Why Grayscale Sees ATHs Before Q3, With ETH Outperforming: Bits + Bips

We think Bitcoin reaches a new all-time high in the first half of of 2026. My view would be Ethereum continues to outperform.

Hi everyone, happy Thursday. Welcome back to another episode of Bits and Bips the interview. I'm your host Steve Erlick. We're here after a few week hiatus and a lot to discuss.

I want to introduce my special guest, Zach Pandle, director of research at Grayscale Investments. So, welcome, Zach.

Hey, Steve. Great to be here. Lots to talk about. Happy to get into it.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, from the Fed intrigue on Monday or Sunday night when word leaked of Trump being investigated to geopolitical tensions all around the world that are making intelligence analyst brain really kind of go exciting.

The very first country I ever worked actually was Venezuela way back in 2008. So that and then obviously all of the negotiations surrounding the market structure bill and whether or not it's going to pass.

Is there a way forward on a few key sticking points which we'll get into? And on top of that, Bitcoin, ETH, and the broader market seeming to brush all of this off and remain brilliant as it enters an exciting but potentially dangerous period of time or a trading range where in the past it's retreated.

But there might be a few signs that things are going to be different this time. So, we'll get into all of that.

Before we do, just a little bit of housekeeping. nothing that you hear on this program is investment advice. Please see unchained.com/bitsandbbits for more information.

Before we dive in, I'd also like to just take a brief break so we can hear from some of the sponsors who make the show possible.

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Okay. All right. So, let's kind of dive right into this. Zach, we're talking a little after noon Eastern time on Thursday. And, I guess late last night, word leaked that Senator Tim Scott, the Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee has decided to delay potentially indefinitely a markup session for the their version or his committee's version of market structure bill.

And I mean, this kind of came after several days of discussions, negotiations about a few key issues. Ethics concerns pertaining to President Trump and his family and close advisers as it pertains to their involvement in crypto.

There's a lot of questions about DeFi and and how and whether it will be sort of regulated under this this legislation. And the really big one relates to stable coins and yields because something that came out of the Genius Act was some very clever ways for for stable coin issuers and companies associated with the stable coin ecosystem to sort of indirectly provide yield which at least according to the banking lobby and and I guess some of the senators who helped draft the Genius Act and and bring it to law last year is against the spear of what was intended and the banking lobby in particular wants to close that this time around and sort of have a bit of a redo when it comes to the genius.

So, I know you're not a DC lobbyist. I know you're not a policy insider, but it's been impossible to ignore the story. So, I just want to briefly start off by getting your reaction to what happened.

Yeah. Thanks, Steve. A very intense week for the crypto policy community and all the legislators and staffers working on on this topic.

Look, taking a step back, we see a very encouraging trend on regulatory clarity for the crypto industry here in the United States. President Trump came into the office with a mandate from voters to work on these topics, and we've made huge strides, the Genius Act that you mentioned, all the changes from the SEC and other agencies last year, including things that are quite central for a asset manager like Grayscale generic listing standards for exchange traded products, for example.

So, we've made huge strides and those are going to continue regardless of what happens on the market structure bill. We're going to see more progress from the SEC, for example, this year, more ETF, a product launches. So, to me, the trend is is very positive.

That being said, this piece of legislation is is quite important. There's lots of different types of crypto industry players and they have different interests in the legislation. You know, Grayscale is an investments business.

We're helping investors get access to crypto assets safely and securely and build them into diversified portfolios. So those are the things that matter most for us for this legislation and and what what that means is really the section one title one of this piece is the most important for Grayscale and that's clarifying the commodity and security status of tokens in the market.

That's what's most important for investments business like us. So, we're pretty happy with how that piece of legislation works. I just I agree with with all the industry players on some of the other important issues, the protections on DeFi, the need for stable coin yields.

We're, you know, we're focused on really that first section, regulatory clarity on the assets that are in the market today, which will allow issuance of these assets to to pick up. And that's great for investors, the clients that we service. So, that's really the kind of the grayscale perspective.

We're happy with how title one of the legislation looks and and we're going to let some of the other industry players battle on some of these other important topics.

