Three signals for Bitcoin and institutional demand, with Bitwise

7 Apr 2026 · 37:21

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer, and Ryan Rasmussen of Bitwise tell LG Doucet that institutional demand is the key to Bitcoin's next move. Rasmussen expects Bitcoin above $95,000 by year end if macro uncertainty fades, interest rates hold or fall, and the Clarity Act passes. The episode also covers institutional adoption through stablecoins, tokenization and vaults, and prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi as news sources. Aired on Milk Road.

Speakers

Topics

Transcript

There is a runaway institutional bull market in crypto. It's being expressed in stable coins. It's being expressed in tokenization. It's being expressed in vaults. But the nature of what crypto is is really evolving. What's up everybody? It's LG Ducat here and welcome to the Milkro Show, the daily crypto show that really wants to believe we can pump another 40% before end of year. And I'm not stopping the episode until I know for sure that we will. Today's April 7th, 2026. We are recording on April 6th. Two of our favorite guests are back from their expedition to the East Coast to the Digital Asset Summit in New York. And I'm keen to grill them on what they heard behind the scenes. Plus, it's high time we make a clear case for prediction markets, one of my favorite topics, and we're actually going to get one today.

Matt Hogan and Ryan Rasmmanson from Bitwise are back on the milk road. Matt, Ryan, welcome back from your travels, guys. Very keen to hear what was going on. You guys feeling all right? You guys, you refreshed after returning? >> Feeling good. >> Okay. Feeling good. feel. Everybody's feeling great about uh uh the state of things. Okay, Ryan, I have to I have to target you with my first question. Okay. Well, I was I always do research on our guests. I always want to know what our guests have been saying. Even you guys, we two weeks without talking. I always want to know what kind of other interviews you gave. Uh who else you've been talking to? What other hot takes you've been sharing not on Milk Road?

And Ryan, I pulled up an article from a publication called O Daily that says that Ryan is predicting a 95,000 uh Bitcoin range by the end of the year. Is that true? That was an interesting conversation because we were talking a lot about long-term tailwinds that drive the market higher. And one anecdote that I gave was that heading into 2026, we saw a few specific catalysts that could turn the market back towards that 95k level, which is right around where where we would need to be to break this 4-year cycle, which is what some people worried about. I think that it's very possible and actually likely likely that we end the year above 95,000. There's a number of very specific catalysts that will

drive us there, but there's also a few conditions that need to be met. I'd be happy to explore those catalysts with you, but I did say it. I do believe it and I think it's going to happen. >> What are the catalysts? What what what are these catalyst? Tell me, please. >> There's there's three specific environmental factors that need to turn in Bitcoin's favor to push prices higher. The first is the macro and geopolitical uh situation, which I believe strongly is going to settle in the relatively near future. So, a lot of people are worried about this drawn out conflict could last many many months that's going to have ripple effects on inflation, interest rates, and uh the economy both in the US and globally. I don't believe that's going to be the case. I believe this is a relatively short-term shock that will fade and 6

months from now, we'll be talking about it in the same way we talked about the tariff tantrum and other kind of relatively short Trump induced shocks to markets. So I think the macro geopolitical uh environment needs to shift away from the state of uncertainty and instability and constant chaos into a more normalized environment. I think that happens in the next few months. We'll have Kevin Wars come in. I think we see interest rates hold steady or cut. I don't think we're seeing interest rate hikes and I think that's conducive to a positive price returns for Bitcoin. The next is regulatory clarity. The regulatory environment has been super uncertain for Bitcoin. uh with the Clarity Act hanging in the balance, I have faith that the Clarity Act will pass in 2026 before the the window closes as many people are saying. And I

think that would be net positive for Bitcoin and other crypto assets. And then the biggest catalyst, and this isn't just 2026 catalyst, this is a long-term catalyst, is institutional demand for Bitcoin is incredibly strong. We just saw over a billion in inflows into Bitcoin ETFs last month amid all this geopolitical macro uncertainty, regulatory uncertainty that I spoke about. So you can imagine what would happen if those things settle and become tailwinds to crypto. What would happen from an institutional demand perspective? I think those things are what pushes Bitcoin back above 95,000 by the end of the year. As we're breaking down some trade ideas here on the show, I want you to imagine getting an alert the moment that we make an actual move because that's what you get now with Milk Road Pro. A real-time notification that tells you the second one of our

analysts buy or sell anything. Check it out below. Ryan, is there is there a world like where these things happen and they are positive and the conflict draws on and do do one canceled out the other? So, so yes, it's certainly possible some of these things cancel each other out. I think if we see interest rate hikes and the conflict draw on for the next 6 plus months, I do think that that becomes very difficult for any financial asset to perform relatively strongly. Although, it's interesting. We're starting to see markets react a little bit less to the these threats or statements being made. You know, Trump's given an ultimatum. Iran's come back and said, you know, we're not going to

listen to it. Trump changes the deadline. The markets are reacting slightly less every time this happens. And so, I do think that it's just one of those things that the markets become desensitized to. And then you have other forces take the front seat. Ultimately, institutional demand is going to be the strongest driver given Bitcoin's an asset whose price is based on supply and demand. And from what we're seeing in talking with investors, they're viewing the current prices as good entry points and are making many long-term allocations across their portfolios and model portfolios. So, I think those that long-term demand will not be canceled out regardless. Uh whether it comes in the next month, six months, or nine months is up for debate. Mhm. Okay, that's a good take. Matt, is this uh are

you feeling this 95k energy by by end of year? >> I really do think it's conditional on the things that Ryan mentioned. Uh I would add in some sort of resolution or clarity on the road map to solve the mounting concerns around quantum for Bitcoin as yet another catalyst. I think that maybe the only place that I would disagree with Ryan is I think if we get all of those cards flipping over in a positive way, I think we end up much higher. I think if we get a mix of those, we end up sort of drifting sideways. And if they all come up uh in the wrong way, I think we could end uh much lower. So, I think I think it's I have a I have a a view with more dispersion. But like if we get clarity

and Iran resolves and we solve the quantum issue, I think it could be a great end of the year. But that's like a you know that we need a series of events to break our ways. >> Mhm. Yeah. That would be that would be the the perfect the perfect storm really for all those things to happen at the same time. Is that is quantum something that can be solved that easily? Because I I feel like we I've had a few guests on lately and it's like a little bit more complex. We had the guys from Archon last week kind of talk about quantum and it was like you got to get all these Bitcoin people back on board to solve everything. Whereas Ethereum is a little like the foundation has been like a little bit more on the ball lately and it's a significantly different system. Is this Bitcoin? Is

this something that can be solved that quickly in a way or protected against let's say? >> So my view is that exactly what you would want to see happen in order to solve the quantum threat is in fact happening which is highly credible people are raising concerns uh increasing numbers of those people and therefore the community is focused on it more seriously and willing to weigh the pros and cons. We're in a much better space today from this perspective of preparedness than we were 12 months ago. I don't think we need to have every problem solved. I don't I don't think that's what we need to unleash sort of the OG demand to invest into Bitcoin as we exit the winter and enter the the spring years of the four-year cycle. I think we just need a credible roadmap to

solve it. It's not like Ethereum has it exactly buttoned up. They just have a credible road map. I think if we have a credible road map and commitment that will be enough to bring along the sort of OG investors back into the market. Look, I think the institutional investors are coming regardless >> because they realize that they're off market on Bitcoin, that being at zero is no longer a tolerable position. So why we're seeing the flow as Ryan mentioned is that they are coming regardless. The my my point was like in order to get the upside above Ryan 7 95K, we need to get that OG crypto, retail crypto along for the ride and I think they will want a defined road map, >> right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So they have to

feel like So you're basically telling me that the OGs have to feel like the situation is being addressed slightly under control or going to be under control soon after the warnings from Google and everybody last week. Um so for that demand to come back is that is it possible Matt that this is what drove demand away originally with the OGs who kind of you know started to really off like offload their holdings yes through the year last year? I I generally think monocausal explanations are wrong, right? But um was it a contributing factor? Yes. Was it as important as just the four-year cycle and the desire to avoid that historical 75% pullback? No.

