Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions,&nbsp;<a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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You’ve probably heard about Blockworks’ <a href="https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-new-york/home">Digital Asset Summit</a> by now. Well, it kicks off tomorrow. It seems to be a good time for a conference, given the mix of optimism and uncertainty — in crypto and the broader economy. That hopeful-volatile blend should spur more interesting discussion.



So we have some dichotomies to work through. Like BlackRock adding bitcoin exposure to its alternatives-focused model portfolios as bitcoin ETFs have endured $5 billion of net outflows in recent weeks.&nbsp;



Or a president who wants to build “the crypto capital of the world” while simultaneously implementing policies that are sending <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/investors-bitcoin-narrative-confusion">the stock market</a> (and BTC price) lower. Not to mention the whole <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-memecoins-rock-solana">Trump memecoin</a> launch that made eyes roll around the industry.&nbsp;



Bo Hines, Executive Director of the White House’s Presidents Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, can hopefully share insight when he hits the DAS stage tomorrow. US Rep. Tom Emmer will speak 24 hours later on what it’ll take to get crypto legislation across the finish line this year.&nbsp;



The institutional presence at DAS will be ample. A step like walking back <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hester-peirce-reveals-sab-121-rescission">the SEC’s SAB 121</a> is already set to pave the way for banks and brokers to custody spot crypto — and legislation (on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/senate-advances-stablecoin-bill">stablecoins</a> and market structure) is apparently on its way.&nbsp;



Command + F the event agenda…type in “inst” and you’ll get plenty of hits:



LMAX Group CEO David Mercer is set to sort through headwinds and tailwinds in the new era for institutional crypto. Eric Peters, who leads Coinbase Asset Management and One River Asset Management, will detail which institutions are actually buying this cycle.&nbsp;



Bloomberg Intelligence’s James Seyffart will guide a discussion on the next wave of institutional crypto products. Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul and Visa’s Catherine Gu are headliners on the “Institutionalization of Crypto” session.



BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has called tokenization “the next generation for markets.” The panel I’m moderating Thursday is likely to feature a debate on which assets are worth bringing onchain, and broader TradFi adoption there.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

BlackRock

DAS to spotlight institutional era of crypto

Michael McSweeney

The institutions are here!&nbsp;



It’s long been seasonal fashion within the crypto industry to declare, with great aplomb, that the institutions — the investors, the banks, the family offices, the money —&nbsp;are coming. I remember when Barry Silbert <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/secondmarket-ceo-wall-street-put-203000747.html">declared</a> this forthcoming arrival all the way back in 2013, when he and his team first debuted the Bitcoin Investment Trust.&nbsp;



Wandering the sidelines of Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit in London this week, what once seemed an ephemeral milestone appeared to be indisputably true: The institutions are here.



Maybe they’ve been here a while, or perhaps they’ve just entered through a side door. Bitcoin ETFs arguably deserve the bulk of the credit. So, too, does the leapfrogging price of bitcoin (today’s volatility notwithstanding). Or Larry Fink, the BlackRock CEO and the premier spokesperson for crypto in an institutional age, may be the one to thank.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Certainly the conversations on stage in London this week speak to this reality. From enterprise hardware to market structure, the discussions have taken an institutional presence as a given.&nbsp;



When exactly did they show up? What are they here for? As my colleague David Canellis noted in his wrap-up of DAS London’s first day, these are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/digital-asset-summit-day-one-yield">difficult questions to answer</a>. And there may not be just one reason: Exposure to new asset classes, new technologies or perhaps simply a new way to make money could all be factors.&nbsp;



DAS London is, perhaps, a meeting-point between the institutions and the startups who hope to attract their business, their investments, or at the very least, their time.&nbsp;



To put a finer point on it, it’s clear that the institutions have gotten the message that crypto is open for business. Their business, specifically.&nbsp;



That’s great. But now what?



What happens from this point on will be less flashy, perhaps less headline-y than early industry phases. I’m talking about the grind, the unsexy, the day-to-day work. Attracting institutions to one’s custody platform or trading platform is one thing. What’s next once they’ve settled in?