Yeah, it seems like this is one area. I mean, after Gayscale had been in the the news for years and years fighting with the SEC to to convert GBTC into an ETF, etc. I guess maybe it's a little nice that you guys not necessarily are sitting on the sidelines, but you're not quite the central player in in this particular fight.

And we'll let the people battle those fights today. We're we're very happy to see regulatory clarity coming for the industry broadly speaking and it feels like it's happening at a very rapid pace from our standpoint from the standpoint of an ETF crypto ETF issuer.

So things are moving in a good direction. These are all important issues. DeFi protection, stable coin yield, very important issues, but we're letting other players take the lead in those negotiations.

Right. I mean you've gotten clarity on staking. So you're convert you're allowing that first marine UTFS and I guess it's really more just I don't know if accounting was the right term but if you're going to file new products under the 33 act or the 40 act and and and some of that type of stuff.

I know you offer some D5 products and theoretically like depending on treatment of DeFi and adoption that could have associated impacts on demand for that type of product but I get it.

Absolutely. That that said I mean you've got decades of experience in in finance and in particular in Wall Street. So I I really want to get your sense of like what's going on at banks like what what is your sense there because it's hard the stable coin yield I mean that's a big discussion although there is a bit of dichotomy between like for instance BFA and JP Morgan I mean some are more cautious or concerned about stable coin yield sucking out deposits and liquidity versus others there's accusations that these big banks are hiding behind community banks to sort of protect their own turf and all of this comes within the context of President Trump I trying to mandate a 10% cap on credit card fees which could really be devastating for for bank credit card issuers their their finances or really restrict credit in the ecosystem if they can't service certain communities profitably.

So that's the bigger context. I mean what do you what do you see there from from the bank's perspective?

Well, a lot of moving pieces, you know, on the narrow issue of institutions, traditional banks, investment banks, broker dealers engaging with crypto. Look, what what we see is everybody is building and nobody is going to wait until President Trump's signature hits the legislation to begin building in in the space.

There's lots of competitive dynamics at play. if you wait until the legislation is done to begin kind of planning and and investing, you're going to be behind your competitors. So, all these big institutions have been engaged with crypto in in various different ways really for the last couple of years and that process is accelerating as the regulatory rule book is getting more clear.

So, what are we going to see? I think the things that pe the visible things that people are going to start to see this year are first stable coins showing up in lots of different places. stable coins on corporate balance sheets in their official SEC filings, you know, stable coins as collateral on big derivatives exchanges.

You know, these are going to be some of the big visible things that you see Wall Street banks doing. And then you're going to start to see, I think probably after the market structure bill gets laid down, banks engaging with blockchains directly, interacting with their own wallets, their own directly holding crypto assets on on balance sheet and engaging with the blockchains.

And then the kind of last piece and the thing maybe that I'm most excited about following this regulation is issuance. You look at big companies, they have lots of different ways to finance their business or or ways to optimize their capital structure. You know, they issue stocks, bonds, hybrid instruments like convertibles and preferred stocks.

In the not too distant future, our view is that they will also be issuing tokens, crypto tokens, blockchain based tokens as a part of their capital structure and regulatory clarity is going to allow that to continue.

So I I think an explosion of issuance from large businesses of tokens as a natural part of the capital structure is going to be one of the biggest implications of regulatory clarity in this space. So locks going on but in my view issuance will be the the the most longlasting and probably has the biggest implication for investors the clients that we service at Grayscale.

Yeah. So just to follow up on that and then we'll move to to markets which is I know your your real area of expertise. Who do you think has the most to gain or lose from all of this? Like like like who's going to benefit the most?

And I guess the answer could be a little bit depends on how the final bill if there is a final bill, how it's constructed, but but who's got the most at stake here.

Yeah. Look, I when we look at decentralized finance, right, I think that the bigger picture vision is that we're going to compete with all aspects of traditional finance, all aspects of trading, lending, payments, custody. We're going after all of those things, but decentralized finance excels at a couple specific things today.

And these are things like crossborder payments, trading of cryptonative and collateralized lending. So focus on those issues. I would think those are the things that are most at threat from continued growth in in the crypto ecosystem.

