Name: What Trump’s First 100 Days Will Do To Bitcoin, Cryptos | Galaxy's Steve Kurz
Uploaded: 2025-01-23T00:00:14+00:00
Duration: 1931 s

Speakers

Steve Kurz — Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy

David Lin — Founder & Host, The David Lin Report / ex-Anchor, Kitco News

Summary

Steve Kurz of Galaxy discusses how the Trump administration and shifting U.S. policy could affect Bitcoin and crypto. He expects Bitcoin to rise near term and sees a $150,000 one-year target with much higher prices long term, supported by liquidity easing, ETF/institutional adoption, and nation-state/corporate treasury demand. He also highlights stablecoins as a dollar-dominance imperative, a challenged long-end bond market, and growing opportunities in crypto-themed public equities.

Bitcoin is expected to rise after Trump's inauguration, with $150k seen as a reasonable one-year target.
Steve expects easier liquidity and Fed pressure under Trump to support risk assets and Bitcoin.
He views dollar-backed stablecoins as a national-security imperative and a cheaper, faster payments rail.
Long-end U.S. Treasuries are seen as challenged by fiscal and debt-servicing risks.
Institutional adoption is shifting from skepticism to participation via ETFs, hedge funds, and public equities.
Gen Z retirement portfolios are expected to lean toward Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, staking, and DeFi.
Speculative altcoins and memecoins are expected to end in tears for many investors.
Galaxy is pursuing regulated stablecoins, a Nasdaq listing, and an AI/HPC data center conversion.

Ideas

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 0:00

Bitcoin 150k target; higher long-term.

Steve views Bitcoin price as a supply/demand output and says $500k in one year is too aggressive. He sees $150k as a reasonable one-year target and says Bitcoin will be much higher over the medium-to-long term. The law of large numbers means larger flows are needed, but he expects ETF-driven institutional wealth-market onboarding, nation-state and corporate treasury adoption, and healthy market structure to provide a steady bid; macro must align with adoption, and it may take hundreds of billions and many years.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 9:25

Bitcoin and gold debasement hedges.

Steve uses gold as his valuation anchor for Bitcoin and expects generational wealth transfer to accelerate Bitcoin first to 50% of gold's market cap and ultimately to 75-100%. Over the next 5-10 years, he sees strong reasons for both gold and Bitcoin to exist because of fiat degradation and unresolved monetary/fiscal problems.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 9:58

Long-end Treasuries face real problems.

Steve sees the bond market as inherently challenged and the long end of the curve as a real problem. The 30-year yield has touched 5% and higher, increasing housing costs and government debt-servicing burdens. He is personally light on bonds and thinks executing fiscal/monetary policy in a post-GFC world without reforms makes long-duration bonds risky, though he says bonds could have a good year if the US successfully rationalizes fiscal policy.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 14:48

Dollar stablecoins are national-security imperative.

Steve calls dollar-backed stablecoins a national-security imperative because they can preserve dollar dominance as commerce and cross-border payments digitize. He argues stablecoins offer roughly 10x cost savings and faster settlement than the fragmented existing system, address a $200T annual cross-border payments market, and are becoming institutional-grade under regimes like MiCA. Galaxy is active through a DWS/BaFin-regulated stablecoin initiative and other investments/liquidity support.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 21:45

Speculative altcoins and memecoins end badly.

Steve warns that many altcoins and memecoins will end in tears despite crypto's generational adoption trend. He expects younger investors to learn from bull/bear cycles and move toward a more rational framework focused on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, staking, and DeFi rather than speculative tokens.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 21:55

Gen Z retirement leans toward crypto.

Steve sees crypto as a global generational trend and expects Gen Z/millennial retirement portfolios to lean much more heavily into crypto after lessons from bull/bear markets. He says those portfolios will look like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, staking, and DeFi, with more integration between DeFi and traditional finance.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 29:15

Crypto ETF and tokenization upgrades coming.

Steve expects several first-order US regulatory/operational changes this year: in-kind creation/redemption for ETFs, adding staking to some ETF products, and loosening restrictions on tokenized money market funds. He says these steps are easy to do and will bring on-chain and traditional economies closer from the back end, leading within less than two years to wallets holding both traditional dollars and crypto assets.

Steve Kurz Founder Partner and Global Head of Asset Management, Galaxy 30:23

Crypto-themed public equities universe expanding.

Steve says the big open opportunity is expressing a crypto theme through traditional public securities. The universe of US-listed securities tied to crypto has grown from about 40 three years ago to over 300 today and is heading toward 400-500 with the coming IPO and M&A wave. Galaxy is launching a hedge fund around this and has State Street active ETFs that access the universe.

What Trump’s First 100 Days Will Do To Bitcoin, Cryptos | Galaxy's Steve Kurz

Summary

Ideas

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