But was it a contributing factor? Yes. Was it a reason people pointed to to justify sort of taking the emotional step of removing some down some up some of their exposure ahead of the four-year cycle? So I think it's a little bit complex but it definitely was a piece and I think the level of concern has gone up substantially and again I think that's good. I think actually it's the system sort of healing itself. It's kind of nice and interesting to see and observe. >> Um but I do think it'll be a catalyst at this point if if it gets if it gets well organized.

>> Ryan, was this a discussion at DOSs? Was anybody concerned about this or and if not what what were people talking about? Yeah, quantum definitely came up at at the digital asset summit. Certainly, I think not as many people are focused on it as you might think and the the Google piece around the accelerated timeline for quantum risk actually came out after the conference and it became a little bit more top of mind last week rather than the week prior. But I will say a lot of the attention at at the digital asset summit was around institutional adoption, was around regulatory clarity, and was around things like tokenization, stable coins and vaults and was less around, you know, the quantum risk, although it is top of mind for

investors. We felt a number of events over the past month and I've been asked about it several times uh from investors and uh they are curious about Bitcoin. They're curious about Ethereum. they see that there's been communication around, you know, efforts to solve the quantum risk. And I think that gives some comfort, but we really need to start seeing steps taken in the right direction to to really, you know, ease long-term concerns. I I ask you guys this all the I always want to know what the institutions are saying, but Ryan, you said they're curious like is this like is is there like an information gap for them of like they don't they still don't really understand these assets or they are trying to con get the buy in internally to just offload. They're waiting for better liquidity conditions.

What do you mean by curious? It's so it's a spectrum when you talk to the different institutional investors and professional investors on how closely they follow the crypto industry and how closely they follow specific developments within it. Many professional investors spend a very small amount of their time thinking about Bitcoin or about crypto more broadly. And what they're typically seeing when it comes to their their information on the space are the headlines in the Wall Street Journal or on CNBC or somebody coming on and talking about potential risks to the market on CNBC or something similar. And so that's where they hear things like Quantum or this big paper by Google gets released and it catches their attention and then they want to know when they speak to us, hey, how big of a risk is this really? How are you thinking about

it as a specialist asset manager who follows the space 24/7 365 who speaks with Bitcoin core developers and donates to those open source developers to help address these risks. And so that's kind of the knowledge gap is that they turn to us to understand what's real and what's not and to sift through the noise. >> Yeah, that makes sense. I guess so. So they rely on you guys to kind of tell them like what's what and to kind of ask these questions. Was there anything else, Matt, that was really top of mind for people at at at the summit um in terms of risks or opportunities or anything anything new that you guys learned maybe that you had you had underestimated how heavy that was for for the institutional crowd?

>> Well, I would just say one of my big takeaways was that the saratoral distribution of how people were dressed at the summit has changed over the last five years. I mean it was 5 years ago there was like two people in suits and uh this year it was 80 85% I would say people in suits really remarkable I think that speaks to the fact that there is a runaway institutional bull market in crypto it's being expressed in stable coins it's being expressed in tokenization it's being expressed in vaults but the nature of what crypto is is really evolving and you could just you could gather maybe the most information from DOSS just by looking at a photo of the audience and comparing it

to DOS 2020 and you will just see a really dramatic shift. So if you want to know what's happening in crypto that is that is a big thing that's happening. So that was a big takeaway. Other other I will say the other hot topic was vaults. There's an an enormous interest in vaults. I love vaults. Very excited about vaults. I've described them as the next ETF. But even I think the level of interest in vaults from the institutional community exceeds the level of actual assets and growth in that market right now. So um but there is just rapid interest in the vault space.