The decentralized finance is crossber payments trading of cryptonnative assets and and collateralized lending the parts of the large banks large financial institutions that engage in those businesses we're going to go after first and eventually many other things trading of equity securities and and bonds uncolateralized lending we'll get to all of those things but I think those are sort of next generation DeFi today I would focus on those specific pockets.

You know the banks are very well aware their margins and those business are the things that are a threat from DeFi and so you know they are preparing you know either investing in stable coins or other infrastructure so they can hold back the industry or at least compete alongside it as as DeFi continues to grow.

Gotcha. Okay. So so let's turn to the markets. I mean it seems like Bitcoin, ETH and and a bunch of alts are I guess I don't know if ignoring is the right word but but they're certainly taking some of this turmoil in stride.

I mean, Bitcoin briefly touched, I think, $97,000 last year, the first time in in months. It's up 10% on the year. It's dragging a bunch of other tokens along with it.

I mean, the rally really seemed to start a little bit with everything that happened with Jerome Pal and and I guess attorney pro over over Sunday night and I guess concerns about an an increase in in easy money, etc. But these assets are are jumping and I'd love to really kind of understand because you go very deep into the data why and and the real question I guess the real two questions then on people's minds are one how sustainable is it and two how high could it could we go?

Yeah, lots to dig into and I think maybe we could separate the kind of fundamentals and the fund flow topics, the technical topics. As you mentioned, Steve, we look at both of those things at Grayscale. You know, you have to look at both of those things to understand why any asset moves in the market. Definitely Bitcoin and and Ether, that's the case.

Maybe just starting briefly from the fundamental side of things. Look, I think the regulatory clarity piece is an important piece of it, but as you say, as the kind of odds of this legislation are are moving back and forth, it's not directly translating into into markets right away.

I think that that's partly because people still think this legislation is going to get done. But I think the bigger piece of it is that the number one driver of capital flowing into crypto is demand for alternative stores of value. It's this macro imbalances that are driving capital into foreign currencies into precious metals into industrial metals.

These are the same forces that are driving capital into crypto and and to me that story keeps getting bigger and bigger and you can look at you know things like gold, silver, platinum, palladium, you know everything that is happening in the in the precious metals. Clearly the basement trade still running there and I think basically the debasement trade has arrived in crypto in the last couple of of days. So that's from a fundamental perspective and that's overriding any of sort of like the indogenous things that are happening in crypto right now.

Yeah, I would say maybe if I had to put a kind of rough number on it, I I'd say it's sort of 7030. You know, 70% the kind of macro trade, dollar to basement trade and 30% the regulatory trade. again like just to roughly approximate my my own thinking and then the fund flows are are very interesting.

There's always a lot of moving pieces, but you know, I think primarily the driver at the moment is the is the ETFs or or ETPs, exchange traded products. We use those terms synonymously. In December and in the very beginning part of the year, it was all about kind of a tax related trade.

You had a billion dollars come out of the Bitcoin ETFs in December and a billion dollars come right back in in the first two trading days of this year. That's a sign that probably there's you know people realizing tax losses in the 2025 tax year and then buying back those positions at at the start of the following year. I don't think it suggested anything fundamental.

And then in the last few days, you've started to see some of those real longerterm fundamental capital flows come back into the ETFs. And that's really the the the flow story why price is up is the ETFs have come to life again. And that that's what we want to see. That's what we'd expect to see.

You know, the ETFs are are the natural place for institutions, for intermediated wealth to access crypto. We're starting to see that now. And I think again, I think it's driven by both the macro story, a demand for alternative stores of value and to some degree improved regulatory clarity.

And happy to dig into the other types of flows, derivatives and some of the oat whales, some of the big stories from Q4, but I think it's the ETFs that have been the big mover since the start of January.

Great. And we will get into that stuff, but but I do want to ask you about just at least flows for your ETF. I know sometimes it's hard to know exactly who's buying your stocks or who's who's trading them, but I am curious like your sense are are these big institutions are this is this retail? Are these flows coming from raas that have mandates now to offer these products to their customers? Like like what's your sense of actually who's buying it?

