Why Bitcoin feels dead even though the thesis is winning: Jeff Park

Transcript

I will double down on right now. This is the most pivotal time to be an ideological investor because again it goes back to this point of like what do you believe in and what are your virtues and what are the sacrifices you're not willing to make and what do you stand for? >> Bitcoin is finally showing signs of life but has now slipped back below 90K. Is it going to break out or break down and when? Hello and welcome to the Milkro Show. The podcast that knows that when the World Economic Forum is meeting, it's a great time to remind everyone about Bitcoin. I'm your host John Gillan. Today is Wednesday, January 21st, and today we are joined by Jeff Park. Jeff is the chief investment officer at Procap Financial, where he leads investment and capital market strategy with a focus on Bitcoin and digital assets. Previously, he served as

head of Alpha Strategies and portfolio manager at Bitwise Asset Management, and held positions at Corbin Capital Partners, Morgan Stanley, and several others. He's got quite a resume. Jeff is going to be sharing a lot of alpha with us today on the market institutionalization of Bitcoin, what all this means for you as an investor, and there's going to be tons of alpha in this episode. So, if you are interested in this, if you like this kind of content, make sure you like and subscribe. Share this episode with somebody who's going to enjoy it. And without further ado, welcome to the Milk Road Show. Jeff, how are you, sir? >> Hello. Hello, John. Happy New Year and very happy to be here. Longtime fan of Milk Road and of course Milk Road Macro.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, I got to get you on the macro show too at some point. Um, but today we are here on the crypto channel to talk about crypto. Um, I thought a great place to begin the conversation was with this headline we saw recently. The New York Stock Exchange has announced plans to launch their own tokenization platform. CZ of uh formerly of Binance uh tweeted out that this is very bullish for crypto. Some people are not so sure though. They view this as Wall Street competition that's trying to compete with or kill the crypto industry. What's your view on this? Is this bullish or bearish for crypto? And what what are you seeing playing out here? Sure. I think it's long-term very bullish because there is evidence to now suggest that mainstream involvement is useful for the technological gains that tokenization

can bring. In the short term though, I think there's a lot of uncertainty and I do think there is a need for clarity towards what are the priorities that every platform is focused on and unlocking the utilities they believe tokenization will bring to the table. And I think we're in that kind of exciting discovery phase of figuring out where are everyone's priorities lying. And to kind of your original question, I think the question then is is that priority, you know, quote unquote like crypto aligned in terms of its value system or is it something else? And I think uh that's the part that's giving a lot of unease and anxiety to certain cohorts of the crypto tribes. And I'm sympathetic to it. But if you really think about what is tokenization and what is the promise of tokenization

broadly, I see it as a three-pronged approach. One is you want to bring enhanced depth in liquidity. You also want to bring breadth of security across asset selections that are permissible to trade that historically were not possible. And the third is the length of time and is there a way to imagine compressing that factor so that we have a more efficient capital markets altogether. I see those three things as kind of the benefits that tokenization can bring but of course not each of them are equal weight in the things that people might care about. So some of that I think uh some of that I think needs to be digested a little bit better. Now, you specifically asked about NY, and uh when I followed NY's general

commentaries towards what they're focused on, I get the sense that they're most extremely interested in the third, the compression of time. They really want 24/7 trading. They want effortless settlement and instantaneous transfers and unlock those um friction from otherwise obsolete technologies that exist within our financial market infrastructure. And that is historically as I've seen what they lead on. And if you ask me personally, I think that is the least interesting of the three prongs that I mentioned that are important for what tokenization could mean. So on my personal basis, you know, I'm probably excited about other unlocks that tokenization can bring beyond what,

you know, NY today is focused on. >> Gotcha. Yeah. I think >> and there's a lot of open questions too, right? Because like NY hasn't really shown their cards either. They haven't detailed which uh blockchain they're going to use. They haven't discussed what kinds of products that they want to bring upon. They haven't talked about what custodial frameworks would play nicely within that instant kind of trading environment. They haven't really picked a horse on even like what kind of code you would actually build it around. And so I think there's just a lot of, you know, kind of vagueness to these announcements that are being made where people can, you know, at worst be skeptical about their inherent intention and timeline to accomplishing.

