Ethereum hit a record high over the weekend: Here’s what to know

00:00 Speaker A

You’ve been tracking this space closely. We just saw Ethereum touch a record high over the weekend. I mean, is this all just a risk on trade? What else is, is helping boost this asset class?

00:16 Speaker B

Uh, look, as far as Ethereum’s concerned, uh, it is up 90% over the last two months. It has certainly also outperformed Bitcoin year to date because Bitcoin is up 19% year to date. Ethereum is up at 39%. And on Friday, we really saw uh, crypto surging after Fed Powell speech because uh, it was more dovish really than what the markets had been anticipating. And this was definitely a risk-on environment for all assets. But look, the dollar moved lower, and so that was also very positive for crypto in general. The question is whether uh, the recent rally that we’ve seen is sustainable or not. You have Wall Street analysts that uh, cover this space that are saying that this is sustainable because you have global liquidity that is up, and you have this tokenization trend, and this, and corporate treasuries. Those are all contributing to this rally that we’ve seen in crypto.

02:00 Speaker A

And as, how are we seeing this spill over into names like Coinbase and some of those crypto adjacent players like stable coins as well?

02:11 Speaker B

Yeah, stable coins has been the theme this year, and that has been because of the Genius Act that was passed. And so you saw Circle that had a hot IPO in June, and that stock has done very well since the IPO. It’s been volatile, but nonetheless, Circle is the uh, pure play, so to speak, when it comes to stable coins. The other stable coin issuer that you have is Tether, but that’s privately owned. And all of this is sort of fueling the entire uh, crypto space because you have uh, Circle that has a partnership with Coinbase. So uh, it shares part of its revenue with Coinbase. So that’s positive uh, for Coinbase. And then you have stable coins which are the digital assets that are backed by uh, the US dollar. Uh, and and those are uh, those are bullish for the entire market. So uh, you have T bills that are treasuries that are also being bought because of the issuance of stable coins. So all of this on the heels of the Genius Act that was passed into laws that is positive for the stable coin issuers, and it’s positive for also companies connected uh, to stable coins as well.