Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of Wintermute, joins J.D. Durkin at the New York Stock Exchange to discuss Bitcoin’s sharp pullback from record highs, how ETF flows and traditional exchanges are reshaping crypto liquidity, and why this cycle may look very different from the past.
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Our next guest joins us right here at the FinTech TV booth.
This is Evgeni Gavoi, the founder and CEO at Wintermute.
Thanks a lot for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
And not only making your taking stock debut, but visiting us here at the New York Stock Exchange for the first time.
It's awesome to have you.
Yes, I know, always wanted to visit.
So, OK, you, you are much.
I love talking with guests who are objectively far smarter than I am, especially on all things cryptocurrency.
So you know we've been tracking Bitcoin coming off those 125, 126 levels in October, Obviously the big liquidation event on around October 10th.
How are you approaching its current pricing levels at 66 and change?
Uh, I mean, it's definitely an interesting change market marketdemic wise.
Uh, what we basically see on liquidity side is it's very much, it's a big structural change.
It's driven a lot by ETF flows, it's driven a lot by basically what we call red fire exchanges, well, basically NICE NASDAQ, so basically everything that happens in ETF space affects, uh, now affects crypto way more than, Just traditionally own like big centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.
Yeah, why did this cycle break the usual seasonal patterns to any degree?
How have you been able to look at it the last few months?
Yeah, I mean I've I've never was a believer in a cycle, like, basically it was like 24 year cycles that people like to believe in.
I think what's interesting about this particular move is we know that technology works, but it's very much decoupled from token prices, so we see a lot of innovation in tokenized securities, we see.
Obviously stablecoins picking up and going full steam ahead, but we don't see it being reflected in token prices, which is very different from all previous cycles.
How big of an impact to further drive down the price on some of these things has been the conversation over liquidation and deleveraging, which, as we've talked about with other guests, Hey, it's all well and good when these asset prices are rising up, but man oh man, once it starts to come down, no one wants to catch that falling knife.
I mean it's good and bad, right?
I think a lot of this pain has been front loaded already, so I think it starts to be a lot more interesting.
Like the crypto prices start to be a lot more interesting compared to when Bitcoin was at 1200.
Like now the risk reward is starting to be here.
Do you have any sense on where crypto goes from here?
I know that's like the most important question in the crypto markets these days, but people are looking for a good faith entry point.
They thought maybe we flushed some of the leverage out of the system.
OK, we go to 75%, now we go to 70, now we're going a little lower to 65, 66%.
Do you have a sense on where this thing goes?
I'll say not yet.
Like what's what I can share is basically via our OTC desk is we see a lot more basically two-sided flower recently, which is opposed to basically only selling a week or two, a week ago, like a month ago, so it starts to be a bit more balanced, which gives a bit more hope for.
Like reversal, but it's still too early to say.
What do you say to the average investor who is watching the crypto majors fall and saying, Wait a minute, I thought this was the time for institutional adoption.
I thought this was the time for members on Capitol Hill to pass much needed legislation.
Why is this happening at the same time as those things?
I guess time will tell as well, but I mean First of all, we haven't seen this legislation passed yet, so I think that's a pretty big catalyst potentially to come and help the prices.
Secondly, Crypto needs to do some soul searching, crypto needs to dig deeper and understand, OK, where does the value capture is coming from?
Is it are the tokens going to be a solution, or is tokenized equities is going to be a solution, and maybe a lot of tokens don't deserve to be here in the first place.
Evgeny Gavoi, founder and CEO at Wintermute, uh, I know you're leaving New York in the not too distant future, so thanks a lot for taking some time to see us down here at the show and making your first trip to the New York Stock Exchange.
Come back anytime, it's great to have you.
Sounds great.