>> What is the what is the what is the difference between an ETF and a vault? I feel like I've asked you this before. Maybe just clarify for people listening. >> Sure. Yeah. If you think about asset management historically, the problem it's solving is that there are individuals who want to invest in the market, but they can't get the diversification and management that they need. It's not their full-time job, right? So, what they've done is that they give money to asset managers and the asset managers deploy this. 300 years ago when asset management started, it was actually in the 1600s, it was very clunky, very expensive. They couldn't own much. There were premiums and discounts. They couldn't get their money out. It improved over time, right?

In the 20s, we got open-end funds. In the in the 90s, we got ETFs which made that more efficient. The difference between a vault and an ETF is that it further increases that efficiency. And it does that by removing some of the things that asset managers do like in traditional world, asset managers handle custody and audit and tax reporting, etc. And they pair that with the intellectual IP of where to invest. One way to think about a vault is it strips away all that sort of real world gunk and just leaves the IP so that an investor puts money into a smart contract and it's allocated based on what the asset manager is doing. And therefore it's like a more simplified,

more efficient, more perfect version of asset management and the other sort of gunky parts are left to each individual to manage. >> Crypto taxes are a nightmare. You've got trades across 15 exchanges, DeFi positions you've forgot about, NFT flips, staking rewards, airdrops, and somehow you're supposed to report all of this to the IRS. Good luck. Cue the solution, SUM. You may know it by its old name, crypto tax calculator. The Sum platform connects to over 3,500 exchanges, wallets, and crypto projects, including full support for DeFi, NFT staking, and airdrops. It finds deductions you'd miss, reconciles massive transaction histories without losing track, and generates IRS ready reports that will help you pay the least tax possible. Oh, SUM is also the

official tax partner of Coinbase and MetaMask, rated 4.6 out of five on Trustpilot. Turn cryptotax chaos into confidence. Get started for free at milkroad.com/sum. That's sum.com. Milkroad listeners can also unlock 20% off their first year subscription with code milkroad 20. The transparency of traditional blockchains forces a difficult choice. Utility or privacy. And you shouldn't have to choose. Midnight empowers innovators to break free from this limitation to a place where privacy isn't just a feature, but foundational. Go to milgrow.com/midnight to learn more.

Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Is this I have a question. I got to switch back to Ryan because I have a question um kind of related to something you had shared. Um, is Vault something that that AI will have a huge influence on? Because kind of what Matt's describing, at least in my ears, is kind of like, well, this is going to be something that you're going to be able to have a pretty advanced strategy. Uh, and that, you know, a lot of the advancements in AI um are related to that. I'm asking you this specifically, Ryan, because uh I think last week you had shared one of Hib's tweets about how AI people are more excited about crypto than crypto people are excited about AI. So, I kind of wanted to give you maybe put all that in context for us.

Yeah, I that's exactly true. I thought that was a a really fascinating tweet because you do have this crypto bare market where uh if if you've been in the space for the last 6 to9 months, sentiment has been near all-time lows, near lows that we saw in 2022 amid the collapse of FTX and prices have drawn down significantly. liquidity has dried up across a bunch of different metrics across the space and that's led to a bare market both in terms of price and in terms of sentiment. And then when you speak either to institutional investors like we've been doing, they don't see this bare market outside of the price.