>> Everything you're listening to today is also covered in our daily crypto newsletter. And on Sundays, we even recap the best parts of the entire week's worth podcast. So check it out at the link below. >> Yeah, I think the word is sus here. Um, and that's just kind of how I feel about the whole situation because just like you said, there are a number of different ways that they can implement this. How it's implemented matters and and um because of there's there's been this lack of detail around some of these things. But yeah, I I think overall though it does validate the the technology, it's validate the crypto thesis. So, we'll see how it plays out and hope that the market pushes them in the right direction. Um, you mentioned clarity in your answer, so I'm going to segue into the Clarity Act now because I

think this is another thing that there's a lot of uncertainty coming up about. Um, and let's just like kind of get your thoughts on this at the high level here. The the Clarity Act, Coinbase pulled their support for the most recent draft. It's not dead, but it's still being discussed. It seems like there will be a market structure bill at some point, but what are you paying attention to here? What outcome are you expecting? And just what are your thoughts on the situation with the Clarity Act right now? Mhm. Yeah, man. It is tenuous but important. So, I keep watching it with a lot of interest and care and sensitivity. At the same time, I think I'm not a stranger to having expressed vocally in the public arena that there's a lot to be skeptical about kind of the current like state of legislative affairs when

it comes to crypto market structure. I think I uh I think even um last year when the Genius Act passed and the Clarity Act was postponed, I had tweeted um you know what do we call clarity without genius? Uh and I said it's def definitely lost. Um and so I I think the you know the pun here and the joke intended being that like genius act was never going to be solved by itself without clarity. And I think we are at that point today now where people are all realizing that this is the last mile execution that matters very critically and all the cards, all the guns, all the knives are coming out because it is

existential to a certain way of financial services that is built into the fabric of American society. So let's remember once upon a time one uh you know legislator called the clarity act the calamity act and I think we're kind of revisiting that energy a little bit. So look what do I think you know I see there's three kind of outstanding issues with the progress being made with um the clarity act today. The first is what you mentioned yield is a hot topic and whether stable coins can pass yield to American customers. The second is DeFi in terms of what are the right protective measures to allow software developers to continue to be productive without risking personal liabilities

towards conducts that they should not be held captive for and liable for. And then the third, and I think this is actually the most difficult one, is really trying to bridge the gap between the Democrats and the Republicans in terms of prohibiting conflicted affairs in crypto investing by office holders, particularly, of course, as you know, in this case, President Trump's multiple crypto businesses that exist today, which I think is actually probably the least talked about, but maybe the most challenging one in my opinion, if I had to guess, to bridge the gap. Um but you know going back to the yield question um if you remember the genius act it passed to some fanfare uh despite there being kind of a committee division between and

the banking committee and and it was because ultimately a compromise was made the compromise was that US denominated stable coins for US customers are not yield bearing and uh people then start to ask a lot of questions as to like well if it's not a yield bearing stable coin like what's the use for it and I always made the case that the unlock that genius act is pushing for is not having stable coin as an investment vehicle or a savings vehicle like a security wrapper, but really a payment uh upgrade. How do we kind of have digitally native money that can move around for payment purposes, not investing or savings purposes, which is what yield ultimately is is concerned itself with. And after the Genius Act, you saw Stripe kind of come into the

market. You saw Circle come in a little bit more aggressively. And so I think you are seeing some of those kind of competitions um play up. But really I think if you ask any crypto investors what they want in stable coins, they've always said I want yield. I want to earn my 3.25 3.5% by holding stable coins the same way that I might in a money market fund. The reality is it's a very very um complicated question and it's not actually an easy challenge to surmount and and and the core reason is this. Let's take a step back from whatever arguments are being made on both sides by Coinbase or the banking groups. The reality is that in the United States, the idea of a deposit taking institution

