Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Christner.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, we'll be looking at President Elect Trump's
Speaker 1: choice to lead the US Treasury. He is Scott Bessant
Speaker 1: of the Key Square Group. In a moment, we'll be
Speaker 1: speaking with David Aspell, co CIO at Mount Lucas Asset Management.
Speaker 1: But we want to begin with crypto, since last week's
Speaker 1: rally in bitcoin saw it flirting with one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Joining us now for a closer look as Peter Chung,
Speaker 1: head of research at Presto Research, joining us from Hong Kong. Peter,
Speaker 1: thanks for making time to chat with us. Let me
Speaker 1: get your reaction to the fundamentals that have been driving
Speaker 1: the price action in a bitcoin lately. Give me your
Speaker 1: assessment on what's driving this rally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this rally has been happening in two parts. First,
Speaker 2: is you know right after the election, when bitcoin was
Speaker 2: at around sixty seven sixty seven thousand dollars, it was
Speaker 2: in reaction to the election result, and it is part
Speaker 2: of a broad macro reflation trade. So that raised the
Speaker 2: big coeen price from sixty seven thousand to around ninety
Speaker 2: thousand and the second part is also related to Trump,
Speaker 2: but more crypto specific. I think the market is becoming
Speaker 2: more confident on Trump delivering on his pre crypto campaign
Speaker 2: promises based on the chatters around the key cabinet nominations,
Speaker 2: so I think they gave the market a confidence that
Speaker 2: the Trump has every intention to deliver on his campaign promises.
Speaker 1: There seems to be two parts to that story. One
Speaker 1: the idea of friendlier regulation, and the other seems to
Speaker 1: be this pledge to set up a national bitcoin stockpile.
Speaker 1: Which do you think is having a greater influence.
Speaker 2: I think more lately it's the idea of bigcoin strategic
Speaker 2: reservoir stockpile. I think the recent cabinet, the nominations, and
Speaker 2: especially the Scott Besson who just got nominated. I think
Speaker 2: he mentioned that, you know, everything is on the table
Speaker 2: with regard to bitcoin strategic reservo or stockpile. So the
Speaker 2: market is increasingly more confident that it could happen. I
Speaker 2: think the polling market is assigning something like a sixty
Speaker 2: percent probability to that, So I think that's been kind
Speaker 2: of the main thing in the last few days.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, the other thing that we're hearing is
Speaker 1: that the transition team has been talking about the possibility
Speaker 1: of creating the first ever White House post dedicated to
Speaker 1: digital asset policy. It's kind of stunning. You were talking
Speaker 1: about everything that's happened since the election. I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of the US ETFs that invest directly in
Speaker 1: bitcoin have amassed about more than one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: in assets since launching back in January. Is this a
Speaker 1: trend that you expect to continue now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think so. I think.
Speaker 2: I mean with the ETF, it basically has you know,
Speaker 2: paved the way much easier access to for the institutional
Speaker 2: investors to come in and make a long term investment.
Speaker 2: I mean, big CONTF has been around for actually two years,
Speaker 2: but before it was a futures based ETF which isn't
Speaker 2: really included for the long term investors. With the introduction
Speaker 2: of a spot ETF at the beginning of the year,
Speaker 2: which is far more efficient in terms of a tracking
Speaker 2: the underlying asset, uh, you know.
Speaker 3: That removes a lot of kind of entry.
Speaker 2: Barriers for many of the long term institutional investors.
Speaker 3: And now that.
Speaker 2: The you know, the the new president elect is giving
Speaker 2: far more credits to this asset class. With his pro
Speaker 2: crypto policies, I think many of the long term institutional
Speaker 2: investors who are kind of you know.
Speaker 3: Were a bit hesitant to prior to.
Speaker 2: This event, I think is more willing to take a
Speaker 2: look at this new emerging asset class.
