Staking and Strategy: UPEXI’s Approach to Maximizing Returns in the Crypto Space

Well, UEy made another big bet on Salon, the company announcing a new purchase of 100,000 sold for $17.7 million bringing its total to 1.8 million tokens, now worth over $360 million.

And that just made UPEy the largest salon and treasury holder among public companies thanks to staking UEy projects up to $26 million a year in passive income.

Well joining me live here at the New York Stock Exchange is Brian.

Chief strategy officer at UE, thanks for joining me.

Thanks so much for having us.

Well, we're paying close attention to what's happening across the crypto landscape, but first and foremost, why are we hearing about so many digital asset treasury companies right now?

Yes, digital asset treasury companies are a big movement within financial markets right now.

I think it's really two reasons.

The first is a greater appreciation for all the value that micro. creates it has literally been the best performing stock since it moved to a Bitcoin Treasury strategy in August 2020 and it's more than doubled the return of Bitcoin without being fully levered.

So there has to be some underlying value of creation there.

And then the second thing is a more accommodative US administration.

It has moved from a headwind to a tailwind.

This is causing investors to want to gain greater exposure to digital assets and causing companies to be.

More comfortable that they can add digital assets to their balance sheets without being subject to heightened rules and restrictions.

Yeah, and heading into the first half of this year, we know all eyes were on the regulatory landscape in the nation's capital, and here we are with the Genius Act passed and signed by the president.

So when you talk about value, can you tell us how holding crypto actually creates value when it comes to shareholders?

Yes, so it helps diversify a portfolio.

Obviously the historical returns have been exceptionally strong, and though it's volatile, the returns more than make up for that volatility.

So if you think of it in any sort of sharp ratio construct, it is actually a good addition for most investors to the portfolio.

And then the technology overall has all these wonderful use cases and benefits like any other.

Technology, it takes time to reach final form.

It takes time for people to adopt those new technologies, but crypto and blockchain technology can do things like remove intermediaries.

They can democratize value exchange and they can create new constructs around ownership, governance and business models and so that is absolutely happening and it's nice that the US is now supportive and that will just throw gasoline on the fire.

Yeah, and many viewers may be familiar with the term staking.

So when it comes to staking yield, how does that factor into your overall revenue plan?

Yes, so very similar to micro strategy, we utilize intelligent capital issuance to create value for shareholders.

So when micro strategy trades at 2 times the underlying value of their crypto, they issue equity at 2 times.

They're selling $1 for $2 and they're pulling in value for shareholders.

We do that and we stake our treasury to turn it into.

Productive assets, so we earn an 8% yield on that.

We have a couple other additional value accrual mechanisms too, like buying lockalana at a 15% discount for built-in gains for shareholders.

And you just mentioned a strategy.

Many people may be familiar with what Michael Saylor is doing, but why did you choose Solana?

So in our view, Bitcoin is the best monetary asset, and then Solana is the best high performance blockchain.

It was really that simple.

We could have done it on Bitcoin.

There's 25 different micro strategy copycats.

We didn't want to be the 26, and Bitcoin is a $2.5 trillion asset.

It's unlikely that it is going to 5X anytime soon versus something like Sellana, which is 4% of market capital Bitcoin.

It can literally 5x by year end.

So for us it was very easy. that pushed us more toward the smart contract.

Side of the continuum and then having been in crypto for a long time, most folks think that Solana has the best chance to be the endgame winning smart contract blockchain.

Yeah, and you have touched on this, but I understand that you've said that we are on the edge of a historic crypto bull run, and given the elevated levels that we've been seeing for say Bitcoin and E coming up in terms of games year to date, give us your take on why you think this is the case.

I am supremely bullish over the next 2 to 3 years.

The reason for that is the biggest headwind has always been unclear rules and regulations in the US.

All these big institutions and corporates didn't really want to come in and disintermediate themselves if they didn't have to, and they certainly didn't want to do it if it increased regulatory and legal risk for themselves.

But now that we have stablecoin legislation and we'll likely get market structure legislation this year or next, they'll have to come in in a big way because if they don't, then they'll be disintermediate. by those who do.

If you think about it, it's the large institutions that literally have billions of customers.

They have built in trusts.

They have billions in capital, and they have the top devs.

And so this would be something like Google Chrome adding a crypto wallet to its browser or Amazon accepting USDC, which they're reportedly thinking of doing, and this has the potential to onboard the masses.

Crypto companies and crypto protocols will benefit very significantly from this.

And finally, before I let you go.

So there are 3 crypto bills that we were watching and now that the Genius Act has been passed.

What do you expect to see when it comes to the Clarity Act and also anti CBDC?

Yes, the Clarity Act is a bit more difficult.

There are many more things for folks to align on.

It is now going back to the Senate and they're going to mark it up, incorporate some other ideas from other bills that were there.

It'll go back to the House and we'll have to go back to the Senate, so it's not something.

That will pass anytime soon, like the next month or two, but it is something that has very widespread bipartisan support.

So we're very hopeful and expect that it will pass in the next year or two.

And then similarly, the less familiar candidly on the anti CBDC one, but I do think that that one is likely to pass as well.

Well, a lot to keep our eyes on as we make our way through the second half of 2025.

So thank you so much for joining me and thank you for sharing your insights.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure.