There are over 2000 crypto-currencies being traded today, and more are being created every day. Matt Hougan, former CEO of Inside ETFs, now the Global Head of Research at Crypto firm Bitwise Asset Management, warns that most of these don’t have any staying power. “95% of these will die a painful and deserved death,” he tells us.
But just as Google and YouTube and Twitter arose from the dotcom ashes, so too will something similar occur with crypto and blockchain. To capitalize on this, Hougan’s firm Bitwise is assembling an index of top 10 crypto-coins into a soon to be released ETF. . An early adopter of ETFs, Hougan is a three-time member of the Barron’s ETF Roundtable, and co-author of the CFA Institute’s monograph “A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Trade Funds.”
Hougan helped to create the first ETF rating system and co-developed the first ETF classification system. Each of these contributed to moving ETFs into the mainstream. He sees parallels between the early days of ETFs when they were misunderstood and under-estimated and Crypto, and jumped in.
His favorite books are here; a transcript of our conversation is posted here.
You can stream/download the full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Bloomberg, Overcast, and Stitcher. Our earlier podcasts can all be found at iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, and Bloomberg.
Next week, we speak Fern Mallis who created a centralized fashion week known as 7th on Sixth in New York City’s Bryant Park, which expanded into Fashion Week.