is de facto a lender. And what I mean by that is that practically speaking, the US government does not give narrow banking services a Fed master account to have the functions of being a deposit institution. What that means is implicitly if you want to take dollars and actually have customer funds, you have to lend it out. You have to be involved in credit. And if you think about what that means, it's basically saying that you have to be involved in the art of liquidity transformation at the backbone of credit. And that is what the Fed is telling you. That's what the government is telling you. We do not want narrow banking. Multiple banks have tried to have a deposit only institution

and it failed every single time. So when you take that for a face value, the problem with stable coin that passes yield is that it's actually contradictory. You can't have a onetoone backed collateral that also pays yield if the entire point of a bank is built off of this fractional reserve system where that asset is meant to actually be lent out for borrowers across like a liquidity and duration transformation. Uh and and I think that's at the heart of the problem with like the culture of how credit exists and what stable coin represents to kind of that American um capitalism model and what that could undermine ultimately in terms of credit that is providing for the growth of the

economy. So it's a much bigger and serious question than like you know why can't cons consumers earn 3.5% by holding stable coins. What the US government would tell you is you can you could buy money market funds. Uh and and stable coins is like having cash in your wallet. Like your cash in your wallet doesn't earn interest, right? That's because you use it for payments. And they're saying stable coins are for payments. Coinbase and others are arguing it's actually not that just payments. There's other kind of benefits that should come by holding our own assets. So it's a it's a healthy tension, but a serious one, >> right? Yeah. Yeah, I think that help that is really helpful context that there's many trillions of dollars that are being fought over here, not just a

couple of percentage points on a on an account on Coinbase. Um, so yeah, I think that's it's helpful to frame that for the audience. Uh, I want to pivot a little bit here to come more towards Bitcoin. Um, you have been very focused on Morgan Stanley as this big sleeping giant as for the next wave of investment in crypto and digital assets. They recently brought out three new products um for Bitcoin, uh, Ethereum and Salana ETFs. Uh, I want to hear your thoughts on this. Why is this such a big deal? And when do you think the impact of this is going to start to be felt in the price of some of these digital assets?

>> Sure. So, I'm a Morgan Stanley alum as you mentioned, but I am actually at this point an elderly alum because it's been a long time since I was there. And when I joined Morgan Stanley back in 2008, we were still at a very kind of I would say narrow level defined as like an investment bank, right? like we were considered an investment bank that competed with Goldman and Maril Lynch and others for the you know investment banking business and what you've seen since past the global financial crisis is a lot of these investment banks reinvented their businesses and everyone took like slightly different turns on how to um reimagine what finance is going to look like. Goldman went a particular direction and Morgan Stanley

went into a different direction. And what I would say at this point is without a doubt that Morgan Stanley picked the right strategy and that strategy was to build on the power of distribution for wealth management. And if there's one legacy that James Corman will have left in the years that he's navigated through rebuilding Morgan Stanley post the GFC era, it is that he built a powerhouse that is mostly going to be moed in wealth management with incredible distribution capabilities that speaks to the idea of like this independent investor type mindset that is ever growing, right? More and more people are growing up and they want to basically do things themselves. They don't trust other people. They don't really like financial advisors because they don't trust them, right? and they

want to just do it in the way that they know how to do it and that world is is ever increasing and I think Morgan Stanley has just done all the right things in making the bet for that to be uh really authentic uh and that's actually a crypto value right and so in the end I think that's why Morgan Stanley is so well positioned to win you know on one hand they have Erade which I would compare to Robin Hood and other kind of brokerages that give individual investors a chance to have more of a prime brokerage type kind of capabilities that otherwise wouldn't be accessible. But then you also have like the ability to tack upon a lot of things that crypto is all about, right? Crypto is going back to what tokenization is alluding to. It's really about like

bringing liquidity to markets that we haven't seen before. Bringing 24/7 trading and also the third I mentioned like the breadth of asset security selection possible, right? Like right now we're talking about tokenized equities in many cases when the NY group and ICE is talking about you know we're doing tokenization but you might remember the original dream of tokenization was like let's tokenize like random things that historically were not securitized so you can bring liquidity into the fat tail of assets like you know arts and like Pokemon cards or whatever like that can actually become tradable assets. And what that means is ultimately combining a world of private assets and public assets and like meeting in the middle somewhere.

