Jeff Fitzgerald, VP of Sales at Bitbuy Private Wealth, was recently interviewed by Benzinga.
Bitbuy is part of the WonderFi (TSX: WNDR) family. The company operates digital asset platforms trusted by over 1.6 million Canadians and boasts one of the largest communities of regulated crypto investors in Canada. Their other brands include Coinsquare, SmartPay and Tetra.
Mr. Fitzgerald spoke about the trends he’s seeing currently and where he believes the market to be heading.
Bitbuy is part of the WonderFi (TSX: WNDR) family. The company operates digital asset platforms trusted by over 1.6 million Canadians and boasts one of the largest communities of regulated crypto investors in Canada. Their other brands include Coinsquare, SmartPay and Tetra.
Mr. Fitzgerald spoke about the trends he’s seeing currently and where he believes the market to be heading.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Welcome in, it's Michael Murray with Benzinga. Jeff Fitzgerald, VP of Sales at Bitbuy Private Wealth, joining us this morning.
00:07 Jeff, great to have you here. How are you?
00:09 Hey, good, Michael. Doing well, thanks. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
00:12 Very exciting to have you here, Jeff. There is a lot of anticipation surrounding potential Bitcoin spot ETFs, BlackRock, ARK,
00:19 some really big heavy hitters and big names in the space. When do you expect a ruling from the SEC? Are you expecting positive news?
00:25 Yeah, it's definitely a hot topic for the space. It seems like there's a lot of headlines popping up about this daily.
00:31 Obviously, a guess from my point of view, but after speaking to several, I guess, participants in the institutional space and just reading reports,
00:40 it sounds like there's some expectation for a January approval. And I think people are kind of teeing themselves up for that sort of time frame.
00:48 I mean, the fact that there's a futures trading market for digital assets, it doesn't necessarily seem to support an argument against an ETF, spot BTC ETF,
01:00 but consider it's regulated. But personally, I do feel there will be a green light. And the primary reason is that we haven't seen one so far is probably political.
01:12 Understood. And then what's going to happen in the short term to BTC's value upon approval and then long term to looking down the road?
01:18 Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to think that the immediate price reaction will be positive.
01:22 Like, you know, once the news comes out, the market's going to be bid and ultimately push prices higher.
01:29 There's some other considerations that will come into play. It's hard not to think about the grayscale situation, the conversion of a trust to an ETF.
01:37 So there'll be some questions there as to whether or not they'll need to sell the underlying assets under the trust and then buy to convert into the ETF.
01:47 So if that's the case, and it depends on the liquidity in the markets and how they plan to play this, you know, that might mean that in the short term,
01:55 a little bit of a pullback and some volatility. But either way, after some potential volatility on these sorts of trades,
02:01 I feel the general trajectory would be to move higher for assets like BTC and ETH, especially.
02:08 And then the alts would more than likely follow. You know, from a long term perspective,
02:13 this sort of product and approval of an ETF is more than likely going to help establish crypto as another asset class,
02:20 which will require liquidity and therefore prices will generally move higher.
02:24 Understood. Now, how does this affect the wealth management and institutional players?
02:28 What does an approved ETF do for them and what in turn do they do for the market at large?
02:34 Wealth management and institutional players will now have another asset class to work with.
02:39 Traditional desks have a repertoire of products to sell to investors.
02:43 When you think about a traditional trading floor, you're going to see a precious metals desk, a fixed income desk, a money market desk, equities desk.
02:52 And each desk has a different subset of products that they can sell to their clients and ultimately more options for their investors.
03:01 Several investors are looking for access to the market, but might be a bit reluctant for a variety of reasons.
03:08 One might be not having the desire to leave their current platform,
03:13 maybe a bit nervous about entering a crypto ecosystem, or maybe they just don't want to jump right in full throttle.
03:20 So an ETF product will certainly would help for some of these instances.
03:26 A BTC or ETH will provide another option for investors and wealth managers,
03:33 and the investment in the crypto will support prices in the market ultimately.
03:37 Got it. And then how much does this bleed into other cryptos like Ethereum or smaller altcoins in general?
03:43 Yeah, I mean, I think it's obviously hard to predict,
03:46 but it's pretty much a given that BTC is the leading indicator.
03:51 And what we've tracked over the last few years is that if there's a significant move for, say, Bitcoin,
03:57 Ethereum would generally follow or almost trade simultaneously.
04:02 And then it flows into confidence in the alts market and then you'd see other alts move higher as well.
04:08 So there's a bit of a domino effect here.
04:10 But we've even seen it here in the last few weeks, obviously, a significant rise in the price of Bitcoin in October,
04:17 up near 30 percent. It started with Bitcoin.
04:21 It translated to some support for ETH and then the alts have followed.
04:26 And now we're actually seeing some key alts, like Sol, for instance, rising significantly.
04:32 So it kind of cascades downwards and certainly the entire space would be impacted more than likely in a positive way.
04:39 Got it. Now, what is WonderFi and BitBuy Wealth doing to prepare for more institutional crypto participation in this potential upcoming bull run?
04:46 Yeah, WonderFi has been very active when it comes to looking at potential solutions for the institutional space,
04:52 whether it's finding ways to assist traditional finance to offer out crypto to their client base,
04:59 marketing and distribution of their product within the crypto space and other processes related to liquidity,
05:07 whether they have buying or selling requirements for the underlying asset on some of their, say, SMA or ETF product.
05:16 But our overall stance is to act as a consultant or a partner, work at their pace and be a resource,
05:24 a resource which is the largest Canadian regulated crypto exchange and trading desk.
05:30 And we take pride in that. And it certainly seems to resonate in our community.
05:35 And we're speaking to several institutions at the moment on topics such as these.
05:40 Wonderful. Jeff, it's been great talking with you today about the future of this market,
05:43 what might be happening with the spot Bitcoin ETFs and hopefully the bull run upcoming as well.
05:48 Jeff Fitzgerald, VP of sales at BitBuy Private Wealth. Thank you so much for taking the time with us here today.
05:53 Thanks very much, Michael. Take care. Have a great weekend.
05:56 Thank you.
05:58 Thank you.
06:00 Thank you.
06:01 Thank you.
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