Because I I have seen some a lot of reporting and data suggesting that this time it is largely a retail driven spot driven sort of surge in demand at least for now. Derivatives volumes and open interest remain somewhat flat and and I think even the Bitcoin funding rate I I saw was negative. So, it it seems like it's really a spot movement and I'm curious like how that correlates to what you're seeing at least when it comes to to GBTC and and broader ETF flows which I'm sure you track.

Yeah, absolutely. Crypto derivatives markets, especially that offshore market dominated by perpetual futures, is still pretty quiet. We can talk about that more at at length. I it really has not been a releveraging of offshore futures market driving prices recently.

it's been real money or or or or fiat currency being converted into Bitcoin through the through the ETFs coming into the market and who is the buyer? You know, you mentioned that there's lots of different types of buyers. there's retail, there's traditional institutions like pension and endowments.

But the the big piece in the in the middle of the bell curve for the ETFs is advised wealth and this is R IAS as you mentioned independent wealth advisors but also increasingly the broader platforms are onboarding our products and other crypto ETFs and advisors are building them in to diversified portfolios for their clients.

We think that this has a very long way to go. So our our data would suggest that conservatively there is less than half a percent of US advised wealth allocated to the crypto asset class and I would say it's probably even quite a bit smaller than that but conservatively less than half a percent.

You know that number probably grows to a few percent coming years.

And if I could inter interject I apologize if you don't have the number off the top of your head, but what is a half percent of like u advised wealth like what what does it actually mean to make it tangible for for it's like a couple hundred billion dollars hundred billion dollar something something like that US advised wealth is probably a $40 trillion or so industry.

There's no exact precise number but 40 45 trillion in that ballpark. So you have a you have a lot of money that has moved into the the crypto ETFs of course over time also into digital asset treasuries like strategy or or micro strategy and we count all of those things together when you look at the portion that's held by advised wealth again all added up we still think that is a good deal less than half a percent and so when we look over the coming years you know grayscale we we'll focus on all those different investors institutions retail But advised wealth will be a huge piece of it.

I think that this will be a a very steady source of demand for capital inflow into the ETFs and something that will create a persistent bid for Bitcoin, for Ether, for some other altcoins over time.

Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, I I'm going to try to do a little math in my head, and it might not be a good idea because I actually made some mistakes helping my fourth grader with her math homework last night, but I I I think JP Morgan came out with a report saying that there was about what was it $150 billion in of of inflows last year into crypto. Does that sound about right to you?

A bit a bit less than that. I mean, if you look at the net flows for all crypto ETFs, just the ETFs and maybe not not just ETFs. I mean, I think you're talking about Treasury with debts. With the debts, probably it reaches that number. Yes. Yeah. So, I'm just thinking like a couple hundred billion in in advisor denominated funds like it would be much less than Well, I messed up, I think, doing math again, but it's it's it's much less than than a half a percent. It seems correct. So, I'll stop trying to do that. All right.

We have a lot more to to to get to, but but we need to take one more break so we can hear from the sponsors who make the show possible.

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All right, so let's pick up where we left off. The real question now, I mean it seems like some of the fundamentals are are much more encouraging than perhaps other brief rallies. And the real question now comes or the real question now is what happens next? Bitcoin like $100,000. We haven't gotten there yet, but that's a very psychologically significant price point.

Typically, when Bitcoin has these surges, the long-term holders are selling. Although, I've seen some data suggesting that those sales have slowed down and and profit taking may not be as robust this time around. But but what are you seeing like like do you see the potential for a breakout back into six figures? What would it take and and sort of are there any like big stimuli catalysts out there that could sort of help build the I guess grow the narrative like the bullish momentum because I know traders are starting to get a little more greedy.

Yeah, look, I I think the fundamental pillars driving the bull market very much in place. And those are the two things that we've touched on. Macro demand for alternative stores of value, regulatory clarity. I see a series of catalysts from both of those things over the next few months.

In terms of price predictions, you know, we we typically don't do price targets, but we we have said Grayscale has has said that we think Bitcoin reaches a new all-time high in the first half of of 2026. So we hit 126,000.

This is just you and me and a and a few thousand friends. So that's right. Between you and me, a few thousand friends, we think something above 126 by June 30, something like that is a a reasonable summary of our expectation. But what we're trying to get across Steve is, you know, we think the bull market is moving ahead.