And take note for example, Morgan Stanley's first acquisition they made this year under the new leadership of Tedpic was EquityZen. Equities has been around for a long time and it is the deacto platform for people to engage in secondary trading of private companies. So what does that mean? Morgan Staley wants to get involved in the secondary markets business of private assets. Well, why do you want to do that? Well, maybe you want to bring liquidity to those private assets into the secondary market via the lens of tokenization and that means maybe Erade can actually then be the plug that lets you trade SpaceX on E Trade through that back end. So, I think Morgan Stanley has been very thoughtful about building the architecture with a very defendable moat and vision towards what crypto is all

about. And then as you've mentioned, they recently made the announcement that they're going to launch their own Bitcoin ETF and Salana ETF and Ethereum ETF. Um, which I think is just so powerful because it shows you that the market doesn't appreciate how early we still are in terms of the growth that is possible. It's not over the the the race in terms of Black uh Black Rockck having had the most successful ETF in their own history. Morgan Stanley is saying, "Hey, that's fine. like we're going to launch our own because it's still early and guess what like we control the distribution of the wealth management business in this country and so we have proprietary channels to stuff the way the want for Bitcoin that is issued uh with us and so I think all of this stuff

is very bullish for for Morgan Sally but also really for Bitcoin in in the sense that I think we often get ahead of ourselves and think you know we're kind of you know nowhere near where we want to be saturating the opportunity but the reality is most people still haven't really done the work and uh Morgan Stanley is saying it's time. >> Uh yeah, just so that our audience understands, Jeff just did a great job explaining Morgan Stanley's strategy as a company, but now they're going to have their own ETF products with their own labels on them that they're going to be selling to or pu like rather offering not selling to pushing on anybody but offering to a huge network of um wealth advisers and investors. Um, so this is going to radically expand the

availability and the reach of digital assets in the marketplace. Um, so we'll see what happens when that sleeping giant awakens. Uh, Jeeoff, another question I wanted to ask you about and something I've heard you writing about a lot and talking about on other podcasts, but you've talked about this pivot away from the intelligent investor, which is like this famous book that was written towards what you've called the ideological investor. And I wonder if you could share with our audience what you think what that means to you and what that means for this transition in the next phase of of Bitcoin and digital assets as we see more of this adoption and regulatory framework start to emerge here.

>> Sure. Sure. Well, first and foremost, I think the word intelligence is now becoming quickly overrated. When we even think about like AI and AGI as to like what intelligence means, it's obvious that what we've ever known as intelligence is quickly becoming a commodity. And I think that era is upon us where the way we used to think about intelligence is not going to be this proprietary kind of moat that historically um had served human civilization well for most of its existence. So here's what I mean when I say the intelligent investor mindset is dead. The intelligent investor is is written as a guide towards appreciating security analysis through a particular

framework and lens that is concerning itself with this notion of value. So Benjamin Graham thinks certain stocks are value because they dis they display these characteristics from like a valuation perspective relative to its cash flow and debt level and all these things about like growth rates. So there's like a there's like a quantitative framework to thinking about value that is based on ultimately what the return of capital should be based on the yield curve. The key word here is the yield curve. Everything we ever knew about investing always comes down to the foundational model that the whole world of securities are priced off of the risk-free rate. The risk-free rate is

basically the dollar and the long duration that it will have from 10 years maybe even 30 years but really it's about the dollar interest rate. I think we can all see what's happening in the world today and realize that world has now changed permanently where people are questioning if the risk-free rate is indeed the risk-free rate. And of course, we as Americans believe that American might and the financial hegemony of the dollar is uh is is is unmatched and unparalleled. So it it is in fact still the safe haven and that people will still flock to the dollars.

