Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to EU Wolf Spaces. And good morning, if you're tuning
in from the US. We're just waiting on a couple more people joining us here today and this morning.
Welcome. And we have an incredible panel of speakers joining us as well.
So I want to welcome you back if you joined us from last week.
Today, we're diving in a little bit more into what it feels like investing in crypto within the EU and UK markets, the good, the bad, the ugly, you know, all the regulatory changes and what it, you know, shapes to look like for the next few years for us over here on this side of the pond.
And there's been a lot happening lately, actually.
The UK specifically recently is now formally recognizing crypto as a legal property.
recognizing crypto as a legal property. So that should be very interesting. And then also the EU
So that should be very interesting.
itself now confirming a block-wide 10,000 euro cap on cash transactions. We can probably discuss
that a little bit today. And yeah, just basically means tighter identity rules for crypto transfers
and investing, how that would look like for the retail market as well.
For those who may not want to get direct exposure to crypto in itself, but rather through like a more portfolio traditional avenues.
So I'd like to kick off with Alex, if you want to take it away.
Perfect. So thank you for that wonderful introduction.
My name is Alexander, I go by Trader Alex on X.
So it's my second time doing one of these spaces.
I thought I should just sort of walk through a little bit of what's going on in the EU related to crypto.
So what changes has been implemented, what is going to be implemented,
and sort of what the future holds before our amazing guests jump in.
So there's been quite a lot of noise about Mika and the tether, of course, being delisted
But I think a lot of people might feel like it feels a little bit unclear how it all fits
So that's what we'll try to go through today.
So the biggest direct structural change since Mika itself on December 4th, the European Commission announced that ESMA, the European Securities and Market Authority, is becoming the single supervisor for crypto across the entire EU.
So why does that matter? Well, before this, if you wanted to, let's say, run a crypto business in Europe,
you had to deal with 27 different national regulators.
Bafin in Germany, the AMF in France, the AFM in the Netherlands,
each one with their own interpretation of the rules,
their own timelines and their own way of doing this.
One license from ESMA gives you access to 450 million people across 27 countries.
That also eliminates regulatory arbitrage.
So no more shopping around for the friendliest regulator.
Everyone plays by the same set of rules, interpreted by the
There is one exception worth noting.
If a bank's crypto business is less than 50% of their total turnover, they stay under
the national supervision.
So cross that threshold and they move to ESMA as well. So Europe actually made it easier
here according to many special institutions and that's not something that you might maybe often
hear about regulations. So about the USDT deal listing. This is the one a lot of people might be a little bit confused about. So
Tether, USDT, the world's largest stablecoin, $149 billion there about. So here's what happened
with that in regards to Mika. So Mika requires stablecoin issuers to keep 60% of the reserves in EU bank deposits.
Tether looked at that requirement and didn't really sit so well with them.
The reasoning is actually quite interesting.
So the Tether CEO, Paolo Ardonio, essentially said that they're not going to put $90 billion
in uninsured EU bank deposits. European deposit
insurance only covers around 100,000 euros. If something goes wrong with those banks,
400 million USDT holders are exposed to that so you can either agree with that logic or
not but that's the position they took what followed was a delisting cascade so coinbase
removed USDT in December 2024 and crypto.com at the end of January and Kraken in late March. Binance on March 31st. Now I should be clear
about something. USDT is not banned in Europe. You can still hold it. You can still use it in DeFi.
You can trade it peer-to-peer. What you cannot do is buy it on regulated European exchanges.
And while Tether walked away, Circle stepped up.
They got their Mika license in July 2024.
Their Eurostablecoin, EuroC, has grown 2,700% since then.
Circle did the regulatory work, and it seems to be paying off.
So Mika and the Genius Act has a lot of things in common, at least for when it comes to stablecoins.
So, the Genius Act was signed July 18th, 2025.
So, what's interesting is sort of what they agree upon.
So, both ban interest payments to stablecoin holders.
So, neither side want stablecoins competing
stablecoins. Luna and UST
one-to-one reserve backing
and redemption at par value.
difference is reserve composition.
So EU says 60% of reserves must be in EU bank deposits.
The US says you can hold 100% in cash or treasury securities,
so no bank deposits requirement.
So that's why Tether can work with the US framework,
but not the EU framework.
They're comfortable holding treasuries.
They're not comfortable with concentrated European bank exposure.
One more thing to keep in mind,
99% of the stablecoin market is dollar denominated.
dollar denominated. So USDT, USDC, dollar dominance is not just the narrative, it's
So USDT, USDC, dollar dominance is not just the narrative.
really what sort of options that have been available. And that's something
the European policy makers have been quite aware of.
And this is a little bit more now for the institutional side,
because it's important to know where the EU is heading. So the EU raised the
cap for tokenized securities from 6 billion euros to 100 billion euros. That's a 16-time increase.
So now these DLTs, distributed ledger technology, this is about security, so stocks, bonds, derivatives, structured products,
not like Bitcoin or Ethereum. This is traditional finance assets running on the blockchain
infrastructure. So all financial instruments are now eligible. The time limits have been removed.
This is a permanent path now. It's not a sandbox anymore.
Crypto exchanges can operate the DLT trading systems and tokenized assets are now recognized as valid collateral.
The last point is quite significant.
It enables on-chain repo, security lending, blockchain-based treasury management.
This is institutional infrastructure.
Europe is saying that they are serious about tokenized securities. It's not an
a little bit about the travel rule,
transfer of funds regulation
in Europe. Here's the key number.
and the US has a $3,000 threshold.
So in Europe, a 50 euro transfer through an exchange
triggers the same reporting requirements as a 50,000 euro transfer, for example.
Yeah, I was just going to ask
why do you think that might be for the EU?
they want to hold treasuries.
there should be a certain amount of cash deposited, right?
So the Tether people don't want to be like centrally,
So it's kind of the thing.
Yeah, it seems like there's a massive shift going on
in the landscape into more backed up coins
from treasuries, as they say, for more USDC
would be the choice or flavor of coin, I guess.
And yeah, sorry, did you want to finish elaborating on from that?
Yeah, I was just thinking to glance over all sort of main things going on in Europe. So everybody
feels sort of up to date. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. And if you guys want to check out
Alex's work, do give him a follow. Next up, I'd love to bring up Jonathan here, who's one of our senior analysts at Leverage Shares.
You guys do incredible work, I know, on the US side.
But now you're also expanding on EU and UK markets.
I would love to find out what you guys are working on and what insights you have on the crypto space and the markets generally overall.
So, yeah, I mean, we've been trying for a while to get leveraged crypto products, exchange traded products trading in Europe.
in Europe. We now have managed to be the first company essentially to have long and short 3x
leverage Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange traded products. These are daily products though,
they track the price of Bitcoin for daily moves. They're not necessarily for long-term holding,
but it does show that on the topic of regulation, the market is starting to warm towards crypto in general.
The UK is still a bit more strict in that regard in terms of the allowance of leverage products with crypto.
But in the EU, it seems to be a bit better.
The products themselves are listed in Switzerland,
so on the sixth Swiss exchange, but they are passported across different countries in Europe.
So that's one side of things. We also work on income products, which are unrelated to crypto
at the moment, selling options on single stocks, gold and fixed income and other things like that.
And then originally, we started off with Leverage Shares,
which is a US company, as you mentioned.
And that is more just generally trading leverage instruments
on a number of different stocks and so on.
And for those who are, I guess, quote unquote,
eligible to invest into potentially looking at these products,
how or what platforms can some of these European countries
look into, maybe potentially brokers,
or do they have to go through a special fund?
What does that process look like?
Yeah, so, I mean, the process is moving along.
We did get the regulatory approval,
but then now it's up to the brokers in Europe
to start passporting this across.
Obviously, there are certain brokers that are now listing that. So I believe Trading212 is
listing these in Europe across different countries. And then anything on the sixth Swiss
exchange. But I think over time that will expand to more brokers. It's just about us individually
going out to brokers and expanding these products a bit more and reaching out to them. So it does take time, but the products are trading essentially. Yeah, that makes sense. I
think for us here, a lot of, I think we discussed this also last week, how USA ETF specifically,
like we can't even invest directly in them, like QQQ or SPY, simple things like that.
We have to go through these weird hoops of like oh what exchange is it
on is it under London Stock Exchange Swiss Exchange you know the DAX so it's about looking
at the fund itself and then identifying what exchange it provides it under and then checking
in with the broker if they actually have that product available. So you might be looking into Trading212 is massive.
I believe IG.com is another big European broker.
Hargroves Lansdowne is another one as well you guys can look into.
And I'm not sure if you know much more about, I think the UK as well,
They recently allowed crypto ETFs or ETNs rather in Europe to be investable
into portfolio pensions. Do you know much more about that? Is that offered also into your
prospectus? So that would involve spot. So that's two different things. If you're holding the spot,
the actual Bitcoin itself in an ETF, so the BlackRock ETF, for example, they now have a
usage version, which does trade in the UK. Where the UK is still
strict and, you know, maybe they have their reasons, but it's anything to do with leverage
and crypto together. So that does take a bit more time. So our products themselves, they are
long and short. So they can allow traders to take positions, short-term positions, but it's not the same thing as holding Bitcoin.
And that is treated differently by regulators.
So obviously, if you look at the BlackRock ETF in the US,
massive amounts of inflows, the one that holds spot Bitcoin,
huge, huge successful story for Bitcoin.
That was obviously very easy to get now listed in the UK
I wouldn't say very easy, but it has now been listed.
So that is one kind of product which is separate.
But I think the FCA was able to allow that.
Yeah, and thank you for sharing that.
if you guys have any questions, please do post them below. We'd love to help you answer. I know
it's a very challenging market to navigate through and our guest panels here are absolute experts at
that. Jonathan, do you feel or anyone on the panel, like with all these regulations, do you
guys feel like it's safer or more restricted that's the question
because why would they put that in place right i mean it depends it depends on your view like
if you're looking for massive multiples on crypto then i think in a way that defi side of things
the unregulated side there was a bit of risk there that people were willing to take
and that actually allowed for higher returns i think what's happening now with crypto and Bitcoin especially, we can use that as an example,
it's obviously become very institutionalized now. Big investors are holding it in their portfolio
between one and five percent and it's just starting to trade like a traditional asset. You've got
exchange traded funds and things like that. So it depends on who the person is, right? Like,
in a way, I think it's very good that it's now normal investors can just get Bitcoin exposure,
they don't need to go on crypto exchange that they don't understand or hold the private key
or private wallets, they can use regulated products, whether that's futures products,
whether that's spot products, there's a number of ways they can get exposure.
And it does, Bitcoin's basically just grown up.
The asset class is growing up.
And that was always going to be the path.
The regulator was always going to come in.
It was never going to allow Bitcoin to just be this decentralized thing,
crypto to just be completely decentralized.
There was always going to be regulatory catch-up.
So it just depends on your point of view.
If you're an institutional investor, then obviously it's great because a lot of these institutions wanted exposure to Bitcoin or Ethereum,
but they didn't have the ways to do it
because their mandates wouldn't allow them to invest in something
that was not regulated properly.
And the only way Bitcoin ever gets to higher numbers
is if it has more institutional investment.
So, yeah, it depends on your take, but I think it's a good thing overall and probably was inevitable.
Yeah, I absolutely think I agree with that.
I think it's almost like a catch-21, I feel like, over here.
It's like they put in these crazy regulations to protect, quote-unquote, the retail investors.
So us normal people, whereas obviously if you're a professional, you get the full menu if you like.
But at the same time, I feel like it's restricting a lot, really.
And in a way, and this is the other perspective, right, is preventing people from investing or making it very more challenging and difficult.
Do you think younger investors are being sort of priced out or discouraged because of these rules that keep changing?
So on the spot side of things, so just buying Bitcoin, holding Bitcoin, I think there's nothing stopping them from doing that.
Any investor in Europe can get exposure to Bitcoin and they can hold it on an exchange.
They can, I think, now get a spot ETF holdings.
It's more on the derivative side of things.
So these are typically, you know, leverage instruments are something that sophisticated
investors use. So that is more difficult for retail to get into. I know in the past,
in the UK, investors could actually just go onto Binance, for example, and trade
leveraged crypto futures, perpetuals, perps. that's no longer allowed. So it depends on,
I think the perception of the market is that the retail investor doesn't actually understand
these things, but a lot of retail investors really do. So I see your point in that regard.
It's like, it is restrictive to certain investors who are actually very well qualified, especially
people that have been in crypto for years and years on the retail side because they actually got
into crypto before institutions. So I do agree with you in some ways on that. I mean, it is
overly restrictive, but it's hard. I think they should need to do suitability tests and test
people's ability in certain ways if they're able to trade certain products rather than just label,
okay, if you're an institution or not, because I think it is more complicated than that.
I don't think it's almost black and white label.
Are you in this professional or non-professional bucket?
I think it's down to the educational level and the understanding of, well, it comes back
down to the fundamentals of investing.
Like, do you know or understand what you're buying, right?
Or investing in the long term, short term.
And you guys offer great products, you know, in the ETP with leveraged shares and the income side.
I have a special guest just popping in.
I have a question from Sammy, if you'd like to come up.
I'm a technical analyst in Bitcoin Wolf Podcast, by the way.
But anyway, to Jonathan's point, I do have a question for you.
I noticed that when markets open, the equities markets,
when Bitcoin or SPY, IWM, they're somehow all in sync.
And sometimes Bitcoin is, for me, I've been using as a leading indicator,
if anything, more like a VIX. Like, for example a there's a head and shoulders on the 12 hour on bitcoin
i wonder if you know the technicalities or like is it i know it's institutionalized because i
posted i post a lot of um a lot of the similarities and iwm spy and bitcoin you know uh they all look
the same is is it officially institutionalized, Bitcoin?
Well, I think if you look at the – thanks for the question, Sammy.
I think if you look at the amount of spot Bitcoin in these ETFs right now in the US, it's 1.33 million.
So it's actually more Bitcoin now than there was at the Bitcoin when Bitcoin was 126K back in October.
I think it's the same level.
So there's a lot of volume of Bitcoin that's now traded in that ETF market.
And those obviously trade with the US stock market in the US.
So I think that has something to do with it.
The fact that when the US market opens, it has an impact on the price.
That would be my thinking on that generally.
But yeah, I don't know if that helps.
No, I appreciate the insight. Just any information helps because again, I'm using it as a leading indicator and I suspect a little bit more
bearishness going into today. But no, it's nice to hear at least from a broad perspective. I'm not
the only one looking into this or at least we all see it, but it's very unique. Like you said,
eventually Bitcoin was supposed to be, well, they did want it to become decentralized, but now it feels like it's more centralized in essence.
But, you know, it is what it is.
But thank you so much for having me up here.
And I think there's some much more detail on their website.
Do give him a follow and all of our speakers up here as well.
I would like to bring up a legendary trader and JJ, it's been a pleasure to have you here. We'd love to get your insights on the market
and you've actually been in two different places,
What's your experience like with crypto
and investing all this crazy stuff?
I actually started investing in crypto after we had Hunter Horsley from Bitwise on our podcast,
Confections of Market Maker.
And that was right when they had figured out the counterparty risk.
Until counterparty risk was taken care of, I didn't touch it because your money just
disappeared and all that stuff.
So being an old guy, I'll let the kids figure it out. When they do, I'll jump in. So I started
buying a little bit of Bitcoin and just putting it away. I don't trade it as a trader. I just
invest in it. And my whole thing is 10, 20 years from now, if the zero and one mafia get things together. This will be very cool.
My perspective is the perspective of someone who creates product.
What I'm really excited about is taking companies public on blockchain with tokenization of
That for me is very exciting because it means distribution.
So if you're selling a stock, for example, you have to go through the Securities and Exchange
Commission, you have to file an S1 or whatever form has to be approved. You have to pay the
blood-sucking lawyers $3,000 an hour to do all your legal work, accounting, transfer agents, this, that. It is taking a company public,
they've made it so massively difficult and so expensive that this is completely going to change
the world because now also you can sell stock or securities, tokenized assets to people who don't have a brokerage account.
So you can sell a share of a company that's tokenized to somebody in Kuala Lumpur and somebody in China and somebody wherever they can access the crypto markets.
For me, listen, the way I look at things is if I can get a million people to buy $200 worth of
an asset, I can, I can sell $200 million worth of stock for my clients that day.
And that is how I look at things. I'm a distributor. And so I think this is very exciting. Now,
when it comes to the UK, I'm a visitor here, but I do notice that, um, and I, I don't mean to speak out
of turn, but I do notice that they're, they like to keep the retail trader kind of in a box. Um,
you know, folks here are not allowed to invest in this and that, this and that and they have to go through their isa and they get charged ridiculous fees um and so you know i know there's investor protection and then
there's also you know are are they are they doing this slowly and then they're going to relax the
rules as time goes by because they don't understand the asset class. I find a lot of regulators, because I've been dealing with regulators for 34 years of my life,
they don't usually understand advanced concepts.
And I think crypto, until we get some regulation and we put people, we need young people in the regulators chair.
Because if you've got guys my age making the rules our first response is always
to say no we never say yes because we're old we're disgruntled and there is a there is a certain
thing i see i'm 57 years old i see a lot of the old traders on x and they're hating on these young crypto kids who are making lots of
money. I'm different. I'm like, great. You know, if a 25 year old person can make a million dollars
and not have to like work for some skeevy boss, that's beautiful. I think that's a wonderful
thing. And I think that's the way the world is changing. So for me, I'm still learning a lot about DeFi and I'm learning about stable coins.
And so I just own, you know, Bitcoin, Ether, Ethereum, and, you know, a couple of the other
ones. Scarf guy down in the Cayman Islands, my girlfriend listens to him a lot, Raul Paul.
So I ended up buying some of that Sui stuff. I still don't even know what the hell it is, but I've got little bits of it, you know, in, in, in, you know, in an account and I'm just
kind of picking away at it. And when Bitcoin falls, you know, I'll go pick some up. I've got
some levels that I watch and I'm just buying it and putting it away. I don't look at it every day.
I mean, I put levels out for the guys in my trading room, you know, who like to trade it. But for me, I don't understand the trading mechanism
that great. So I'm just gonna look at it like an old guy who's just accumulating a position.
You know, not so much that if it goes completely horribly wrong that I lose everything, but
enough that, you know, you've got a position, you can take advantage of
the upside. And I don't stress out about it. I mean, I saw the market came off and, you know,
these are brand new markets, right? These are brand new markets. They're just price discovery
over a hundred thousand is, you know, it's like going out into space. We don't know what's up
there. So, you know, let the chart build itself out.
Let's get comfortable with it.
I'm looking at crypto 10, 15, 20 years down the line.
So that's why I love coming into spaces
with a bunch of young people
who know what they're talking about
because it's time for us old dogs
to start learning some new tricks.
That's the way of finance.
If you don't keep up with this stuff, you get left behind
and there's just so much opportunity.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
You never thought about it that way.
So coming on to that, what do you think, I guess,
in the industry overall, not just EU and UK,
what do you think these companies, you know, businesses need to do more of to help guys like you?
And I guess normal people just don't understand, I guess, or make it easier.
Education is, you know, I think an educated, informed investor is the way to go.
I come from, I was taught by guys from the 80s, you know, the slick salesman, you know,
the guy who, you know, drives the Porsche and shows up with the gold Rolex, that cheesy,
you know, just sell them, sell them, sell them.
And I think younger people now, they're smarter.
They're more transparent.
They're not going to fall for the same BS that we did in the 80s and the 70s and the
They're a smarter breed of cat.
So educating the investor, I think, and having a relationship with the investor, that's why
they used to call it investor relations.
Now it's just sell them stock and hope they go away.
But I'm a total big believer in
education. I think an educated, informed public can make good business decisions and plan for
their future. Because the way I'm seeing things, and I don't mean to be an alarmist or anything
like that, but man, these governments, they're not going to take care of us, right? We have to look after ourselves, our families, the ones we love,
and we have to educate ourselves and always be learning. Because, you know, just even,
you don't have to become an expert, but just enough where I'm a big believer in people,
you know, making use of the financial system to make a little extra cash,
make a living and improve their quality of life. And I'm really a fan of when they get to do it
without blowing up accounts and causing all kinds of stress. And that's what I teach. I treat,
teach very practical trading. And I think with crypto, if we could bring some practicality education and, but I'm really, really hell bent on getting
some young people in at the SEC, in at the FSA, getting, you know, like the old stuff shirts,
it's time to put us out to pasture on the regulatory side. We need new, young, educated
blood in the regulatory and also in the political area where, you know, they can start
making some good decisions based on fact and not fear. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think, as you
say, you know, crypto is such a new market. I think, to be honest, for me, I think it's the
new kids' way of investing. It's like, screw the stock market, we'll create our own. Something that makes sense for us. I think that's beautiful.
And the old people, like me, our first reaction is, oh my God, they're taking away from our money.
So that's why they regulate and they're just blocking people. You need to do this,
you need to do that, you have to fill out this form and that form and jump through this hoop and oh
and then we're going to charge you fees to jump through the hoops right instead of embracing it
right because you guys are the future right you know i'm 56 you know i don't know how much time
i got left on the earth you the next generation we've got to let them take it and run with it
are they going to make mistakes yeah are bad things going to happen yeah but let's i mean bad things happen in in traditional finance every
day they're just not really talked about so it's it's just because you know you have you know banks
trading ahead of client orders the block trading scandal at at uh was it not JP Morgan, but Morgan Stanley, all of that stuff, right?
So, but nobody talks about that stuff.
So, you know, I think it's time to let young people, you know, get into some regulatory
positions and start making this work.
I 100% agree with you there.
And it's like, if this is our avenue that that it makes sense for these guys to hop on.
I think these regulations, in my personal opinion, I think it prevents a lot of investors,
especially younger ones, from hopping on board.
What do you think about the 10,000 euro, you know, sort of regulation on cash payment?
They're so like, oh, we need to kbc this this is how much you can invest
in the thing is the u.s is like unlimited almost well here's the thing they say okay ten thousand
dollars but i i've been on the institutional side and seeing some i've seen some stuff you guys that
would turn you guys blue you know you have um organized crime people
taking bags of money into banks and that's okay but you know if a young person wants to put in
more than 10 grand you know they're they're they're literally up their butt with a microscope
right so it's you know the whole money laundering thing is you know regular people
aren't money laundering and they're not doing those kinds of things they're just trying to
make a living and they keep they keep trying to block them from from getting ahead and then they
go and tax the hell out of them on the other side it's kind of like they get them at both ends and um i i think you know i'm all i'm on listen i'm not
against money laundering regulations by no means but i think you have to be realistic about things
like you know some guy who's saved up 20 grand who wants to you know do a cash deposit of 10
um i i don't think there's anything illegal about that. It just doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, I think so too. It's just, I feel like we're very restricted over here.
And coming to talking about regulation, somebody who knows a ton about this stuff,
I would love to introduce Yunus if you want to give a little background of what you do and
how you're involved in the crypto space and what your thoughts are hello hi thank you uh thanks for the introduction uh so uh let me briefly go over
uh this is uh kind of like my little quant account by the way uh the account that i'm joining in the
space with so i just want to let you know and uh to me i work at an exchange called one bull x for the moment uh
it's in dubai based but uh personally i worked uh previously at exchanges such as bybit bitget as a
business development manager and i've been in the crypto space more than five years now working on back end and a lot of projects
as well. So I got some knowledge that I've gathered through the years working on the
projects, you know, DeFi side of things, L1s and L2s. So for this EU space, I think I can make the best of myself in terms of when I talk about investing in crypto in and how to do in a regular way in EU now.
But to add on to the previous points, I believe that regulation was inevitable.
As I mentioned, I was here five years ago in the crypto while working on blockchain.
So at the time it was like an
imagination for most people and uh like we kind of stuck like a bunch of geeks you know talking
about oh decentralization is the future and uh we were really believing at the time but uh you know
in reality there has to be regulation and uh i am you know supporter of that as long as it's not to restrict.
So as I mentioned, Alexander also I think mentioned that it is now on one hand to pass
all the regulation tests for the exchanges or providers, which I believe is a good thing.
But for the restrictions and how strict that is going to be, I believe it's going to be
try and fail and try fail and then maybe we'll loosen up at one point because as I mentioned,
the crypto is obviously is one of the riskiest class of all the investment
But still, the opportunities in the crypto space are a lot higher, I believe, and the
But if someone who wants to, you know, make use of these opportunities, I think they should be at first,
get knowledgeable about, we say,
DY or do your own analysis in tokens.
And I'll try to mention some of the stuff,
let's say when I want to invest in a token,
what I look at it within it, within its tokenomics,
within its, let's say inflation
schedules, because I think one of the most different thing from regular investing in
traditional finance is that, you know, stocks rarely go zero, right? You know, they can depreciate
a lot in price, but in crypto, you know, one day you can see token drop 99%.
So it's not a surprise for us now.
And maybe some people will remember the recent crash, October 11th.
So most tokens even touched like $0.
So I think that some regulation has to come and anonymous projects with CEOs and CMOs, all like monkey NFT pictures has to be gone.
I mean, to me, DeFi is also a future of finance, a new way, a new way that we can be more flexible.
a new way that we can be more flexible.
But still, this anonymity part is, I think,
making more hurt than good, in my opinion.
So I will try to mention on those parts.
And as I have worked on exchanges,
and the current exchange I'm working on has two sides.
So they're, this is called OneAsset.
So they're trying to bring tokenization in Dubai first and then expand.
So I'm also involved in that part, but my main focus is working on exchanges.
So maybe if anyone has questions regarding to how exchanges operate in the back end and how everything moves through smoothly, I can help you on that part.
But in general, as we're talking about investing crypto in general, and if you're not talking about Bitcoin and Ethereum,
I strongly suggest anyone who is looking to invest in long term in in small coins small caps to look at you
know some of the key key red flags and some of the key points which i i can also mention and you can
also look up to yourself as well because uh you know it there are some similar ways in traditional finance in stocks, but in crypto, usually they're a lot more aggressive with these unlock schedules, you know, vestings.
And even, you know, there are some tokens that is not capping the supply at points.
So, and you have to check them, I think think if you're looking to invest in long term and uh
i think this is a lot healthier for for us as a mix working on an exchange to keep more users
uh on the exchange and uh on the game still and also one thing we're doing is as one bull x exchange i'm working on we're working on
automated solutions for trading so we're trying to bring this spartan themed market to users
with bots and uh they will be using automated strategies and to that i I also want to mention that, you know, I worked at BitGet and Bybit.
Their actually most popular product in a few years was copy trading.
But I think that in Europe, that's going to have a lot more, you know, legal definitions for now that it will almost stop at one point but I still strongly
believe that you know if you're going to trade crypto and you don't know nothing
about it yeah you're just simply gonna lose money so and I'm trying to be here
to help and I'm also open to you know discussing anything you want to discuss in regards to exchanges and projects and L2 sites.
Thank you, Yunus. That's quite the insight.
Yeah, so with exchange, I think this is another thing with JJ as well.
There's so many brokers that we traditionally invest in, you know, with like for our normal portfolios. But when you enter
the crypto space, now you're dealing with so many different types of exchanges to get your foot in
the door. And this is the other complexion of the layer, right? I do have a question from the
audience. And it's a little bit, I guess, the battle between centralized and decentralization is,
will there ever be, or do you think there'll be a decentralized fund
that is exposed to options selling for anyone that can invest in the crypto space?
I guess, would options, do you see options as a product to be a big thing in the crypto space,
both centralized and decentralized?
That's a good question uh
actually a really good question i believe that uh even for right now i believe there are some providers but not legal probably on only legal on some parts of the world on layer twos maybe but
on layer twos maybe but uh the big part with crypto is that i believe it's the ease of use
uh because you know you deposit money to exchange and now it's changing with mika a little bit but
it's on still same way in us that you know uh you deposit money and the fees are very low for trading and the leverage is instant and it's 24 7.
I think the biggest part for crypto investing and trading in general is the ease of use
for younger people mostly as well so but the options part I strongly believe that
that is going to come but since you, you know, with decentralized and centralized part, you know, hot wallets, cold wallets, there are some, a lot of important factors going into the game.
And even if there was to be such a product, I think it will be designed by, you you know the biggest players in the game for now uh
the biggest exchanges so i believe that it will come but uh uh for for right now uh the ease of
use is uh coming more up front in the crypto space and i i live in istanbul in turkey uh I just want to give a funny example. So in traditional finance, you have to buy
dollars in the bank, exchanging your lira. And for us, for example, we have quite a lot of taxes
and some crazy fees in regards to banks. So any young people in Turkey right now who wants to buy a dollar, they go through
Binance and they buy USDT. So stable coins, we talked about previously, is really one
of the most important parts of crypto and the most liquid part. And that is also important
factor. So there's a lot of factors when you think crypto.
But as for possibilities of a product like that, I think it's completely doable and can happen in the short term.
Yeah, I think with this space, it's such a new market and there's going to be just more and more products coming out.
And I guess we are technically in a self-discovery stage, even with pricing, liquidity as well.
Understand that there's different liquidity in different exchanges as well, based on the amount of capital coming into the exchange and volume.
Which is why I think some traders have said there's a discrepancy in pricing of Bitcoin or Ethereum by a couple of dollars or a couple of cents.
So I guess my next question is, you know, you've mentioned there's a lot of crypto obviously going to Dubai as regulation has clearly driven some of these companies out to the outside of the EU to develop elsewhere and offshore even.
Do you think that these companies are developing outside of the highly restricted areas
and then coming back, do you think, and then offering better products
and see if they can qualify again?
How does that landscape look like?
Yeah, that's a good question and uh yeah i will actually be in dubai again and the new year's eve
and uh we'll be out of office but uh in regards to your question yes uh there's a million companies
uh in regards to web3 and crypto in dubai and uh they are actually you know having a shortage of manpower even right now
because there's a lot of companies there but you know with EU with its new regulations obviously
they are all missing out on a big potential user base and a lot of people. So I believe that if EU loosens the restrictions
and fastens up this process a little bit,
most of them will come back to Europe
and will operate in that area as well.
Because on the exchanges I worked,
they tried really hard to cope up with a regulation on individual countries in Europe, as Alexander mentioned previously. So there's going to be always different departments and the footwork and the legal side was taking too much resources and time for them to move off from that country. ease of work for these exchanges and projects, I strongly believe most will come back and
continue development over there. Because, you know, even though Dubai has a lot of,
you know, offers for these companies, you know, we all know obviously zero percent tax on capital
gains and all that, but still, you know,
Europe is one of the most attractive places.
So I believe that they will, most will come back and continue the growth there.
But I think that moving to Dubai for most projects, they fasten up,
they fasten up their development side quite a lot and to make the exchanges a lot more
you know, their development side quite a lot.
bigger and their technological side has advanced quite a lot till that time.
So it makes these advancements in crypto space a lot faster.
If there's a new thing, new trend going on in the crypto uh i see that you
know they start instantly and try to be adapt to that and bring the product to that level so
if obviously same uh ease of use happens in europe i strongly believe they will come back
I strongly believe they will come back.
My exchange will go really fast to give an example.
But yeah, I work at other exchanges, so I strongly believe they will too.
Great insights, I love that.
And what do you think about, I hear, I don't know if it's 100% confirmed,
that the euro will be digitized.
This is going to be very interesting.
What do you think about that basically coming into the space with and also the pound also possibly becoming digital as well?
These digital currencies, actual fiat coming into switching over to the blockchain technology, shall we say?
Yeah, that's an interesting topic.
And I just, you know, I really wonder how they're going to proceed that
because, you know, it's not the plan, but, you know, the crypto side,
these stable coins are like the cornerstones of crypto for now. And most of the liquid is still on stablecoins.
And actually most is on, you know, Binance stable yield,
flexible yield, et cetera.
So I think it's going to change a lot of dynamics.
But I think crypto stablecoin side will still continue because of uh you know its uh innovation
part and uh you know whole decentralization idea at the end uh but it's gonna change a lot of
dynamics but i just really wonder how they're going to move with it and, you know, switch all the traditional finance and make it compatible with it.
Because in crypto, you know, you see it's not an easy task.
So I just really wonder the roadmap and how they're going to proceed on that part.
Thank you so much, Yunus.
And give all of our panel speakers here a follow
if you have been interested in their work,
the exploration of crypto and the landscape of changing
on both the outside and also on the digital side here.
And I want to move on to Oracle J, who's also a trader.
We'd love to get you an intro, tell the people what you do
and your insights on the market as well as I know you've been
in the crypto space for a fairly long time as well.
Oh, I think we've lost him.
I think I have another question actually for Jonathan.
Speaking of digital to, you know, fiat changing over to the blockchain technology and having the US also eyeing up their assets to be, shall we say, moving on to the blockchain itself as well, that we could possibly see stocks moving towards that direction. Do you see, I guess, funds or the future of
traditional investing being tokenized? And what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean, I think eventually every single asset will be tokenized and will be on the
blockchain. Because if you can tokenize one asset, you can token every single asset will be tokenized and will be on the blockchain.
Because if you can tokenize one asset, you can tokenize another asset.
There's a lot of reasons why it makes sense.
And also, ironically, compliance is a reason why it makes sense, too, because you can actually track things better on the blockchain.
You can program compliance into certain investments. So for example, private equity or an unlisted stock, something that's a private stock, you could essentially program rules into that so that only an accredited investor
could buy that stock. And that could be all programmed onto something like Ethereum, which
is a programmable blockchain using smart contracts. So I think over time, everything will be tokenized.
And even to go back to that earlier question
about the funds that are tokenized,
we already have tokenized funds.
So BlackRock has done things like that.
And there's a lot of experiments going on
to get more tokenized funds.
So because of the technology itself,
it allows a lot of things that couldn't happen before.
And there's a lot of advantages.
But yeah, again, it's how do regulators catch up?
They will eventually, but it's just about balancing the two.
Because obviously, anything that's a financial instrument at the end of the day,
you know, it is going to have to be regulated in some way.
But I think everything will be tokenized
eventually yeah i i think that's going to be a massive shift in the landscape jj what are your
thoughts on that on uh i guess regular stocks being tokenized what do you think about that
oh i can't wait can you hear me yes we Yeah, sorry, just checking my headphones working.
I think tokenization is going to, I'm very positive about it.
I think it's going to open up a lot of investment avenues for people who don't have brokerage accounts.
And let's face it, I mean, I've worked at brokerage firms in my career.
And let's face it, brokerage firms until recently have been really there just to take advantage of the client.
Go back and watch trading places made in the 80s.
The Duke brothers go, if our clients make money or lose money
doesn't matter we get the commissions and it's always been commissions fees what we can charge
them you know all of that stuff and i think tokenization will take a brokerage firm out of
it and i think that's why the brokerage firms are like really nervous right now because if we get a
whole new class of investor,
a younger generation of investor,
I don't need to have an account at Schwab, right?
I can just go buy this on my phone, you know,
and I can buy this and sell it and be out of it
and not have to go through all these questionnaires.
You know, I think that's a wonderful opportunity
for both people to make money
and also for distributors like me.
You know, I'm taking three companies public right now
and the amount of regulatory stuff
that we're going through is just crazy.
because there's been so much fraud in the small cap space, but some of it is just overreach. And so I think this whole new era of finance,
this whole new era of finance, not crypto and AI, and it's going to make the internet look like
steam. It's going to look like spaceships compared to steam locomotive engines in back in the 90s you know i'm really excited and i'm just you know learning as much
as i can and being able to put it into uh into practice yeah absolutely i think you know with
everything being tokenized is obviously written on the blockchain so there's so much transparency i think for exactly fraud is going to be almost oh i guess i want to say eliminated but there's always
i guess there's always a bad actor in the space but here here's the thing okay and there's always
going to be there's always going to be three guys sitting in a in a coffee shop in new jersey
writing out on a napkin how to get around the system.
That's always been, and nothing against New Jersey.
But I'm just saying that's the way it's always been.
There's always going to be people who take advantage.
And that's the way it is in finance.
It's been like that ever since, you know,
I mean, look at Breax Minerals.
It was the largest mining scandal in Canadian history.
You know, and they wiped out pension fund money with that.
There's more and more examples of that.
So any kind of new financial frontier, it's going to be like cowboy times.
But I think overall, I think the future is very bright for this sector and this whole new way of transacting business.
I'm an old guy, but I'm learning all the new tricks.
I got a hop, so I'm going to let you guys go.
Thank you so much for having me on here.
Thank you so much for coming on with us.
And do give him a follow, JJ. Thank you so much for coming on with us. And do give him a follow, guys.
I just want to come back to Jordan, as he had a bit of technical issue earlier on.
Can you guys hear Jordan, or is it just me? No, I can't hear him. Can you guys hear Jordan or is it just me?
No, I can't hear him either.
I think we are having a technical issue there.
Hello, can you hear me now?
It happens as soon as you start speaking to me. Yeah, hopefully you've caught on to our conversation
and we'd love to get your insights
and give us an intro of what you do
and how you see the markets
as I know you trade the markets very differently
Yeah, so I mean, I've been trading crypto since 2016
and it's been quite a while
and I've seen the progression of the of the industry
for almost 10 years and obviously back then there was a severe lack of regulation obviously there's
there's benefits to that and obviously there's drawbacks to that as well and you know there's
no real protections for traders and investors when real big issues arise.
And obviously, that's not a good thing, especially when, you know,
the vast majority of people that are looking to invest want some sort of protection
or something where they feel, you know, they're not just going to get shafted, essentially,
to move on and obviously in traditional finance you have some sort of protections you know if
you're saving money in a bank you have protections whereas with crypto it doesn't really exist
in most cases so that's how it used to be obviously I think you know the industry is
sort of moving in the direct in the correct direction um in terms of offering these sorts of uh protections to to investors and traders and
whatnot and i think personally it's it's the right direction it needs to go in um you know you can't
have an industry um which is just lawless essentially um because it's it's just never
really going to end well for the vast majority.
And obviously, if we want to be taken seriously as an industry,
then there's got to be some sort of regulation or some sort of structure to what's going on.
And I mean, for the UK specifically, you know,
they always talk about wanting to be a sort of central hub for crypto or industry leaders for crypto.
And then they do the, you know, the complete opposite.
And I mean, it's one of the worst places actually globally for any court cases involving crypto.
It's incredibly slow moving in the UK.
In fact, one of the slowest moving places in the world.
says it all really um although they are sort of looking to improve on on on that whole situation
um i mean recently not too long ago uh hmrc and for those who aren't from the uk that's the
the uk sort of tax authority um they published their consultation and the outcome regarding taxation of DeFi activities
relating to sort of lending and staking.
And one of the sort of conclusions they came to
was that when users deposit assets,
the deposit itself should not be treated
as a disposal for capital gains.
And obviously at the moment,
any sort of move with crypto is treated as a disposal for capital gains and obviously at the moment any sort of move with
crypto is treated as a disposal so it's a pretty good sort of step in the right direction
especially if the UK wants to open up and become some sort of central hub or improve their sort of
standing globally as a crypto I guess you could call it crypto nation eventually.
Yeah, so I think that's quite interesting, especially considering, you know,
it's essentially creating a no gain, no loss approach.
And what's super important is clarity, right?
And getting more of that clarity enables investors or potential investors to be a lot happier with
putting their money into something. And, you know, in an industry where there really isn't
much clarity on anything, the more clarity we can get, the better, in my opinion.
Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's the education and the clarity for people trying to onboard in fact
the onboarding experience itself do you find that there's challenges there still now even with all
these different apps like Coinbase or Binance? So were you asking about
onboarding into? Yeah what do you think needs to change there for like the normal people
to get into that space you know do you feel like it can be integrated with traditional brokers or
even with all these apps like what changes do you feel like needs to be done maybe to make it
in all honesty um i think i think with crypto the the technology is phenomenal. It's actually very useful technology.
It's not necessarily being used in a lot of cases in the correct way, in my opinion.
But the technology is definitely useful, right?
And when you look at what people are doing and getting into crypto, it's very complex.
It's quite a steep learning curve.
You've got to put a fair amount of time into understanding it.
Or the other option is to trust some grifting influencer online.
And that's not a great option either.
So I think to onboard more users to crypto,
the best way forward is going to be apps and products and services
which people don't even realize that it's crypto rails, essentially.
All that matters is a smooth experience and a good,
well, a top of the line experience, really,
without them realizing it's crypto.
And I think that's going to be the way where most people
will eventually be on board with crypto.
I mean, if you look at aave they are launching their their new
products um and it's incredibly smooth it looks fantastic it works really nicely and you don't
even realize that the underlying tech is crypto um so you know most people are getting absolutely
awful interest rates with banks load up the aav aave app you'll be able
to see you know five to eight percent um rates which is obviously considerably better than most
banks and um as i say you're not even going to realize it's uh it's crypto that that's being
utilized or the crypto tech and rails it's being utilized and those are the sorts of apps which i
think have real potential to break out and onboard more users into the space.
And then I guess if you look at it from an investing perspective and onboarding people from an investing perspective,
one of the main issues at the moment is they do make it very difficult to invest into crypto. And obviously there's ways forward,
and I guess it's not incredibly difficult,
You load up an exchange, you make an account,
you're KYC, that's all fine and expected.
And then you're then having to answer questionnaires
and all this sort of nonsense,
which you don't have to answer for anything else.
So it's already you know putting
doubt into people's mind about what they intend to invest into it's it's putting up roadblocks
it's just creating extra hassle so once that sort of stuff is removed i think again for investors
you're going to have a much easier time um onboarding new users and i mean i've been
onboarding new people and helping people structure portfolios since 2020 now.
And it's, you know, even if you look at people that want to put in, let's say, 100K, 200K, 300K plus.
Every single time they're looking to move their money into an exchange to buy Bitcoin or whatever it may be they're looking to buy.
The bank's freezing them every time.'re looking to buy, the bank's freezing
them every time. They have to call up the same number every single time. They talk to someone
who really doesn't have a clue what they're talking about, especially in regard to crypto,
and sort of questioning you about what you want to do with your own money. And that's really
causing, I think, roadblocks as well for onboarding new investors to crypto.
But I think as time goes on, it should improve.
And I think in the next few years, banks will be opening up a little bit more to crypto.
A lot of the sort of traditional institutions have been telling their advisors that they can offer clients one to five percent allocation into crypto slash Bitcoin.
And I think that's going to only increase with time.
they've released it or not is obviously another question but they're all working on it right so
You know, once the banks have their own sort of products, which every single one of them is working on, by the way, whether they've released it or not is obviously another question. But they're all working on it. Right.
when when they're ready to launch they're going to be much happier to to help people on board and
make it a lot easier for people so i do think in in the long term it will become easier to to get
into crypto but yeah for now it's a it's a little bit of a headache and quite annoying actually
yeah because the eu recently introduced that 10,000 euro cap, which causes a massive headache for these, you know, I guess you guys have done so much hard work
in passing through the crazy amount of 100 million different tick boxes to make the products
available with leverage income. Do you see maybe, or I guess this is a question for everyone really,
like should Europe and the UK adopt a simpler classification model or regulation model
what could that look like I think personally I think regulation is a is a good thing
in general but over regulation is a real problem and in my honest opinion I think the eu and and the uk are incredibly over regulated um so i think
loosening up um some of the regulations will will help with um a adoption help b growth um and and
c to be honest confidence in in europe and the uk in general as uh somewhere to to invest. And I mean, you know, even if you don't want to look at
crypto specifically, almost every industry in the EU is so heavily regulated, it makes it very,
very difficult to do anything, or at least anything with substantial size. And it doesn't make it a very attractive place for companies to stay.
And I think if they can relax the regulations a little bit,
then yeah, crypto companies will more than likely want to build in the EU
and we'd see way more adoption.
I feel like we're really in a catch-21.
It's like they want to protect the people,
but at the same time, it's, you know, holding them back as well.
Jonathan, do you have any sort of last words
or any thoughts about the different spaces
or different avenues people can navigate around this?
I mean, I think it's just, yeah, I mean, I tend to agree with the whole
regulatory thing. You need to simplify things because the simpler it is, the more people know
what to do and they can actually do things properly and start businesses in crypto.
Investors can know what they can and can't trade. So I think the simplification thing is important.
Just generally, maybe to sum up,
there's obviously lots of different ways that investors can get exposure to crypto.
If people prefer regulated avenues,
there are regulated products.
If they prefer something more decentralized,
So I think that's all I'll say for now.
And yeah, please do give Jonathan
and our guest panels here a follow. If you enjoy this place please do like and repost so you can come back and revisit and listen again if you missed majority of the conversation is it up here. I have Migs here to give us a
little market overview. We're going to be doing our sort of live trading over in the US at 9.20
Eastern for our opening bell on wolf trading. Migs, take it away.
Hi, good morning, everyone. All right. Well, let's take a look at the European stock markets
as of today. So it looks like the European shares opened on a cautious note good morning, everyone. All right, well, let's take a look at the European stock markets as of today.
So it looks like the European shares opened on a cautious note this morning,
with investors keeping a close eye on the upcoming U.S. Federal Reserve policy meeting, which kicks off later today.
A 25 basis point rate cut is widely expected tomorrow, but the market's holding its breath for any hints on future moves,
especially with the U.S. jobs data due out soon. The pan-European stock 600 index inched up by a modest 0.1%
in early trading. It's sitting around 579 points and major benchmarks show similar restraints,
such as the Germany's DAX.
On the sector front, financial services led the pack with a 0.7% gain, boosted by upgrades from JP Morgan.
And banks weren't very far behind, up 0.4%, while industrials rose 0.5%. A few standout movers today,
Man Group jumped 4.4% and EQT rose 2.7%
on those positive analyst notes.
And it looks like BNP Paribas led banks higher
On the downside, Thyssen Group took a hit, plunging over 9% after forecasting a hefty net loss for 2026, up to 800 million euros.
And shifting gears a little bit over to the cryptocurrency markets, which are still feeling the pressure from the impending Fed decision.
You're still feeling the pressure from the impending Fed decision.
Bitcoin has retreated towards the 90K mark with surrendering earlier gains, edging down as traders brace for potential volatility.
However, in recent hours, it showed a slight rebound, which was up about 1.5% to around $91,541.
And then Ethereum gained a little bit.
I think it was like 1.8 percent uh but the overall
crypto sentiment remains in extreme fear territory with the fear and greed index dropping further
and with the year's roller coaster ride of record highs and then sharp sell-offs and then on a
brighter note tether has gained approval in abu dhabi to expand its USDT stablecoin across nine major blockchains.
And Hashkey is launching a Hong Kong IPO aiming to raise up to $215 million.
Additionally, Singapore's exchange new crypto futures are drawing fresh liquidity without diverting from cash markets.
fresh liquidity without diverting from cash markets and basically the oral sentiment remains
tempered by diverging signals from central banks hawkish tones from the ecb contrasting with the
fed easing expectations so we're going to be watching basically how the day unfolds and
So we'll be live trading at 920 Eastern once the U.S. markets start to open.
Bitcoin is trading roughly around 90,535 right now and your Ethereum sitting around 3133.
I think a ton of takeaways from today. 535 right now and your Ethereum sitting around 3133.
I think a ton of takeaways from today.
You can definitely go the heavier investing route with more regulated products.
Go check out Jonathan's Twitter and give him a follow as well,
Alex as well, and of course Mix with our futures trading and oracle j
for all things crypto we will be covering um a little bit more about eu etfs next week as well
more in depth and of different uh different etfs and how they work over here because it's so
different to the us um of course with all these crazy restrictions. So we're here every Tuesdays
and Thursdays at 7am Eastern or 12pm UK time. So next or this Thursday coming up, we will be
covering a little bit more about US tariffs, how that affects the European markets, Europe's resilience in this space and where the EU
If there's nothing more to add
I would love to thank all the
amazing speakers joining us today
Love to have you on again
If you have any questions guys
please do message these guys
Apart from that, thank you guys so much for today.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you very much for having me.
Have a nice day, guys. Have a great day, guys.
Bye. Thank you, Jonathan.
Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye. Það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það er það