Speaker 1: So pro crypto policies in the US, maybe we understand
Speaker 1: that to mean less regulation. Is that what is happening
Speaker 1: where you are in the Asia Pacific? I'm thinking, whether
Speaker 1: it's Hong Kong and Singapore, are you seeing a move
Speaker 1: to deregulate the crypto market A bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a little headstunted using the word deregulation to
Speaker 2: describe what's happening right now. It's more I think the
Speaker 2: more accurate way of describing is a regulatory clarity, because
Speaker 2: I think previously what was happening was a lot of uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it was more policy driven, approached by the
Speaker 2: SEC through UHH through enforcement actions uh and some of
Speaker 2: them were you know, Ukraargia was not very lawful, uh
Speaker 2: and also very vague guidance from the regulatory agency. Going forward,
Speaker 2: you know, I think there's going to be more clear
Speaker 2: rulemaking by these regulatory bodies in the US and I
Speaker 2: think that's going to have an impact on the jurisdictions
Speaker 2: in Asia as well. I think many of the country,
Speaker 2: many of the governments in Asia has been kind of
Speaker 2: looking at U, you know, the US, and using that
Speaker 2: as a benchmark for their own regulatory framework. And now
Speaker 2: that the US is more in I guess in a
Speaker 2: position where they are willing to provide the further regulatory
Speaker 2: clarity through legislative process as well as you know, by
Speaker 2: having SEC who's more willing to work with the crypto industry.
Speaker 2: I think that's going to have an impact on the
Speaker 2: many of the governments in this part of the world.
Speaker 1: I found it to be very interesting last Wednesday, I
Speaker 1: think it was that a court in Shanghai rule that
Speaker 1: owning cryptocurrencies outright should not be against the law in China,
Speaker 1: but the government we know has argued recently that they
Speaker 1: are a threat to financial stability. What do you think
Speaker 1: this ruling means for crypto generally and especially in China.
Speaker 2: I think in China, I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 2: kind of misunderstanding on what the China or where China
Speaker 2: stands on crypto and blockchain. I think part of it
Speaker 2: is just lack of transparency, and part of it is
Speaker 2: kind of uh, you know, Chinese government uh not doing
Speaker 2: a very good pr job. I think what they were
Speaker 2: afraid uh so far is the fact that this is
Speaker 2: a very volatile asset class and therefore, uh, if you
Speaker 2: let the uneducated, the retail investors have a full access
Speaker 2: to this asset class, there could be a lot of.
Speaker 3: Uh uh you know, losses and uh you know, which.
Speaker 2: Could potentially lead to the social unrests and things like that.
Speaker 2: So uh, they were afraid of retail investors having access
Speaker 2: to full trading services provided by the crypto exchanges, and
Speaker 2: that's why they banned cryptic exchanges from operating on shore. Uh.
Speaker 3: But I think I don't know that that's not the
Speaker 3: same thing as you.
Speaker 2: Know, not allowing blockchain projects to be launched, for instance.
Speaker 2: That's why we still see many of the block change
Speaker 2: projects coming out of China. Uh. And also uh, that's
Speaker 2: why I think, uh, the as you mentioned, uh they
Speaker 2: want need to come out and clarify that the ownership
Speaker 2: of a crypto is not unlawful, because I think there
Speaker 2: was a lot of confusion maybe in the marketplace about
Speaker 2: where the government stands on that issue.
Speaker 1: So much of The conversation around bitcoin when it first
Speaker 1: emerged had to do with the underlying blockchain technology that
Speaker 1: distributed Ledger. One of the things that was discussed at
Speaker 1: the time is whether or not it could be a
Speaker 1: key source of future financial market innovation. Have we seen
Speaker 1: blockchain really become more broadly adopted in financial markets. Let's
Speaker 1: imagine some form of crypto, a cryptocurrency that could be
Speaker 1: used for transacting in markets. We haven't yet seen that though,
Speaker 1: have we?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So?
Speaker 2: I think the way to look at this is like this,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of experimentation going on in the crypto space.
Speaker 2: Some experiments have done better than others. The ones that
Speaker 2: have done better is obviously Bitcoin. Bigcoin's value proposition is
Speaker 2: someday becoming a currency, but it's not a currency that
Speaker 2: most people commonly understand. It's rather than a top down
Speaker 2: driven currency, it's a bottom up driven currency where people,
Speaker 2: over time comes consensus that this should be used as
Speaker 2: a currency. So it's a long process and usually the
Speaker 2: first thing that happens is it gets adopted by a
Speaker 2: store as a store of a value, and next as
Speaker 2: a medium of exchange, and lastly you need of account.