But the reality is all of the way the dollar's safety was guaranteed was by this globalization mechanism in the Washington consensus for a free trade world. And if we believe the free trade world is not going to be the model going forward, you really fundamentally have to start questioning, well, what does that do for the risk-free rate? And so I think the the punch line here is this. Just because we knew the world to be one way from the past 30 years does not mean that the world has to look like that for the next 30 years. And it is my opinion that we are at a critical juncture in time where ideology is everything because it is actually in ideology that new paradigms of world orders are recreated. And it is our job as

investors to understand where that tailwind is pushing us towards. And in that sense, it is no longer important to know like whether a stock is cheap or rich based on these metrics that we were taught are useful because it's actually not what drives markets. What drives markets every day appears to be news that happens to happen happens to unfold based on political instincts that are driven by ideology. Right? So when you think about kind of the running joke of the White House capital management that is involved in stock picking where, you know, they invest 10% into Intel and then they invest, you know, 5% in another metals company or or a natural

resources company or a minerals company like those things are the things that tends to now become event catalysts and they move markets. And what that really means is like it's it's it's time to start thinking about ideology as a de facto engine to be able to frontr run the news flow because it's just not important to you anymore that we buy stocks based on cheapness or richness when the concept of value itself has changed. In other words, value in the old world implied like a kind of cheapness. But the real definition of value as you know John is something that's valuable. And right now what's valuable is rare earth minerals. And maybe it is that rare earth minerals complex if you think it's a next 10 year

20-year bet that you actually want to be aligned with. And that's not going to be known to you because you're looking at an Excel model because that business does not exist today in the US. But if the US wants to invest billions of dollars in having a business that for instance starts mining antimony, we are going to have a giant intimate business in this country that we haven't had since the 1990s. That is what I mean by the uh rise of the ideological investor driving the car today versus the intelligent investor. >> I'm going to pause there for a second. If you're listening to this and thinking, okay, but what is the move I should actually be making? Then going pro is for you. Every week, our research team drops a full deep dive on the biggest themes everyone else misses.

Plus, you get access to our full Milkroad Pro portfolio that has real-time buy and sell signals and access to our Discord where our analysts will answer any question you have. If you want to level up, honestly, that's where you got to do it. Hit the link below. >> I appreciate you sharing that. I think that's a helpful reframe for the audience. Um, and just like a unique thesis that I hadn't heard other people articulating, so I wanted to get that into the record here. Um, I'd like to bring this to Bitcoin, right? Like Rare Earth's scarcity of access is is a thing that's driving value there. Bitcoin is digital scarcity. Um, we saw Bitcoin run up to I I think it tested 98K um in sort of like front running the expectations that Clarity would move forward. Once that became clear that wasn't going to

happen, we've now slipped below 90K again. What's your outlook on this? The followers of the four-year thesis have been saying that we're in like a year-long bare market and Bitcoin's going to go back down to, you know, 60K or something. Um, other people are saying that we're going to see a recovery and make new highs in 2026. What is your view on this and why is Bitcoin been lagging behind so many other assets right now? >> Sure. Yeah, I have some theories uh and I will walk you through each of those theories that I have in mind, but I will also be the first to admit that uh I've been a humble investor of Bitcoin where I am skeptical enough of myself to not know what I don't know and to stay out of the way if things don't make sense to me. And for better or for worse, Bitcoin

feels like it's a little bit in that energy uh since 3Q of last year. And part of it is because the price action is not matching the expectations of its investment uh vehicle behavior that you would otherwise think that the kind of uh rush of institutional investors would have found correlation in. And so that's something that I've been thinking about a lot especially in January when you basically had everything hit like all newtime highs including gold and stocks. for Bitcoin to be like a lagard is is is is hard to understand like and we all have to be kind of humble enough to recognize like commodities are all always set by the marginal buyers and