You know, we think that there are these fundamental drivers and we think that there is plenty of room for capital to enter the crypto ecosystem and drive up valuations and the most of that likely to be through the ETFs. But I think you know some other things a releveraging of offshore futures you may see that as the kind of speculative piece of the market comes back. So that that's sort of the high level picture.

You know what are the risks to that? You know things are looking pretty good right now. What are the risks to that? Like when I look back at the fourth quarter and all the things that that happened, look, with the benefit of hindsight, it looks like basically an OG Bitcoiner crash out was the main reason for the the underperformance of price in the month of November, which was really the really the key month in in Q4.

We can see that on chain. You know, there were these two big events last year, one in July, one in November, where a lot of old coins moved on a chain. And I I think that essentially this is a sudden kind of profit taking moment by some of these OG holders.

When we think about where Bitcoin is going over the next few months, that's really the question mark. You know, there's a lot of positives from a fundamental side and I think new capital coming to the ecosystem. the risk that we're underwriting, you know, being long Bitcoin over the coming months is uncertainty about some of that OG holder behavior.

Do you know, do we continue to see some profit taking by long-term holders that holds back the price from reaching all-time highs as soon as I I I think it I think that we are mostly through that. I don't predict more of these you know big liquidations by OG holders but I think we need to acknowledge you know they they were a factor in 2025 they are a little bit hard to predict in terms of timing so that's going to be a thing we need to be watching over the coming months the good news is it's all very transparent on chain you know that's a great thing about the the Bitcoin blockchain you can see all this activity we'll be watching out very closely to see whether we see more of those large profit-taking moments by some of the early Bitcoiners this here.

Okay. So, let's talk about a few other assets then. I mean I mean let's talk about ETH. I I know that when things are going well, ETH can actually be I guess deflationary and but it has a certain it has a very different value proposition from from Bitcoin.

What are you seeing there? And and maybe we could also talk about Salana too. So I mean like the two big L1s how are they behaving differently and and how does like sort of this debasement trade affect those particular assets or are there other drivers that are really impacting what's happening there?

Yeah, great set of questions and a lot of nuance. You know, this is a pretty sophisticated crypto audience. So, you know, I think we can talk about some of that nuance on on this call. Look, obviously Ethereum smart contract platform in some ways it benefits more from regulatory clarity than Bitcoin.

You know, Bitcoin is building some of these things, layer 2 and and all that, but they're all quite early stage. And there's some other regulatory questions like taxes on on dimminimous Bitcoin transactions, etc. that that'll matter more for Bitcoin. But when we're talking about unleashing DeFi, stable coins, tokenization, you know, Ethereum will benefit more from that.

So if we get regulatory clarity with the market structure bill with more actions by the SEC this quarter, my view would be Ethereum continues to outperform. So I I think Ethereum very well placed here in that in that regard. I also think that Ethereum may be different from Salana in that it has some of the macro bid behind it.

You know, Bitcoin is in demand as a alternative store of value in monetary asset. Ethereum is not exactly the same as Bitcoin, but I do think it is considered by many investors as a scarce commodity because of relatively low inflation and maybe captures some of the macro bid as well. So I think Ethereum very well placed for both of those reasons.

As your listeners know, you know, Ethereum can't do everything. You know, it has lower slower block times, higher cost of transaction, etc. So, you know, many of the other smart contract platforms also will benefit you, you know, Salana, tons of positive things going for the Salana ecosystem.

I think it will continue to be a leader in the in this space. particularly on things that you know require higher turnover tokenized equity trading. I think something that Salana continues to to lead in. I would expect a lot of growth in that area this year.

And then some of the other smart contract platforms are going to be coming on board. Maybe just briefly from a grayscale standpoint, you know, we we we're thinking a lot about the ETFs that will become available this year. We have Ethereum ETFs obviously Salana ETFs.

I think investors can expect more of the smart contract tokens to be available to mainstream investors through the ETF structure this year and that that potentially also helps them capture a bid. So, you know, to summarize, I guess if I had to put kind of one of the major assets at the top of the list for myself starting off 2026, you know, to me, Ethereum stands out in a lot of ways because it benefits from that regulatory clarity and probably it also has some of the macro bid.