They see a bunch of positive tailwinds that will drive the market higher over the long term, vaults, tokenization, stable coins, regular, etc. Then you speak to people outside of the financial space and you you speak to those that are building AI products and they see a bunch of benefits of the underlying technology. You need to solve for proof of identity. Well, crypto does that. Blockchain technology does that extremely well. You need to solve for privacy. Blockchain technology. Crypto technology does that extremely well. You need a means of transaction for AI agents to use without them accessing a bank account. Well, stable coins, blockchain technology, and crypto does that extremely well. So, they see all of these potential synergies that are going to uh going to come to market between AI

and crypto, and they're extremely bullish. Institutional investors see all the synergies between crypto and traditional finance, stable coins, tokensation vaults they're increasingly bullish. Crypto native investors see prices down, see liquidity down, keep getting liquidated, see Mimcoins crashing, and they think it's all over. And that's this huge disconnect that's happening. I think that's what H was referencing. >> It's totally true. Totally true. Crypto is like carrying an umbrella that it's raining under the umbrella and everywhere else in the sunshine it's >> Why is that? Why is that? Why is crypto so much more emotional? Is it just because it's so much more volatile that you you attract that? It's it does I

think if anything I've learned doing this show for six plus months now is that there's such an emotional swing. uh in crypto and even we make episodes that it's like well we know we're going to do well on this one because we're talking we're really digging on to you know digging into emotions and I'm curious because then a lot of people like you guys where it's like okay listen you know um you guys are you guys are joining Tati and crypto really well together at Bitwise we have a lot of other trady people come on talk about how excited they are for crypto like there is no storm going on for them there is no like this is upward trajectory long term like just freaking relax man but but crypto like will it ever be able to get away from this emotional roller coaster like is that

part of it? You know what I mean? Like will it always be kind of like that? >> Yeah, it's a great question. Um do you have a take, Ryan? I I have a thought. Maybe you should go first. >> Yeah, I I I think it's in part a difference in time horizon and many crypto investors got into crypto because they saw a chance to uh make a large amount of wealth in a relatively short period because they were going to frontr run the institutions. And I think that as the markets bmed and bust and bmed and bust, people have kind of been disillusioned from that and are a little bit scorned by the fact that we've seen, you know, all-time highs retracement, all-time highs retracement to the level that we have in crypto. And I think many, you know, long-term investors,

which institutional investors and portfolio managers that we speak to across wealth management firms and and platforms are long-term oriented in nature. they have clients that are uh looking to retire in 5 years or 45 years and they have to invest accordingly and those investors see the mega trends that we're talking about and they get excited. But I think that crypto investors are too narrowly focused and financially impacted by a high concentration in crypto that when the market goes up and down the way that it does, it does lead to highly emotional behavior and and and behaving emotionally when it comes to investing is extremely dangerous. And professional investors, one thing that they do do well is systematically approach

investing and look to identify long-term mega trends. And they want exposure to that because it may not pay off today. It may not pay off next year, but in 10 years they see an investment in this technology paying off. >> I think that's I think that's right. The other thing I would add to it is like look, let's be honest, it's it's it's a nuclear winner in some areas of the crypto market, right? It's it's a nuclear winner in meme coins. It's a nuclear winner in like alt layer ones. It's a nuclear winner in vaporware apps. A lot of people own those assets and when they look out across the the future landscape of those assets, it does in fact look bleak because it is in fact bleak. That is different than if you're starting at zero and making your first

allocation and you're like, "Wow, stable coins and tokenization are scheduled to boom and these assets are down 50%." Yeah, that's like a completely different mindset than owning this thing that you did your research on, thought was exciting, and it's down 90%, it's going to fall another 99%, and you just know that. So, I do think it's a different perspective. >> Mhm. Mhm. Those are good takes, guys. Yeah, thanks. It definitely it definitely makes a lot of sense why people are like this, but I think it's always good to have you guys kind of walk us through that. But Matt, I think, you know, I wanted to save the rest of the episode talk about something that is highly emotionally driven. Speaking of crypto things that are emotional driven, which is prediction markets, which we

always talk about, um, we always, you know, ever since I've been hosting these shows with you guys, we always come, we always end with prediction markets. Um, but this time, um, as we know, it's something that, uh, you guys have gotten a lot more interested in lately. And Matt, you just put out a great memo today, prediction markets, addressing the five biggest questions. And I thought that this was very very interesting what you wrote because I think even for me someone who is a career DJ and I love prediction markets. I love like weird things to bet on, you know. Um there are a lot of questions for me with prediction markets and they're in in the news a lot for good and also bad reasons. Uh and I think it's clearly as something that's quite nent. There are a lot of those questions um kind of need to be answered as we go.

