Crypto Market Structure and Stablecoin Yield Take Center Stage in Washington

Remy: Let's get to the big story break down - the white House planning a meeting next week of senior banking and crypto executives as Congress struggles to advance crypto legislation in the Senate. The summit, hosted by the White House Crypto Council, will focus on key unresolved issues that have stalled progress in the Senate Banking Committee. Meanwhile, lawmakers and regulators are set to restart formal work this week after winter weather disrupted federal schedules.

Attention is now on the Senate AG committee, expected to hold a 10:30 a.m. markup hearing on its Digital Asset market structure bill. A markup is a key procedural step that allows lawmakers to debate, as well as a vote on whether a bill should move out of committee and in regulatory coordination That is also in focus. Today, the SEC confirmed its joint harmonization event with the CFTC for 2 p.m. eastern. The agencies have not released details, saying only the session will center on their interagency coordination. And when it comes to crypto trading products, ARK invest has filed with U.S. regulators to launch two crypto ETFs tracking the CoinDesk 20 index. Joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange this morning is Andy Baehr, head of product and research at CoinDesk Indices. Andy, good morning. Thank you so much for joining me.

Andy: Good morning. Yeah it's great to see the ARK filing. That's the second CoinDesk 20 product in the United States following the WisdomTree CoinDesk 20 ETP, which has been live in Europe for nearly a year now.

So very excited to see both filings happening here on the New York Stock Exchange and for the trading product, which will really give investors a chance to get a broad, diversified basket of digital asset products in one ETF. We're excited for those launches and excited to see trading and AUM build from there.

Remy: Andy, today our focus will be on Washington, D.C., and this has come on the heels of the Fed Reserve meeting yesterday. But given what's happening today at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., there's a lot of focus on stablecoin yield. And with a lot of products coming to market, including the USA today and that fidelity digital dollar. How do you see this unresolved question surrounding stablecoin yield affecting those newcomers, and what does it mean for those who want to scale?

Andy: It's so complicated, yet it's so simple. At the same time, if I have a dollar bill, the dollar bill doesn't sprout yield on its own. It needs to be deposited in a bank, or it needs to buy a money market fund and be invested in securities that generate yield. this idea that a stablecoin itself doesn't have any inherent yield, although the assets that back it are yield bearing assets.

So the whole question is whether the stablecoin issuer or a third party related to them can share some of that yield with the holder of the stablecoin, making the stablecoin more attractive as a long term holding asset rather than something that you just use to trade other crypto products Remember that when stablecoins first came of age, interest rates were pretty close to zero. So if I wanted to keep my money on chain, the opportunity cost of holding USDT or USDC was pretty small. But now, with rates being materially high, you kind of want your money to work for you. So this idea of yield will be probably, I think, the most important issue in 2026. And we're seeing that all across the crypto spectrum.

Remy: As we keep an eye on price action, one area we're watching is precious metals. So gold continues to rally. And when we look at spot prices for that precious metal year to date, it is up over 25%, outperforming equities and also the crypto majors. So tell us a little bit about what's happening here, especially regarding the US currency debasement. And what about these store of value narrative?

Andy: Store of value narrative is challenged right now for Bitcoin. And all of last year, the year before, the year before that, we were saying Bitcoin should be a very reactive store of value, especially as dollar weakness becomes a specter for people. It should be a digital gold. That's that's a very commonly used expression. Yet we're watching gold outperform many other assets and certainly outperforming Bitcoin. So you know, people should remember that the horizon - the investment horizon - of gold when it catches a bid like it is right now. And Bitcoin which has other challenges such as its risk, asset correlation, its holdership, the limitations of its potential holdership, its adoption momentum. still a young asset, so we don't think that it should be any differently thought about.

It's just that the horizon might be different. That being said, a lot of people who are very wed to the digital gold narrative are finding that they have to be a little bit defensive right now as Bitcoin has more or less sat out January. Remy: Speaking of which, it's hard to believe, but we are about to wrap up the month and head into February next week. But when we take a look at price action for Bitcoin as well as ether, we could say that prices are stuck in the snow just like we were earlier this week, and apparently we might get another nor'easter here in New York City. But when it comes to the crypto majors, do you expect to see more range bound price action here?

Andy: We have to remember. You know, it's funny, we talk about price moving having in quarters. And you and I have endured many quarters of sideways price action when there's been uncertainty about the fed, uncertainty about regulatory policy and uncertainty about macro. So I think the crypto majors wanted to have a really healthy January effect.

But then tariff concerns, a stalling of the Clarity Act. And again, a little bit of fed uncertainty has sort of held it back. So look we're not down 20%. We definitely had a bad Q4 2025. It's a wait and see. Prices are almost identical here on January 29th as they were basically on January 1st So it is wait and see right now. Diversification will be important. More important is that we love seeing that there's going to be a us, that there's going to be a fidelity stablecoin. There is going to be new yield products. Other asset managers are finding new ways to grab yield from DeFi protocols and introduce them to, you know, to U.S. investors. So the slow build continues to happen. I'm seeing headlines about Robinhood and Talos this morning. So there is absolutely a lot of activity and energy going into building the infrastructure. Prices will follow. We believe the asset class is in its healthiest state ever.

Remy: Andy, always great having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me. And thank you so much for sharing all of your insights.

Andy: Thanks, Remy. Thank you.