Regulatory Clarity and Market Trends: A Conversation with Abra’s CEO

Welcome to FinTech TV.

I'm Remy Blair.

The first half of 2025 has been marked by broader market volatility.

Crypto major Bitcoin hitting new record highs in the first half of this year.

As we kick off the month of June, plenty of anticipation on regulatory clarity here in the US.

And joining me at the New York Stock Exchange today is Bill Barrheit, founder and CEO of Abra.

Well, Bill, good afternoon.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Oh my pleasure.

Good to see you.

First and foremost today we had an IPO here at the New York Stock Exchange, and that is stablecoin issuer Circle.

So as the stock has started to open, we did see a trading halt because of that surge in that stock.

But first and foremost, what does this mean for the broader landscape?

Well, it's validation first and foremost, I think, between the pending kind of stablecoin legislation, the new administration.

The IPO of Circle, the dearth of Bitcoin treasury companies that have been announced in Vegas over the past few weeks, tremendous validation for the broader crypto space at large.

And Bill, I understand that you're an early adopter and we're speaking early as in Bitcoin being less than $5.

Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I gave a TED Talk, kind of infamous now at the Vancouver conference, I think it was 2011 or 2012, maybe $1 50s was trading at, and I think most of the audience had never even heard of it unless they had heard about like Silk Road or you know one of these nefarious things going on with the earliest days of Bitcoin.

And of course we're here at the New York Stock Exchange and with a company such as Circle going public and the launch of US bought ETPs, whether we're talking about Bitcoin or EP, a lot of products on the market so that retail investors can get in.

But when it comes to the institutional side, what do you make of what we're seeing?

Yeah, sure, so our, our core business at Abert is servicing institutions, family.

Offices, high net worth investors, and giving them a plethora of options to invest in the space and clearly there's a lot of interest that's been generated at retail via the ETFs in the US and similar ETPs in Europe, but we're still seeing predominantly kind of like spot buying of crypto at the kind of higher higher level, you know, particularly in the family office, high net worth, hedge fund crowd they can. leverage they can borrow against the assets.

They can earn yield.

They can kind of embrace a broader portfolio beyond just Bitcoin, including Ethereum, Solana, SUI, etc. etc.

And of course when it comes to investors out there, they might be thinking about allocation when it comes to their portfolio.

But when it comes to the regulatory landscape here in the US, what are you expecting when it comes to actual legislation?

Yes.

So we're getting away now from this regulation by enforcement mantra that pervaded the SEC CFTC under the last Biden, you know, war against the regime to a model where we're getting clarity, right?

They're explicitly coming out and saying this is not a security, that is not a security.

We never heard a thing like that over the last 4 years from the previous administration, so that in and of itself is a big win.

And then furthermore, having clarity and updates to things like the 40 Act, which obviously doesn't mention crypto because there was no internet even right, to actually mention the word, you know, cryptocurrencies, digital assets and give us clarity what's a commodity, what's a security?

How do you launch new D5 protocols without getting sued by the SEC, etc. etc.

Having that legislative-based clarity will be a big win for the entire financial economy.

And finally, Bill, before I let you go, when we're talking about innovations and different projects, what do you focus on and what do you think will be the key catalyst here, not just as we head into the rest of 2025, but also beyond?

A few things.

The things that I care about and ARA cares about one is broader asset tokenization because now these lending markets, the ADFI are booming.

We can borrow against.

But what about borrowing against real world assets that become tokens?

The tokenization world enables that.

What are the applications of stablecoins beyond exchanges, right? stablecoins were created to solve a problem that exchanges couldn't get bank accounts.

Well, now that it's a $1 trillion economy potentially in its own right in the next couple of years, what's going to happen with supply chain finance, banking and payments because of stablecoins?

And then lastly, the RAA.

Coming, so now we have a couple of trillion dollars in wealth management that's going to be looking for the new 6040 now that the 6040 play is probably dead for anybody under the age of 40.

Where's the 40 going to go?

And RIAs are looking for answers to that.

So there's a big gathering of RIAs next week explicitly, explicitly to look at digital assets as one of the answers and I thought of one question while.

You and I are here at the New York Stock Exchange, so many companies are holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets.

So what do you make of this and what do you make of what Michael Saler is doing?

Yeah, look, in a market where effectively if you're a public company, your enterprise value discounts the value of the cash in your balance sheets, that is undone by holding Bitcoin, right?

Stocks get immediate bumps when they announce that they're converting their treasury to Bitcoin.

Right.

And so obviously there's a reason for that, and I think the reason is people devalue the dollar and they value the appreciating asset which is Bitcoin, and I've seen, you know, a dozen of these companies pop up over the last couple of months that are basically saying we are fully committed now to Bitcoin on the balance sheet.

The floodgates have opened.

OK, Bill, well, great talking to you here at the New York Stock Exchange.

Thank you so much for joining me.