sellers at any given time. So flows triumph over everything like flows is everything and if you don't understand the flows it just means you don't know what people are doing but it's not something that is like wrong. the market's always right, especially for commodities and and something like Bitcoin. And so it's it's hard when um for like another data point I would bring is like January is is historically a pretty good month for Bitcoin, not just in terms of price, but really in terms of volume because it's the beginning of the new year and a lot of investors start positioning themselves for the rest of the year in January. So like the stock market's very very very active usually in January uh especially coming back from December when as you can imagine volume is

historically on the low end. Bitcoin trading volume right now is worse than December which is worse than November and that is really hard to uh appreciate because it feels like there's a certain sense of apathy for Bitcoin as an asset. We're at record low uh open interest for both CME futures as well as per across crypto exchanges. So there's very little leverage in the system. A lot of the price setting is actually just done exclusively by spot. But the spot market is not very like robust in the way you would expect it to be. And the part that kills me the most is every rise in volatility seems to get immediately

crushed by some kind of call selling activities. And that's the part that makes it hard to understand what is the lid that's going to come off to let Bitcoin kind of run the volatility that it's historically been known for. Um and and uh that's the open question. And I think my thesis is that we need to see Bitcoin volatility rise to a healthy level. And until I see that, it's really hard for me to uh ascertain that we have a true breakout because every kind of runup, if there's call selling type of endeavors that mute volatility, it

immediately kind of wipes out kind of the ability to build on momentum. And Bitcoin has always been a trend asset, a momentum asset where autocorrelation is pretty high. And so if you don't have the ability to let Bitcoin run, it does become pretty pretty disappointing in that the natural state of Bitcoin is in my opinion to go down. And that's really a function of attention. Bitcoin's chart is always kind of like down down a little bit down and then boom, it goes up and then it goes up for a while. But then if there's no news on Bitcoin, it's just steady down. And that's just because without attention like assets decay and people forget. Um and and right now the hot thing that people are interested in is geopolitics,

culture and AI and those >> silver >> and silver. >> Yeah. Okay. Well, so like with that kind of framing, by the way, that was very depressing. So, thank you for being so candid. Um, with that kind of framing, what is your asset or your strategy rather for digital asset investment or navigating the markets in 2026? Like are you just all in stables? Are you Bitcoin only? Or maybe you can't say, but like what is your strategy for thinking about the digital asset market opportunities in 2026? >> Yeah, I'm I'm I'm still very bullish on Bitcoin. So I do want to make the point that long term I do believe Bitcoin has all the like qualitative and quantitative ingredients to be a successful asset for security selection efforts. Um the timing is always a

little bit elusive that that that's the bottom line but but at some point there will be exhaustion and after that exhaustion is generally when the spring is most compressed and coiled such that it can be pretty explosive. And I've seen enough of this where it only takes like a week for people's sentiment to reflexively just change where all of a sudden they become mega bulls. So anything can happen. Um and I think there's there's ways to like strategically take positions and advantages of that current environment. So for example, one trade that I really like in general personally is to own longdated options in Bitcoin because Va is really low. And so if you believe that Bitcoin is going to run, the problem with black shaws is that black shores assumes like a normal distribution of events. But we know

black we know Bitcoin does not have a normal distribution, right? Bitcoin does not have like a hump shape like this. It actually has really fat tails. When it moves up, it moves up a lot and when it moves down, it moves down quite a lot. And so volatility is almost always like slightly mispriced uh in in Bitcoin world. And given that we're in kind of 40 sub 40 like V world where you extrapolate that even out two years and people think Bitcoin is going to be a 40 V asset for two years. I think there's a structural opportunity to have kind of leverage that you can control there. Uh and and and find a more capital efficient way to get Bitcoin exposure.