The ETFs are ready. We're staking in the the ETFs. So, it it's really ready for institutional adoption. And I think many of the other smart contract platforms are going to perform very well also. But they they are more about that regulatory clarity and adoption of the technology and less about the macro bid for these asset.

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and anything that involves money like DeFi. This auditability, not only is it super important, but is actually a legal requirement in many places. And being able to prove what happened and that what you're saying has happened hasn't been edited or massaged in any way. Well, it's really important for DTI today, but to be honest, it's only going to become more and more important as this industry grows and more value is pushed through blockchains.

Going back to the the market structure discussion that we had, I I am curious. I mean, since you mentioned ETH, like are there certain smart contract platforms L ones that have more at stake than others? I I mean I mean I know that ETH dominates DeFi especially in terms of like like TVL and and high value transactions. Other blockchains are are are making plays to get pieces of that D5 pie successfully.

I I know ITRA UTRA the rise of like like tokenized treasuries, money market funds etc across blockchains. which which ones u in a very not official investment advice type of way like which ones do you see as having the most at stake and and could potentially outperform that are perhaps a little bit more under the radar at least the people that don't follow this industry every second of every day like we do.

So I'll I'll tell you how Grayscale Research thinks about this on the market structure bill. I think you're absolutely right that Ethereum has more at stake than some of the other players and it ties back to the some of the debate points that you mentioned at the outset. Stable coin yield, you know, Ethereum is the largest home for for stable coins, decentralized finance and protections for those builders.

Ethereum also the biggest DeFi ecosystem. So, it affects all of the smart contract platforms and and many other things frankly in in the crypto asset class. But I do think it's fair to say that Ethereum has more swing on the success of the market structure bill than than some of the others.

Like when we look at the category as a whole, like look, smart contract platforms are the cornerstone of crypto investing beyond Bitcoin. They're really essential part of the asset class. Yeah. To our account, there are around 40 or so projects that are, you know, large enough listed on major exchanges, 40 45 or so that compete really in this in this space.

And our view is that you have to have a differentiated strategy in order to maintain pricing power and capture fees over time. And so there are maybe 40 45 of these projects. There's maybe a five or half a dozen or so that'll compete in the long run. And they have to have distinct strategies.

In our view, Ethereum a great example of that. You know, it is going for high quality block space, more decentralization, more resilience and and not competing on on fees and speed in the same way as others. Other chains competing to be fast and cheap. You know, Salana, SUI, good examples of that.

And there's other ways to compete in this market whether through distribution, customization, you know, you know the stories for some of these other chains. And so our view would there be half a dozen or so smart contract platforms that capture the lion share of the the fees in the in the space and I think some of them will be leaders today like Ethereum and Salana and some of them will be emerging chains that are you know are just just getting going but they need to have a distinct competitive strategy.

There's a lot of chains and not all of them are going to be capturing huge amount of of values over time. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So we're going to start wrapping up soon but I I have a few more questions.

For one, we've been talking around it a little bit, but I want to give you a chance to directly address what's been going going on at the Fed. I mean, I I know Chairman Pal's, video was, I guess, at least on late night shows, was sort of seen as akin to a hostage video. But the content of of what he said was was was pretty direct and and and very incisive.

I mean, he sort of for most of Trump's, I guess, second term has been dancing around not directly addressing, I guess, some of the insults and and other things that have been directed his way. But he very clearly said like this is all about political pressure. This has nothing at least in his opinion this has nothing to do with concern about I guess cost overruns for rehabilitating a refurbishing a couple of buildings and u but interestingly it seems like he has DC on his side especially some Republicans in particular I know Tom Tillis pointed out that he will not vote for any successor to Chair Pal when his I think his term expires in May until this issue is adjudicated or or or resolved in some way.

So, is it possible Trump went too far? What are the broader like reverberations for the US dollar u dollar primacy and and how does how do you think that impacts the price movements that we've been seeing and and just everything we've been discussing about so far on this episode?

Yeah, great great question. Look, we we are seeing the