Crypto majors getting a boost yesterday as President Donald Trump signed an executive order which opens the door for crypto to be included in the 401k retirement plans for Americans and separately, what in the world is going on with the Ethereum?
Hello.
The other crypto major spiking close to 180% off its lows in April.
Prominent Wall Street names like Tom Lee from Fun Strat saying ETH could hit 15,000 by the end of the year.
Gareth Jenkinson joins me now.
He's managing editor for Coin Telegraph.
My man, welcome to the show as always.
OK, so let's start with the handful of executive orders from the commander in chief at the Oval Office.
Talk us through the order that brings crypto into 401ks.
What should we know?
Yeah, just to jump straight in JD, so obviously we saw US president signing an executive order yesterday, opening the door for cryptocurrencies to be included in 401k retirement plans.
This is obviously a massive deal, and the White House actually confirmed two coin telegraphs directly yesterday when we reached out for comments, and they said that, you know, this order really does instruct the Labor Secretary to clarify the department's stance on alternative assets and The TLDR, the long and short of it is that um You know, US investors could see cryptocurrencies as part of a basket of assets that they can invest in through their 401k retirement plans.
The impact was notable.
You know, the price of Bitcoin went up by 2% yesterday on that news, so very, very interesting to see how the markets reacted to that.
And obviously very bullish news for the wider sector, whether that's Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies, the fact that, you know, average investors could You know, uh, tap into Bitcoin as part of their 401k bodes really well for the, the, the long term prospects for, for Bitcoin in particular, and I think anyone who's libertarian or just a Bitcoiner would be really happy to see this kind of news coming out, uh, from a regulatory standpoint.
Yeah, let me ask you about ETH, about Eth.
I mean we covered it a lot on the show yesterday.
It's actually been outperforming Bitcoin again, now topping 3900.
Ethereum up about 18% year to date.
Talk to me about the momentum that has been driving these rips.
Maybe unexpected to some in the crypto community.
Maybe not all though.
What what's your take on Ethereum?
Yeah, look, um, I spent some time with a lot of, uh, you know, top minds from the Ethereum ecosystem about 6 weeks ago, uh, in Cannes during ECC, which is one of the main conferences for Ethereum.
And, uh, there was definitely a very bullish sentiment around the ecosystem.
There's been a lot of changes at the Ethereum Foundation, which gives a lot of um overall sort of uh leadership and, and development guidelines, you know, to, to the wider Ethereum ecosystem.
I think the biggest leader here is, of course, on on on screen, you know, um uh Van Strat's Tom Lee, um, you know, Uh, through Bitmine investing massively in an Ethereum Treasury strategy and likewise Sharp Link Gaming, which is headed up by Joseph Lubin, who's one of the co-founders of Ethereum, um, you know, also indicating that they're adopting a massive Ethereum strategy and, and putting Ethereum on their balance sheet.
I think that has definitely helped the price of ET.
Um, a lot of traders are looking at the $4000 mark and You know, if you just look at the numbers today, perhaps we will see Ethereum break $4000.
It's been a long time coming, and I think a lot of this bullish sentiment around, you know, big Wall Street firms saying that they want to invest and buy up as much Ethereum as possible, very much like how Michael Saland's strategy have been acquiring Bitcoin and putting it on their balance sheet, a similar, similar sort of.
Blueprint, two different types of assets, but very bullish for the overall the overall industry and this is primarily in my mind the main driver behind the upside for Ethereum right now.
A very good sort of future outlook for Ethereum in terms of development roadmap and usership and then a very, very clear interest from financial institutions and very savvy investors looking at this asset as a You know, a sort of gas or an oil that will run the Ethereum ecosystem which is, you know, touting itself to be the future of the internet.
Yeah, Tom Lee's been saying this is Ethereum's 2017 Bitcoin moment.
We'll see if that holds true.
I've got less than a minute.
OK, the landfill saga.
James Howells, the guy who accidentally threw away all that Bitcoin several years ago.
Now he's kind of pivoting to tokenization.
I've got less than a minute.
What should we know here?
Yeah, very, very shortly James Howells had been petitioning to dig up the Newport landfill in the United Kingdom.
He threw away a hard drive with 8000 Bitcoin on it.
That's worth just under a billion dollars.
He didn't get permission to do that, so he's kind of binned that idea, and he said that he wants to get into Bitcoin D5 play.
I will caveat this by saying that there are a lot of people.
Out there saying that he's just trying to make as much money as he can now that he can't recover this Bitcoin.
Read the story on Coin Telegraph.
We've got a great write up about it, sort of unpacking what's happening right now and what, you know, the critics are saying about his, his latest move, but it really is bringing to an end a 12-year saga around this Bitcoin lost in a land land landfill.
Crazy story.
I feel like I have anxiety for this guy as I have followed this story over the course of the last few years.
I'm sure many people are in that same boat.
Gareth Jenkinson, my man, thanks for being here as always.
Gareth for Coin Telegraph, thanks for being here.