Um, so I saw a lot of things in this in this in this in this piece, Matt. So I'll kind of ask you a few questions about it. Um, I think in here you kind of hinted at that that prediction markets are are are one of the most important tools in finance. Why? Why? Why? What made you kind of state that? >> Oh man, because they provide new and critical information for the world and they're useful portfolio tools. So, let's take those two pieces first on the new and important information that the higher quality information we have about the economy, the better it can run and function. Uh, we're all frustrated that the Federal Reserve is looking at like outward backwardlooking data that's slow to update. We're frustrated that jobs

numbers get revised plus or minus a couple hundred thousand. And those directly impact us because that data drives economic decision-making at the Fed. It drives investing decision-making among investors. It has a huge influence. So if we can improve the quality of data that we know about the world, the world will be a better place and prediction markets do that not just theoretically but empirically. In the piece, I point to this paper written by the Federal Reserve that showed that couch she even at this early stage when it's 1/100th of what it could be someday is already a better predictor of Fed rate cuts, GDP, CPI, and other statistics than the best economists in

the world from Bloomberg than the Fed's own survey of market expectations. Koshi is better and it's doing it in real time, not once every month. So from a society perspective, the ability to have better information about the economy is just strictly good and will make the economy and the world run better. And then from a portfolio perspective, look, the reality is that the world is influenced by political and economic and other events. And we have no way to express that cleanly. If you think there'll be a Democratic sweep in a couple of years that installs uh Elizabeth Warren as the head of the SEC, that has an influence on what you'll do in crypto. But you have no way

to protect yourself from that probability other than just exiting the market. You have no way to hedge that out. And that's a cryptospecific example, but imagine you're investing in defense stocks or imagine you're investing in AI stocks. you're investing in it. It it huge influence and we don't have the ability to express that in portfolio. So whether from a societal perspective or a portfolio perspective, I think they're massive. Are they perfect? No. Are there things that need to be cracked down on? Absolutely. Are there risks? Yes. Are there markets we shouldn't have? Definitely. But net net, I think they're a massively positive thing.

>> What I like that your your only example is like an apocalyptic crypto scenario. Well, it's just maybe maybe some of us have lived that example that I shared, right? But you could imagine someone deciding or not deciding where to allocate on defense stocks as I mentioned or deciding or not deciding where to allocate on health care depending on how you think that will go. I can think of a a wide variety of examples and that's just election outcomes. Mhm. >> You could think about how you would adjust your portfolio if interest rates go above 5%.

Now, how can you express that today? You need to use, you know, complicated options or futures that not everyone is used to using or you could package that in a prediction market and that would be a valuable tool that you could use. So, yeah, the crypto one comes to mind because we've lived it, but the other examples are just as robust. Obviously, one of the biggest questions about prediction markets, Matt, is people are just like, "Listen, that's just another form of gambling, especially being tied to crypto. Listen, there's just like meme coins, just like NFTTS. It's just another like DGEN kind of thing." You're making the case opposite. You're giving us good reasons, but I wanted to kind of address that head-on because you do as well in in this article.