Um, and I would also echo that of all the crypto universe of securities, uh, and token securities that are possible, I think Bitcoin dominance will probably continue to grow. Gotcha. Okay. So, that's that's an interesting point. I I hadn't heard anybody make that observation about the the different opportunities that are available on the market in digital assets even in this low volatility environment. So, I think it's a helpful perspective. Um, you said Bitcoin dominance is going to continue to rise. I did want to ask you one question about Ethereum because I I don't hear you speaking on Ethereum too often. Um and I think that it's uh kind of in an interesting place here because you know all these things about AI tokenization a lot of these things are either native to or predominantly taking place on the

Ethereum ecosystem, the EVM ecosystem. Um the the exit queue for Ethereum staking is empty and the entry queue has never been this high before. Uh and there's this robust digital asset treasury ecosystem that's developing around ETH. Do you have any thoughts or an outlook on Ethereum here? Is this creating like a a niche as a different asset uh distinct from Bitcoin that's gaining some traction? What is your view on that in 2026? What are your thoughts on Ethereum here? >> Sure. Yeah. Before I answer the question, funny that you mentioned I don't really talk about ETH a lot on social and it's true. I I don't. And the reason is because sometimes >> no like it's funny like and and maybe this is like affecting my sentiment on ETH a little bit, but like I'll I'll say something bullish on ETH and like the

ETH people will come at me as if like I'm their enemy because I like Bitcoin and I'll say something like maybe negative about Ethereum and then like of course like you know they'll just mute me out in of the world's existence. So and then actually I'll talk about something that's not even ETH related and then people will come in and think I I'm talking about ETH and come at me. It's like, "No, I wasn't even you weren't even invited to the room." Like, so so it's like it's a very like >> I think I think the tribalism and touchiness in crypto is a wellestablished thing. So you're you're it's understandable that you've struggled with that a little bit. I get that.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what I'll say is uh you know the vision of ETH long term I think is extremely um optimistic for what we need which is like let's have more decentralized networks that allow kind of permissioning based upon like individuals that want to transact and like what a worthy mission. The problem though is that it is maybe too idealistic versus the reality of uh surviving the regulatory regime that is required in the political arena. So there's always this healthy tension of like yes, let's make it permissionless, but also should we do KYC AML, right?

And the moment you go down the KYC AML route, like there there's an element of crypto that is lost, right? Like you know, if you if you if you really talk to those who believe in the crypto mission at the core, deep in their heart, they will say KYC AML is actually like the root of most of society's evil, right? like most of like the discrimination that is happening where finance is being like provisioned for certain people but not for others is by weaponizing KYC AML. So there's this kind of uncomfortable reality of like what does ETH mainstream adoption even mean? Like what does it mean when Black Rockck is going to come into tokeniza

tokenization by embracing ETH? And I think there's just a lot of these kind of philosophical questions that makes it sometimes hard to navigate. And you know, I think recently it's gotten accentuated by the fact that two things happened. One is I think Tempo kind of launching as its own uh blockchain instead of on ETH kind of was a big negative because it shows you that commercial interests when it triumphs kind of the philosophical goals mean that it's much much much easier to solve coordination problems without it being decentralized. And that's what ultimately like the tempo kind of architecture uh would speak to. And then

the second thing is around the governance issues we've been seeing with one unis swap but I think lately with a as well where this kind of bifurcation of like token economics versus corp shareholder equities are starting to like reemerge into like who's driving the bus and where is the profit accumulation and distribution of those gains happening to whose benefit and to whose cost. And those are like really uncomfortable questions about like what does it mean to invest in a protocol versus investing in a company and who's responsible for the token holder or their shareholder and making sure there are equitable outcomes. And I think just because the world of crypto right now

looks like it's being kind of bear hugged by regulation and institutional support. Those things have just become much harder to like navigate. So it's a it's a really deep moment for introspection in my opinion. And I suspect that's also why even within Ethereum there's a lot of lot of um kind of strife in internally between how they want to empower Ethereum. But you know long run like what they're doing is really noble and like if I were more optimistic about like human civilization and like the individual's ability to like tolerate the virtue of decentralization, I would wish to espouse the case for Ethereum even more.

