“Three billion is like a stock of MAG 7, 20 billion is a kind of assets,” said Anthony Scaramucci, founder and CEO of Skybridge capital. “Then, if you tell me that Bitcoin can reach $ 500,000, people will write stories that Bitcoin is a class of assets.”
That provocative reference point of Scaramucci established the guideline for an energetic conversation at the Consensus 2025 Conference of Coindesk, where Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of Wisdomtree; Pasqual St-Jean, president and CEO of 3iq; and Andy Baehr of Coendesk indices to discuss whether Crypto, particularly Bitcoin BTC$103,465.57Finally it has become a kind of good faith assets.
While panelists agreed to a large extent that Crypto is coming there, they emphasized that the path to institutional validation requires more than the appreciation of prices.
Bitcoin leads the way
Pasqual St-Jean argued that Bitcoin has already cleared many of the obstacles that traditional assets must fulfill to be considered invertible by institutions such as gold. “It has coverage mechanisms. It has different wrappers. It is a bit easier to understand. It is a digital gold for a digital era,” he added.
This accessibility, he said, contrasts with other types of cryptographic assets, such as governance and public services tokens, which remain more difficult for institutional assignments. “What exactly what I have?”
The ETF effect
The panelists pointed out the introduction of Bitcoin Spot ETFs, especially in the United States, as a turning point on Crypto’s trip towards institutional legitimacy.
Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of Wisdomtree, highlighted the irony in how the exaction approach of the Securities and Securities Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler, heavy, without realizing it, he laid the foundations for a highly competitive and mature market.
“Gensler created just what he didn’t want in the United States,” Steinberg said. “There is more Bitcoin ETP than S&P 500 ETF. It created a tremendously competitive and mature base for Bitcoin, which I think deserves for the asset class.”
St-Jean agreed, calling the ETF wrapping a “change of play”, particularly for Bitcoin. It allowed the legal and compliance departments to retreat and deal as a regular investment decision, opening the door to a more generalized adoption among the institutions, he said.
Education and diversification are key
Despite the advances made, Andy Baehr warned that Bitcoin’s domain may be braking the broader cryptographic ecosystem.
“The class of cryptographic assets is a bit hindered by the fact that this unique giant thing exists that people have to understand first,” Baehr said. “However, you miss the real blockchain technology, layer 1, the infrastructure, the defi, if you do not deepen.”
He compared the current moment with 1999, when online runners made technological actions accessible to a broader investor base. Like then, liquidity vehicles such as ETFs could help create allocation engines for cryptographic space, turning short -term trade into long -term investments.
Even so, panelists were realistic about growth pain. Steinberg said many institutions are still early in due diligence. While some coverage funds have made the leap, most large assigners are still being educated.
The way ahead
The panelists emphasized that the final impulse towards a wide acceptance of the class of assets will probably depend on the continuous development of infrastructure, regulatory clarity and institutional products.
“We had to educate them that the regulator has no right to choose what kinds of assets is invertible if the infrastructure problem is solved,” said St-Jean.
Looking towards the future, he argued that the rethinking products, the blockchain investments of layer 1 and the most diversified index products will be critical. “He is simply owned by HTTP,” he said, drawing a parallel to the first Internet protocols. “Bitcoin understand that they are now beginning to understand layer 1”.
Sccaramucci, meanwhile, is still optimistic. “We may not really be optimistic enough,” he said, citing the explosion of capital in space, the wave of imitation strategies after the leadership of the strategy and the “sales machine” of Wall Street now pushing the ETFs of Bitcoin and Crypto.
He added that although political risks remain, particularly with cryptography becoming a hot issue in American politics, incentives are being aligned for bipartisan support. “If you get Bitcoin at $ 500,000, people will not only say that it is a class of assets, they will treat it as such,” he said.
Whether or not that target price is reached, the panel agrees: the foundation is there, the wrappers are in place and the institutions are finally appearing. Crypto’s transformation of curiosity to the class of assets is no longer a matter of “yes”, only “when”.