Speaker 2: We're going through the first stage right now, and Bitcoin
Speaker 2: has done extremely well on that front, especially with the
Speaker 2: introduction of ETF its adoption as a store of value
Speaker 2: has expanded dramatically. Now other cryptocurrencies still kind of at
Speaker 2: the experimentation stage, but the one increasing, one killer app
Speaker 2: that came out from outside Bitcoin is the stable coin,
Speaker 2: which runs on a smart contract platform like ethereum, for instance,
Speaker 2: and a stable coin right now market keap is twenty
Speaker 2: billion dollars and it's widely adopted, not just on the
Speaker 2: you know, amongst the crypto enthusiasts, but if you go
Speaker 2: to the emerging markets. It's a way for people in
Speaker 2: the emergent markets to access US dollars in the form
Speaker 2: of a stable coin because it's the currency they trust
Speaker 2: more than their own currency, because their own currency regime
Speaker 2: is a lot of times very unstable.
Speaker 1: So when I hear you use the term store of value,
Speaker 1: I think of a hedge against inflation. Do I have
Speaker 1: that right? And if so, is some of the price
Speaker 1: action that we have seen lately in bitcoin correlated in
Speaker 1: any way to FED policy?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I think, yeah, when I say store of a value,
Speaker 2: you're right, it's inflation hedge, but more correct term would
Speaker 2: be debasement hedge because the word inflation sometimes is misunderstood.
Speaker 2: People think it's a CPI. CPI is only one of
Speaker 2: the metrics to measure the impact of inflation. But when
Speaker 2: you associate inflation with a CPI, people look at CPI
Speaker 2: and says, all CPI is going up, But how come
Speaker 2: bcoin is not is not going is not performing well.
Speaker 2: So that's why I don't want to use the word
Speaker 2: inflation edge.
Speaker 3: But and then when it the debasement hedge is you
Speaker 3: can only kind of see that over the very long term.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, it's more about the durability of the purchasing power.
Speaker 2: So uh, it's some more kind of a long term
Speaker 2: oriented concept. Now when you you mentioned about the recent
Speaker 2: bitcoin movement around FAT policy, uh, and that's about I
Speaker 2: think that's you're talking about the price kind of actions
Speaker 2: surrounding how FED reacts, and that's a very short term
Speaker 2: driven movements.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And in the short term driven movements, I.
Speaker 2: Think bitcoin behaves more like risk assets because there's an.
Speaker 3: Element of.
Speaker 2: The element of a network effect that needs to be
Speaker 2: accounted for because it's a bitcoin is essentially like a network,
Speaker 2: but in its very early stages, so all these stages
Speaker 2: of growth, so you might not notice this concept of
Speaker 2: debasement heads in the very short term price reactions of
Speaker 2: a bitcoin.
Speaker 1: What about the pr campaign that the industry is going
Speaker 1: to have to fight when you have situations like FTX
Speaker 1: or binance occur and the damage, the reputational damage that
Speaker 1: may have been inflicted on the industry. What type of
Speaker 1: campaign has to be put forward right now to dispel
Speaker 1: a lot of the concerns that people may have in
Speaker 1: adopting this technology.
Speaker 2: I think that's why this legislative process is very important.
Speaker 2: I mean, when you think about it, one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why we had FTX situation was there wasn't a
Speaker 2: proper legislations that governs the space, and the rulemaking was
Speaker 2: left very unclear at the time. If we had all
Speaker 2: the proper regulations and legislations in place that requires these
Speaker 2: exchanges register and make a disclosures, then I think a
Speaker 2: lot of these things could have been avoided.
Speaker 3: So I think that's the first step. And the fact
Speaker 3: that we have you know, the red sweep in.
Speaker 2: The US, and you know with a lot of lawmakers
Speaker 2: are who are pre crypto and who understands the technology.
Speaker 2: I think it's a very good news in terms of
Speaker 2: passing like rational and thoughtful legislations and policies that are
Speaker 2: based on the sound understanding of the technology.
Speaker 1: So we've been discussing a little bit here about your
Speaker 1: view on disruption of some of the traditional practices. When
Speaker 1: you look at out at twenty twenty five, how much
Speaker 1: larger will the market be in the year ahead.
Speaker 3: A lot of it.
Speaker 2: Will be still be driven by bitcoin, I think. I mean,
Speaker 2: when you look at the market cap of a crypto,
Speaker 2: you know, more than half of it is bitcoin e
Speaker 2: theorem is maybe another you know, twenty percent, you throw
Speaker 2: in stable coin, and then maybe that's another ten percent.