>> Yeah, look, some of it is gambling. Uh, if you have a prediction market on a football game, that is the same as going to a sports book and betting on a football game. We can call that gambling. and that is fine. But if you have a prediction market on interest rate outcomes at the Federal Reserve, that is the same as the CME's Fed fund futures market, which trades 5 to$15 trillion in notional value every day from the largest financial institutions in the world. That we would call investing. And it's fine that prediction markets can cover both. And it's fine if you don't do the sports stuff or the cultural stuff or you don't think there

should be prediction markets on geopolitical events. We're like sophisticated people. We can separate those worlds, but there's a huge amount that they cover that's clearly in the area of finance, investing, and hedging. And um I think they're really powerful tools. Stable coins are reshaping the financial order, but most companies don't have the opportunity to participate in the rewards they generate. Plus, launching a stablecoin means wrestling with complex regulations, building bespoke infrastructure, and burning endless developer hours. Enter Bridge and its new product, Open Issuance. Bridge lets companies send, store, accept, and even launch their own stable coins instantly.

Seamless fiat to stable coin flows, control over reserves and rewards, and full interoperability across every bridge issued token. No more patching payment rails, no more monthslong launches. Visit milkroad.com/bridge to see how it works. Do you do you ever see these prediction markets kind of like splitting out the stuff that they cover? Right? Because you go to poly market cali, it's like man here's a million topics. It's overwhelming. Maybe if you are coming like if somebody if one of your colleagues in the industry is listening to Matt right now and they're like I do think there's going to be 5% interest hike whatever rates and like I want to go do that and they go to the front page and it's like will the will the troops be invaded? you know, it's all like a hundred different and then there's like a Taylor Swift question and they're

like, man, I don't this is it doesn't feel like the right place for me to do something a little bit more sophisticated like what you're describing, Matt. So, will we ever eventually have a segmentation of these markets? Will there be a finance only market that comes and and because of its specialization beats out Poly Market and Khy for that market? Like, how do you see that down the line? I >> I think that's definitely possible. Look, when we're considering where we might file to launch ETFs on prediction markets, we're not looking at Taylor Swift concert receipts, uh, we're looking at financial market indicators, right? Because that is the area in the market that we serve. So, I think that level of differentiation is clear. But I would make an analogy to my ETF dates.

Look, most of the money in ETFs are in very simple ETFs holding the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ 100 or bonds, but you could get a 3x levered single stock ETF, right? And that is a crazy thing to own. And what we found in the coverage of ETFs is that the search tools and the coverage clearly differentiate between normal and exotic ETFs. And I think you'll see that kind of thing. So yes, as more markets get embraced by financial users, I think those will bring those to the four. I wouldn't be surprised to see a fracturing out of sports betting in particular because there additional legal uh suits around that space. We're in the very early days

of this, so yeah, I do think it could differentiate. Ryan, I we haven't heard from you in a while. Is there any partic reading what Matt wrote um is there anything very particular that comes to mind for you in terms of like this the legitimacy that he's kind of speaking to the extra optionality for um traders investors in here any particular sector that you feel has legs outside of kind of what he's describing? I I mean I do think that the ability for prediction markets to allow investors to express binary outcomes of what they believe is really important. It's it's really difficult for most investors to think that uh XYZ is going to win the election and okay how do I express that in my

portfolio and then how do I break down that expression across different asset classes from commodities to technology to gold to bonds and then what vehicle do I use? Do I trade futures? Do I trade options? It just becomes increasingly complex. And so one thing that I love about prediction markets, particularly for these types of outcomes that that would affect your portfolio, setting aside things like sports related uh bets or pop culture related bets, although I'm a huge uh fan of pop culture and sports and find those markets interesting. When you're thinking about how it affects your portfolio from an investment perspective, I do think that it greatly simplifies the ability for investors to just hedge their portfolio

or or plan better, which is so important. As you know, we speak to financial adviserss and financial planners all the time and their entire business is oriented around planning for the financial future for their clients. And you need to uh be able to, you know, in a simplified way execute those plans in prediction markets and perhaps ETFs wrapped around certain prediction market events is going to make it significantly easier and more straightforward to do that. So that's the big benefit uh that that I see in terms of wrapping these in financial products. I mean, Matt wrote about this in his memo, which I would urge everyone to read, but the accuracy of prediction markets is absolutely incredible, particularly around geopolitical or macro or economic events. Matt referenced the uh the paper