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-bitcoin-etf-success">I underestimated the market pile-on</a> spurred by the launch of the current crop of bitcoin ETFs. I believed growth would be slow at first. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-snapshot-record-inflows">I was wrong</a>.&nbsp;



Beyond bitcoin ETFs, though, I wonder how slow-going the spread of institutional activity will be within crypto. It’s hard to see traders at major financial institutions apeing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/slerf-investor-lose-money-crypto">into the latest memecoin</a> or dropping millions of dollars on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cheatsheet-bitcoin-entering-danger-zone">a picture of a dog in a hat</a>.&nbsp;



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/defi-needs-institutions-regulation">DeFi needs institutions — and regulation&nbsp;</a>



But the networks themselves —&nbsp;I’m thinking Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana —&nbsp;are booming. It’s easy to imagine that perhaps some of that upward momentum is driven by the major players who, by all appearances, are now in the room and seeking opportunities.&nbsp;



“Infrastructure building” has been a common refrain here in London. Namely, building the rails for institutions to become more comfortable in the somewhat volatile crypto pond. In a way, that’s what the bitcoin ETFs are: infrastructure for institutions to move money into crypto that feels safer and more familiar than a memecoin or NFT.



There’s no short supply of crypto ambition here in London. The good times feel especially good. But history rhymes in this space, and an FTX-scale disaster will happen again.&nbsp;



Will institutions stick it out during the next crypto hurricane? That’s an open question, and I think the investments and development decisions being made today will prove to be deciding factors. Stay tuned.&nbsp;



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<div class="wp-block-post-author-biography">Michael McSweeney has worked in crypto media since 2014, including editorships at CoinDesk and The Block. In his spare time, he writes fiction and plays disc golf. Contact Michael at michael.mcsweeney@blockworks.co.</div>


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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha directly in your inbox.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

cryptocurrency

The institutions are paying attention. Now comes the hard part.

Liz Coyne

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Digital Asset Summit 2021, New York City — Blockworks&#8217; Digital Asset Summit 2021 is our flagship US-based institutionally focused crypto <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">conference</a> for asset managers and financial services professionals.



Hosted Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 14 &#8211; 15, this in-person event features leaders from the world of finance and digital assets discussing crypto from the perspective of industry practitioners.



While the event is sold out, we are thrilled to be able to bring you all the main stage content via livestream.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/#form0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Follow this link and log-in to watch now.</a>

Blockworks

Digital Asset Summit 2021 Live from NYC

Michael Ippolito

<div id="highlights-block_60ae87980a957" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Digital Asset Summit is the first crypto conference designed for a financial audience</li>
 <li>Our audience is carefully monitored and made up only of finance and crypto capital markets professionals</li>
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Crypto is transitioning to an institutional asset class at an unprecedented rate.



News continues to pour in every day as banks, trillion dollar asset managers, financial institutions and even governments move to accept and integrate bitcoin.



As an entirely new cohort of professional investors and institutions struggle to learn about crypto, the question remains: what are the best resources?



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">An institutional conference for finance professionals</h3>



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Digital Asset Summit</a> is the first crypto conference designed for a financial audience.



At Blockworks’ two-day, flagship event based in of New York City, there will be no talk of <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharding.asp#:~:text=Sharding%20is%20a%20database%20partitioning,process%20more%20transactions%20per%20second.&amp;text=Sharding%20can%20help%20reduce%20the,blockchain%20network%20into%20separate%20shards." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sharding</a>, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zksnark.asp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">zk snarks</a> or a candy-coated vision of what blockchain can be.



Instead, you will hear from real practitioners, investors and professionals who traffic in these markets every day.



Every topic is carefully constructed to answer the question: how will we build new capital markets to support a new asset class?



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Who should attend?</h3>



The DAS audience is extremely targeted and capped at 750 attendees.&nbsp;The attendees fall into three buckets:



<ol class="wp-block-list"><li>Asset Managers (Family Offices, Macro Hedge Funds, Long Only, Crypto Native Funds)</li><li>Financial Institutions (Investment Banks, Insurance Companies, Payment Processors)</li><li>Crypto Infrastructure (Prime Brokerage, Lending, Trading Services, Liquidity Providers)</li></ol>



If you want to meet retail, this conference isn’t for you. Our audience is carefully monitored and made up only of finance and crypto capital markets professionals.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What will the conference cover?</h3>



Below is a sample of the type of content you can expect to be on the DAS agenda:



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Perspectives from the Buy-Side: Inside a Bull Run</li><li>Institutional Market Access and the Rise of Prime Brokerage</li><li>The Future of Financial Services and Digital Assets</li><li>The State of Crypto Market Structure: Liquidity, Arbitrage and Security</li><li>Institutional Lending and Yield Generation</li></ul>



At Blockworks, our mission is to bridge the gap between finance and crypto.&nbsp;<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DAS</a> is one of the most important things we do to get the right people in the room and move the conversation forward.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/#pricing2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Buy a ticket</a> today and get the early-bird discount. Prices increase on June 4th.