Speaker 2: So about good seventy five percent of the crypto market
Speaker 2: cap is driven by these three three asset classes. So
Speaker 2: I think the main driver will be from those three
Speaker 2: now from the remaining twenty five percent, you know, we
Speaker 2: could see something emerge as the kind of main growth
Speaker 2: driver for the crypto industry, but it's hard to predict
Speaker 2: what that may be. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: Like I said, it's a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 2: of experiments going on in the crypto right now, and
Speaker 2: there are some areas that I think are getting attention
Speaker 2: from you know, some of the vcs such as you know,
Speaker 2: decentralized infrastructure a network for instance, but it's very early
Speaker 2: days at the moment, so you know, rather than speculating
Speaker 2: on what can come out from that remaining twenty five percent,
Speaker 2: I think we can the better way of forecasting how
Speaker 2: big this industry is going to be, well, how big
Speaker 2: the market cap is going to be, is by looking
Speaker 2: at bitcoin, Andy Thereum and stable coin and see how
Speaker 2: much further growth these three categories can deliver.
Speaker 1: Peter will leave it there, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being with us. Peter Chung is head of research at
Speaker 1: Presto Research, joining us here from Hong Kong on the
Speaker 1: Daybreak Asia podcast. Welcome back to the Daybreak Asia Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Doug Krisner. Joining us now is David Aspell. He
Speaker 1: is the co CIO at Mount Lucas Asset Management, joining
Speaker 1: us from just outside of Philadelphia. David, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. If you don't mind, I'd like
Speaker 1: to begin with the President elect Trump's choice for Treasury Secretary,
Speaker 1: Scott Bessant, who, as you know, has tested experience in markets.
Speaker 1: He's the co founder of the hedge fund Key Square group.
Speaker 1: Do you want to weigh in on this, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd like to get your reaction.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think he's an excellent candidate. To
Speaker 5: be frank, he is an excellent pedigree. You know, he's
Speaker 5: spent a long time running macro hedge funds where you're
Speaker 5: intimately involved with macroeconomics, trade policy, and analyzing fiscal policy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think he's excellent. He's got a lot
Speaker 4: to deal with.
Speaker 5: I would have thought in terms of the tariffs and
Speaker 5: the trade policy goals that the Trump administration has been
Speaker 5: talking about not to mention domestically, particularly if they're looking
Speaker 5: to reshape the federal workforce. But overall, he seems like
Speaker 5: an excellent candidate who's very well suited for the position.
Speaker 1: He seems to be a fiscal hawk, so that's less spending.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I've read in terms of his
Speaker 1: approach to tariffs is that they would be more gradual,
Speaker 1: maybe than the market had been anticipating. When you look
Speaker 1: at overall Trump economic policy, give me your reaction. What
Speaker 1: do you think it's going to do for markets going
Speaker 1: forward and the economy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean, these are trade and tariffs are really big
Speaker 5: important issues that the administration seems very keen that it
Speaker 5: wants to make meaningful change in the country, and they
Speaker 5: see that, they're okay breaking some eggs to make that on.
Speaker 4: It is a fascinating time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: We talked to a lot of investors and there's a
Speaker 5: range of expectations that you see coming out of election,
Speaker 5: where some people have their head in their hands and
Speaker 5: others are over joy that. You know, some people are
Speaker 5: very fearful of inflation due to tariffs and you know,
Speaker 5: runaway deficits and a falling dollar, and others are fearful
Speaker 5: of completely the other side of the equation on deflation
Speaker 5: and economic problem stemming from large government cuts and the
Speaker 5: tariffs hurting growth. So overall, I think it's going to
Speaker 5: be a fascinating time. You know, I'm I think they're
Speaker 5: going to pull it off. If I'm honest, I think that.
Speaker 4: It will go well.
Speaker 1: The next big event for markets probably is going to
Speaker 1: be the FED meeting in mid December. Right now, the
Speaker 1: swaps market indicates maybe fifty to fifty chance of a
Speaker 1: quarter point rate cut. Do you think that what we're
Speaker 1: hearing from the incoming administration is going to ultimately put
Speaker 1: the FED in a tight spot in twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: in terms of further rate cuts, given the risk of
Speaker 1: maybe stubborn inflation at the very least.
Speaker 4: Maybe.
Speaker 5: I mean, as I look at it now, the markets
Speaker 5: have oscillated this year, well the last couple of years
Speaker 5: really in oscillating from fears of recession where they've started
Speaker 5: to price in lots and lots of rate cuts, and
Speaker 5: then to a more milder period where the markets have
Speaker 5: got ahead of themselves in there two years around about
Speaker 5: four forty ish currently, which is a fairly reasonable spot
Speaker 5: that's pricing, you know, a couple of cuts likely, as
Speaker 5: you say half, there's a fifty percent chance of a
Speaker 5: cut after.
Speaker 4: In December, and then we'll see where it is after that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: The interesting thing is, you know the Fed has begun
Speaker 5: a cutting cycle. They've cut seventy five basis points, and
Speaker 5: after that initial shift lower mortgage rates are about seventy
Speaker 5: basis points higher than they were in the FED cut
Speaker 5: in September. And some of this is is some positivity
Speaker 5: I think that you know from the incoming administration that
Speaker 5: I think people are starting to price that you're going
Speaker 5: to see a shot in the arm for growth, and
Speaker 5: that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will be extended
Speaker 5: and we'll see possibly a deregulatory boost as well. So
Speaker 5: I think the Fed's in a pretty good position right now.
Speaker 5: The markets are not pricing masses of cuts, and if
Speaker 5: things do slay down, the FED is in a pretty
Speaker 5: good place to be able to cut rates to get
Speaker 5: activity going again.
Speaker 4: So I think the Fed's in an okay place.
Speaker 1: It's a holiday shortened week, as you know here in
Speaker 1: the US, markets will be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: Black Fridays the next day. This is when we traditionally
Speaker 1: begin the holiday shopping season. And I was struck by
Speaker 1: the fact that the National Retail Federation is forecasting sales
Speaker 1: will reach nearly a trillion dollars. That would amount to
Speaker 1: a record nine hundred and two dollars per person. How
Speaker 1: do you assess the health of the American consumer right now?
Speaker 1: Will it equate to nearly nine trillion in holiday sales?
Speaker 5: I mean, the economy has some issues, and the economy
Speaker 5: employment growth is slowing, but mortgage rates are back to
Speaker 5: the highs.
Speaker 4: But in general, there's a lot that's going well. You
Speaker 4: know that the prime age employment is at twenty five
Speaker 4: year highs.
Speaker 5: Wage growth is very good, and inflation has come down bumpily.
Speaker 5: Oil prices aren't particularly high.
Speaker 4: So in a time when you've got good wages.
Speaker 5: And lots of people employed, I think it's a pretty
Speaker 5: good backdrop. And hopefully people will be you know, enjoying
Speaker 5: Thanksgiving turkeys and then going out and spending in.
Speaker 4: The run up to Cristmas.
Speaker 1: All right, So when you look at markets right now,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about the opportunities that you're seeing.
Speaker 5: Well, we run systematic strategies in currencies, commodities, and fixed income.
Speaker 5: I think generally these strategies tend to do real well
Speaker 5: when there's periods of volatility. And you know, if there's
Speaker 5: one thing that Trump Trump is, it's generally positive for volatility.
Speaker 5: And what you've done is add in Elon Musk, who's
Speaker 5: one man volatility machine. So it seems like there's lots
Speaker 5: of opportunities for us. You know, where the dollar go.
Speaker 5: This seems really interesting. Gold has been moving around all
Speaker 5: over the place, mainly straight up, but you know, still
Speaker 5: a half past couple of years, but.
Speaker 4: It had a bit of a swoon earlier on.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I see lots of opportunities around macro trading
Speaker 5: and and in the dollar in particular.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you're seeing opportunities around the volatility that
Speaker 1: we've seen in markets in China. At the end of
Speaker 1: the week, we're going to get the official PMI data
Speaker 1: sets for China. How do you feel about markets in Asia,
Speaker 1: but especially China.
Speaker 5: Obviously, they they've started to stimulate, and they've they've done
Speaker 5: that in a quite bumpy fashion. The economy is has
Speaker 5: slowing and has slowed and its continues to slow, and
Speaker 5: I imagine they're quite fearful of the incoming Trump administration
Speaker 5: given the talk around tariffs. The stimulus was initially received
Speaker 5: pretty well and then some of that initial spark has faded.
Speaker 4: I actually thought it was.
Speaker 5: What they did was very meaningful and is you know,
Speaker 5: it seems like they are very keen to do more,
Speaker 5: and they're likely to do more.
Speaker 4: But even without it, I mean, you're starting to.
Speaker 5: See some uptick in activity from the surveys there, and
Speaker 5: you know, some of the companies themselves are putting out
Speaker 5: quite positive statements. I think you're starting to see that
Speaker 5: inflection point. And if I was them and you saw
Speaker 5: the incoming Trump administration what they're talking about, and you
Speaker 5: knew what that you need to stimulate anyway that I
Speaker 5: think they would frontload some of that stimulus to get
Speaker 5: ahead of what might be coming down at them.
Speaker 4: So I thought what they've done is quite meaningful and powerful.
Speaker 1: If you look at markets in the Asia Pacific, I
Speaker 1: think there's no doubt that Japan was one of the
Speaker 1: bright spots for twenty twenty four. At the end of
Speaker 1: the week, we're going to get a number of data
Speaker 1: points for the Japanese economy, retail sales, factory production, the
Speaker 1: jobless rate, and the CPI data for the city of Tokyo.
Speaker 1: Is Japan still representing opportunity to or has that train
Speaker 1: pretty much left the station and there's much less in
Speaker 1: the way of upside.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think is an economy that is generally
Speaker 5: positively exposed to trade and global growth, and if you
Speaker 5: get a shot in the armed from from the US
Speaker 5: growth picking up, I think that will do well. I
Speaker 5: think you're starting to see some meaningful change in Japan,
Speaker 5: and it's taken some time, but I think Japan looks
Speaker 5: quite looks quite good.
Speaker 1: Are you fielding a lot of interest in anything that's
Speaker 1: related to crypto right now, maybe through ETFs.
Speaker 5: I feel a lot of bit interest about it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's the anything between that and micro strategy. Y. It's
Speaker 5: one of the only things people want to talk about,
Speaker 5: you know, is it digital gold? I hear that phrase
Speaker 5: a lot. I don't know there's enough going on in
Speaker 5: actual gold for my liking. But yeah, I don't trade it,
Speaker 5: but I do see I do see the price action.
Speaker 4: It's been a wild few years. For sure.
Speaker 1: We know the Trump administration might be setting up an
Speaker 1: office within the White House to look at crypto. But
Speaker 1: what does this price action tell you? What does this
Speaker 1: signal mean to you?
Speaker 5: I think it's a It's an enormous speculative wave of
Speaker 5: a lot of people speculating, gambling, having fun and trying
Speaker 5: to see trying to paint a future that may exist.
Speaker 5: And if people are under exposed to it. I think
Speaker 5: there was a genuine fears that it was going to
Speaker 5: be outlawed, and you've now got a government that seems
Speaker 5: somewhat friendly to it. There are other governments at the
Speaker 5: same way, and people are under exposed to it. Not
Speaker 5: an easy thing to get a lot of exposure too.
Speaker 5: Institutions are being slow to do it, so I can
Speaker 5: understand why people are looking to do it. I also
Speaker 5: think more broadly, you know, it's easy for people in
Speaker 5: this country to be a little skeptical of it. There's
Speaker 5: a store of value because generally this country is very,
Speaker 5: very well functioning. But you know, if you're an investor
Speaker 5: in an emerging market or in other countries in the
Speaker 5: world with less stable regimes, as a way to save
Speaker 5: and send money, I think there's a definite use case
Speaker 5: that people in the developed world often don't always appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Given their own currencies and government so I'm not particularly
Speaker 5: stable that I can see why some other people see
Speaker 5: it as a source of stability in a crazy world.
Speaker 1: It's a good point when you try to understand the
Speaker 1: use case. David, thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 1: David Spell is the cocio at Mount Lucas Asset Management,
Speaker 1: joining from just outside of Philadelphia. Here on the Daybreak
Speaker 1: Asia podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast. Each weekday, we look at
Speaker 1: the story shaping markets, finance, and geopolitics in the Asia Pacific.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Apple Spotify, the Bloomberg Podcast
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen. Join us again
Speaker 1: tomorrow for insight on the market moves from Hong Kong
Speaker 1: to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Chrisner, and this is Bloomberg.