But here's the other thing that I just learned over the many years. Most people are actually pretty lazy. Like most people don't care about decentralization. Actually, most people don't want to self- custody at all. Most people really like the convenience of having someone to call on their phone line and say, "Hey, I made a mistake. Can you refund this?" Or, "Hey, like I wired this incorrectly. Can you reverse your transaction?" Or like they they like that. And you know what? no fault to the fact that's the human condition and like at some level like we do benefit from having certain levels of intermediation. So I think that's always been like the hard part for me to understanding where ETH fits in whereas Bitcoin it's a lot simpler right because

there's almost no expectations of those kinds of intermediated services on Bitcoin. Jeff, I've always appreciated your commentary on the market because you have a unique and uh like I think a good point of view and perspective from the institutional side, but also the digital asset native side. So, I appreciate the nuance that you're bringing to this and I like that perspective of like these these ideological, you know, ideological investors from the cryptonative side trying to come to terms with some of the the regulatory and legacy things from Wall Street and just seeing how this plays out cuz like we started with the conversation with the New York Stock Exchange, it's it's not clear. the Clarity Act does not pass. There's still a lot that's being figured out and we have to pay close attention as that happens cuz these solutions matter.

They're still coming into place. But I will say I do look forward to seeing you getting attacked on Twitter for talking about Ethereum. Um, so I I'll back you up, but I'm sure we're both going to get in trouble with this conversation. So that's >> I will no I will I will I will I will I will add one more comment to my view on Ethereum which is beyond my optimism that I have for its general success to come is like I will double down on right now this is the most pivotal time to be an ideological investor because again it goes back to this point of like what do you believe in and what are your virtues and what are the sacrifices you're not willing to make and what do you stand for. It's and and I think now more than ever it's the reason why crypto is kind

of feeling schizophrenic because on one hand it's like oh my gosh I love that the New York Stock Exchange is coming and talking about tokenization but also like what chain are they using? I mean like oh my gosh are are they going to use Canton? Like like are and are they going to use Ripple? Like I mean it's one of those things where like you love to see it but then you're also like what is it they're actually doing? And like unless you really firmly stand your ground and something you believe in at your core and like will that upon your community as the one as kind of the one way I don't think you're going to make it. And for and for for that Ethereum does have a strong core in having decentralization for better or for worse

as its north star. And that's why I say with a lot of commendation that it's very optimistic of the fact that again humans are generally just not that like you know smart but like you have to give credit where credit's due that it's a noble mission and and deep in my heart I support that noble mission. >> Jeff Park thanks for being on the Milk Road show. Thanks for supporting the noble mission. Where can we send people to find more of you and your work online? >> Well you can find me on X anytime. uh maybe on some of the Ethereum sub threads and otherwise you can find me on my Substack as well, the link to which is in my profile.

>> Sir, I really appreciate you coming on the show today and being so forthright about your feelings and all this. Thanks for being on the Milkro show, Jeeoff. >> Of course. Anytime. >> Thank you all for joining us. I hope you all learned a lot today and uh feel inspired and recommitted to all the values and virtues of crypto. So until next time, stay safe, stay educated, stay bullish, and we will see you all on the next episode of the Milkro Show. Thanks for being here everyone. Bye. If y'all are making swaps or trades right now, highly recommend you check out Milkroad Swap. This is a DEX that we built in partnership with Cow Protocol. Why do we build it? Not to make money, just honestly so we could have a place to do our swaps for the lowest fees that we could find. This is the fees on

Ethereum, Arbitum, and Bass are only.15% fees. Uh this is a huge difference from uh other centralized exchanges that charge half a percent or even up to 1.2% fees on their swaps. Also, you can swap on Salana all at swap.mmillgro.com. Check it out today. You won't be upset. And you can join me in my favorite place to make swaps on chain. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milkro 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.