by the Federal Reserve a few minutes ago in the conversation. I'll just just note that they essentially found that Koshi was more accurately predicting what was going to happen with interest rates and FOMC decisions better than these professional polling services or consensus estimates across all of the experts that aren't in real time like Khi is and were less accurate than Kelshi was. And so the kind of aggregation and filtering of information and accuracy of that information and data is also extremely powerful when you think about using it to influence how you invest or express what you believe is going to happen in markets and how

that trickles onto your portfolio. >> Yeah. >> Can I throw in one thing on top of that LG? Um >> I agree with that so much. The other thing that goes unspoken is that the largest institutions in the world have ways to get these odds themselves directly. Like in the past, hedge funds would pay highric lobbyists in DC to figure out the odds of the Clarity Act passing. I really love that prediction markets surface that for every investor. So there's a more level playing field. So I think there's a a sort of egalitarian benefit to these as well, which is really notable and really important for the the sort of fairness of our investing ecosystem. Is there is there a world Matt where you just you just read instead of reading the news or

watching the news you're just reading this like a you know whatever Poly Market's putting out basically >> dude this is one of my my favorite things I think that Poly Market should have won a Pulitzer for its coverage of the Trump election win it was the only place saying what was going to happen providing accurate information it was better than the polls it's better than every media outlet if that's not journalism I don't know, man. I that was the most important story of that year, whether you're happy about it or sad about it, >> and it was the only place that got that right.

>> So, yes, I think a lot of people are going to look as much at Poly Market and Koshi as they do at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to figure out what's going on in the world, and they'll probably be better informed. >> Here's a here's a good one right here. So this is they have their midterms midterm elections dashboard autism predictions and without even I what I like is how much they've simplified the UI and this is just poly market cali also lots of kudos to Cali I just can't access it as well from my location. Um but uh what I like here is that they've almost the even the trade part is like not that prevalent on the screen. It's not like do you want to bet on this?

It's just like no here's the information here's just the odds you know and I think that that's a really smart approach that that they have taken a lot of the other ones are taking. And it's like, hey, it's just giving you the news information, the, you know, the research that you kind of want to see up front and then you can choose if it's something you want to bet on. So, 53% chance Democrats take the Senate. 87% chance they take the House right there. And you can even they even give you kind of like your payout if you want to take that that bet right there. Uh, as it would be turning a It tells you specifically what people ask when they get into sports betting, be like, "So, if I bet on this, my $100 becomes how much?" And they just show it to you

right there. So really dumbing it down for people uh maybe doing this for the first time. Look at this beautiful map. That is a nice little map. >> Um >> unbelievable. So good. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really awesome. Well, Matt, I mean it's it's great, you know, that uh it's great to hear a great bull case here and obviously um you know I appreciate this piece because you also for anybody who hasn't seen it, you also address a lot of other stuff, a lot of other concerns that people have like insider trading. And I think again I think people have to look at this kind of like you're saying is like listen yes as a whole prediction markets like there are some issues but if you focus on the parts that um where you can actually glean a lot of information it's actually outperforming other historical sources

of information in a way that that's pretty unprecedented and that's really where there's a lot of value for for traditional finance for uh political enthusiasts or for people who just want some accurate form of news and it's not always just about uh some of smaller weird markets out there. So, I appreciate it, man. Uh, gentlemen, I think we'll wrap right there. We'll be seeing you guys again in a few weeks. Uh, maybe talk about clarity. Who knows what else is going to happen between now and then. Um, but always appreciate uh you guys making time and and and sharing a lot of your insight with us. >> Thanks, LG. Thanks, LG. Great chatting with you. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road Daily and Pro Newsletters and start investing like the

top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky.