Strive CEO Discusses the Future of DATs as Stocks Slide

Watch Strive CEO Discusses the Future of DATs as Stocks Slide - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

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00:00You're definitely starting to see consolidation. So Strive was the first Bitcoin treasury company

00:04to announce a merger with the proposed acquisition of Semler Scientific. And Semler,

00:10for those that don't know, was the second U.S. company after strategy to become a Bitcoin

00:14treasury company. And so I would agree with your assessment, Katie, that there are too many digital

00:19asset treasury companies today with no differentiation. I think over time, you'll

00:24start to see more sophisticated strategies emerge. And I think you'll actually see a growth

00:29in digital asset and specifically Bitcoin treasury companies with specific differentiations. But I

00:36think this current version, I think, lacks sufficient differentiation. And that's why you're seeing a lot

00:41of them trade below the value of the Bitcoin themselves. Matt, last week we spoke with Jack

00:47Mallers. He's the 21 Capital CEO. And he spoke about how he thinks there are ways that investors should

00:54have more exposure to Bitcoin. Take a listen. My general opinion is I think these index

00:59investors should optimize to get Bitcoin exposure somehow. I think it's very important that the

01:03passive investor has access to the best performing asset in human history, the best performing asset

01:10over the last 15 years, and now one of the largest assets in the world at $1.8 trillion. That's the size

01:16of these big, you know, MAG-7 tech companies. So I think that passive investors should have access to it.

01:24And he's referring, of course, to index compilers like MSCI, which has brought up the possibility of

01:29perhaps not including companies that are not operating companies and just hold Bitcoin as kind

01:35of an investment. You've pushed back against that idea. State your case for why you think

01:40digital asset treasury companies should be included in the MSCI indexes.

01:45There's multiple reasons. But what I think is the most important reason is that it's not the job

01:50of an index provider like MSCI to pick and choose winners. And Bitcoin treasury companies,

01:56if run well, like Strive, I'm sure 21 will be the same, like strategy, are operating companies. We

02:02have products. We have services. We're a structured finance company. So as an example, SATA is structured

02:07finance. It's a product out into the market. As Katie knows, we've known in the old version of

02:14Strive, Strive is also an asset manager. We have 13 ETFs that trade on the New York Stock Fund.

02:19Funny enough, we use Bloomberg for our indexes and Bloomberg actually includes strategy in them.

02:25They have not excluded them. And it's been to the benefit of Bloomberg index holders. It's actually

02:30outperformed competitor 500 funds. And I think the first principle here is like Jack Bogle.

02:37You want to own the market. You don't want to exclude funds. And yes, I agree with Jack on

02:42maximizing Bitcoin exposure. But the role of a passive index funds is not to take a view.

02:46It's allow innovation to occur and let winners occur where winners are. And I think that

02:51MSCI is probably concerned with how much success strategies had and what that means for the

02:56percentage of holdings in their index. But I don't think that's a valid reason to exclude them.