Digital Asset Strategies in 2025 and Beyond

Transcript

Where else to speak about appetite for Bitcoin than in the Bitcoin capital Lugano? So, uh, super exciting. And next up, we'll have a very interesting um, keynote speech by Mr. Charles Henry Monour from C, the CIO of Sisbang. He'll be speaking to you about digital asset strategies in 2025 and beyond, investing in tomorrow's 10 trillion plus opportunities. The floor is yours. Please come on stage, Charles Henry. Put your hands together. Thank [Applause] you. Good morning. Thank you so much, Lugano and Cryptoval, for hosting us.

We're very proud supporter of uh what Crypto Valley is is doing. Uh so just to uh introduce myself so I'm CIO at Bank SE for those who don't know Bank's so we are a traditional Swiss private bank headquarter in Geneva uh we run 25 billion in assets so we are coming from trade um but back in 2022 the months where FTX went bankrupt we decided to include in or offering to clients digital assets custody and trading so tomorrow today I want to talk about what do we see now and beyond in terms of digital asset strategies. Maybe just a few words about our offering. So

basically what we want to offer to our clients is safety and convenience. If you look at the two extremes when you look for instance at a cold storage so it's safe from acting but it's not very convenient in terms of trading also it might be an issue uh in term when there is succession. uh hot wallet is great is very convenience but we know that it's also vulnerable to cyber threats and also uh there is obviously a counterpart counterparty risk so we sit in the middle and we offer this safety to clients we are using uh HSM from Taurus included in the bank uh dig uh um custody and also the clients can trade cryptos as they would trade their Nestle

or Google stock. So this is really our value proposal, convenience and safety. But we also have uh offering beyond this digital assets custodian and trading on the digital asset sites. We launched back in 2023 a fund of crypto hedge funds called Cisest uh together with CMCC. Um currently we have $70 million of assets in this fund of crypto hedge funds. And last month we launched what we think is the first BTC denominated fund of crypto hedge funds. We rise $150 million first months. Uh so that's now part of our offering. And last but not least in terms of tokenization, the CE family uh does own a large collection of

hearts and what we do, we tokenize some of these uh art pieces and employees are co-owners of these tokenized assets. So what's next? First um I think it's it would be great to kind of celebrate what has happened in 2024. Uh we have been going through a long way and it has been indeed a turning point in terms of adoption uh for digital assets. We always thought that BTC let's start with BTC is first and foremost a technological breakthrough and last year was the year where it crossed 1 billion transaction. It happened in May. So with no CEO, no board of directors, no CFO, no CTO, uh no head of marketing and all

of this happened without a single bleach. So just you know a reminder that this technology works perfectly. It was also the year of the force having also a reminder for all of us that it's mainly a scarcity play and for the first time in history the inflation rates of Bitcoin is now lower than the inflation rate of gold. It was also and it was discussed during the panel uh probably the year of broad adoption. Uh if we start with black rockck for instance back in 2017 they were talking about bitcoin as a index of money laundering and now they are talking about the technical technological revolution. It is also the year and it was discussed where if you look for instance at fidelity model portfolio they now have

bitcoin as part of their uh uh model portfolio. It was the year where Bitcoin and cryptos were part of the uh the presidential campaign in the US and also as discussed before it becomes it it became a key topic of discussion when it comes to treasury. Uh do companies need to include BTC and other cryptos in their treasury. It was also uh the year where we finally we got the we got this ETF on Bitcoin and ETH. It was not sure to happen. was not a given. Not only it happens, but he ended up to be one of the greatest success ever uh for uh um ETF uh size, you know, getting very

close to the size of uh the gold ETF and also rising a lot of assets into crypto uh funds. Um it is also the first time in history where we have a a pro- crypto uh US administration with more than 300 lawmakers uh favorable to digital assets and obviously this will should have some huge consequences going forwards. Uh it became uh the seventh uh largest uh asset in the worlds and although um it is very close to uh the size of uh stocks and assets we all know it remains very low in terms of uh allocation uh in most uh portfolios. Uh stable coin was

mentioned before. Uh we are getting very close to the 200 billion uh dollars uh market cap. So it was also a great year for stable coin. And in terms of tokenization, this was also mentioned uh before uh the black rock uh KKR uh temple of these words uh they are now offering tokenized funds and funds is probably with real assets uh re real estate sorry uh uh one of the let's say key uh first breakthrough for tokenized assets. So what do we see uh happening ahead? uh we think we are moving towards uh cryptocurrency integration and let me uh kind of share with you five

predictions. So first uh we think that first prediction is that uh we do have uh with this proc crypto administr uh US administration some changes for the uh bitcoin rally to be extended. uh there is uh indeed a policy framework that positions uh bitcoin as a as a strategic asset and this is also the end of anti-crypto policies. Uh it was discussed before uh indeed there's a repeal of a key uh bulin number 121 which now allows uh uh US banks to not only buy but also custody bitcoin and other cryptos and this will be a gamecher. Uh we also believe that this uh uh US national Bitcoin reserve uh

should happens this year. Uh well in if you go to poly markets you will see that there is currently a very high chance uh which is assume uh for this US national bitcoin reserve to happen. We believe that the reason it could happen is uh first it will be for the US government a hedge against inflation that they created and debt that they created as well. uh many bricks nations uh are now uh considering an alternative to the dollar and bitcoin could be part of it. So for the US uh it's let's it would be a way uh by owning bitcoin to kind of hedge themsel against this. There is also game theory if they are not the first to do it. Others are already doing it. Uh and we think that nations like

Qatar, UAE uh or Russia already maybe China already accumulating uh some Bitcoin. Uh and last but not least, the US wants to become a crypto nation uh and or the crypto nation for doing so uh they need to uh indeed create this reserve. We also believe that there will be a tsunami of ETF uh launch taking place uh Solana uh Ripple and why not uh ETH staking uh ETF. Uh we also believe that at some point the alcoin season uh will start. So far it has been not really what uh you know all of us were expected in terms of uh uh this alcoin

season. uh but there are reasons to believe that uh uh this will indeed happen and among the candidates those who are uh potential candidates for ETF launch uh which are favored uh by the um uh US uh administration and push by by Trump and US base are probably a good chance uh to be among the winners of the next alcon season. And last but not least uh we think there will be uh the emergence uh of transformative applications uh within uh the digital asset space. Among them uh blockchain based uh uh gaming uh tokenization of real world assets and also the

increasing integration of uh of AI. So uh the long view for us and this is why you know as trady we move into this space uh we think that crypto will become mainstream in terms of size despite the huge bull market that we got over the last two years uh BTC is only 0.2% of global assets. So if it becomes if 1% that means it needs to increase uh by five times uh and uh probably uh more will happen also beyond BTC in terms of uh growing size. So you know the saying when the fact change I changed my mind and this is what we have been doing as a

trade fire bank is to recognize the emergence uh of these new asset class and integrated not only in our custody and trading facilities but also in our phone offering and we do believe uh indeed that many others will follow. Thank you and enjoy the rest of the conference.