.
And so that's been very exciting.
We've seen a lot of interest in the Ethereum ETFs and of course the Bitcoin ETFs, and I think having a Sallana option out there uh would provide more choice for uh investors.
And internet capital markets.
So Solana has been emphasizing internet capital markets for a while now.
So how close are we to an actual future where all forms of finance are represented on a single main net?
Yeah, well, that's an interesting question, I mean.
I think there's a lot, a long way to go, but we're seeing a lot of activity.
We're starting to see different products that are wrappers of tokens appear and be able to be traded globally on the blockchain.
Where we're going next is, I think we want to see sort of native token issuance, and the real key piece we need there is some further guidance from the SEC.
This is one of the Projects that we've been working on, uh, we call it Project Open at the Solana Policy Institute, but you know, the SEC, both through the leadership of the crypto Task Force chair Hester Purse, um, as well as Chairman Atkins, they've both given speeches saying that this is an incredibly important priority for them and that their teams are working to provide this type of guidance as soon as possible.
But you know, I think whether it be securities or derivatives uh going back to. to your previous guest, you know, I think that we're going to need regulators to update some of these rules to make it easier to come unchained, but once we do, I think it's going to unlock a lot of opportunities for smaller businesses, you know, it'll provide more opportunities for lending and trading of assets, and I think that, you know, there's a tremendous amount of excitement, and I think this is where we're going to see the biggest convergence between the crypto world and the tray world.
And finally, Kristen, while I have you here, I do want to ask you about President Trump's executive order allowing crypto assets and private equities to roll into 401ks.
So give us your take on this.
Yeah, I think this is a tremendously big development for the crypto space.
I think if you look at what the last administration done did, they came up with very specific instructions that made it incredibly difficult to hold crypto assets in your 401k.
That has completely reversed.
And they're working on some guidance right now, um, within, uh, to, to figure out how best to implement this, but I think this is gonna open up a tremendous pool of capital, um, that will be available to purchase crypto assets.
So I think it's a big opportunity and we're very excited about it.
OK, Kristen, well, we will have to leave it there but thank you so much for joining us from Jackson Hole.
Have a great week at the symposium.
All right, thanks, Remy.
