Bitcoin Has ZERO Bank Liquidity - That's About To Change | Christopher Perkins

**Scott Melker** (0:00)
Crypto sentiment is terrible, but institutional demand may be stronger than ever. Today, I'm talking with Chris Perkins about his move from Coin Fund to Franklin Templeton.

**Christopher Perkins** (0:09)
We'll have everything from liquid strategies to closed-end strategies, private credit strategies, venture strategies, you name it. Time to scale.

**Scott Melker** (0:16)
While major institutions are preparing to enter the market, have you talked to any of these market makers?

**Christopher Perkins** (0:21)
You should get them on the show. They'll say the same thing. Dude, I'm so busy right now. I can't keep up with the pace of onboarding. All these institutions are onboarding. These guys are coming in to trade.

**Scott Melker** (0:29)
And by the next cycle, we'll be driven by fundamentals, not hype.

**Christopher Perkins** (0:33)
Narratives are amazing until they're not. I think what we're seeing now in this market is a lot of grownups are running the space and they're like, dude, where's the utility? Where's the fundamentals?

**Scott Melker** (0:41)
We also discussed tokenization, the Clarity Act, AI quantum computing, and whether beaten down altcoins can finally recover. Are institutions buying while everyone else has given up? We're going to find out in this amazing conversation.
How's it feel to be a suit now? You're a corporate or corporate guy again.

**Christopher Perkins** (1:14)
I don't think that that's fair. But these guys, it's like when I came to Franklin, I'm like, I need a couple of things to operate, because we've been full degen for five years. And I'm like, I need Telegram. They're like, it's going to be tough. I said, I need Telegram. I said, done. They got it done. So I need to tweet to say, you have corporate policies. Need to tweet. They said, okay.
So like they're more degen than you think. Yeah, through a classic. I remember when they had laser eyes.
They understand what's at stake and they're awesome. They've been amazing.

**Scott Melker** (1:50)
So talk about the move, obviously, for context, coin funds and effectively, the liquid side has gone to Franklin Templeton. Is that accurate?

**Christopher Perkins** (1:59)
100 percent accurate. Yeah. And so that's our foundation. And from here, we're building.
Look, you got clients all over the world that are saying, I have risk if I'm not in this space. My board is asking me why I'm not in this space. There's something here. I need a trusted agent to take me through this area that I just don't understand. And it's funny, you always talk about how crypto is trustless, permissionless, but you need people that you trust to bring you in. And so our job is to drive differentiated returns for our institutional clients, help them navigate, and that's what we're here to do.
It's insane the amount of opportunity.

**Scott Melker** (2:39)
Is that strictly through liquid tokens at this point, or is it a diversified strategy?

**Christopher Perkins** (2:43)
No, we'll have everything from liquid strategies to close end strategies, you know, private credit strategies, venture strategies, you name it. It's time to scale.

**Scott Melker** (2:54)
So more broadly, I mean, how do you think about the existing altcoin market and the tokens that have been here for a while, which I'm sure you hold a ton of, I hold a ton of. It's been a pretty rough four or five years.

**Christopher Perkins** (3:07)
It has, but what are we seeing? It's a flight to fundamentals, right? Like we were never the type of folks who wanted to go chase the shiny new toy.
Narratives end. Narratives are amazing until they're not. And I think what we're seeing now in this market is a lot of grownups are entering the space and they're like, dude, where's the utility? Where's the fundamentals? And hopefully, leveraging our discipline that we take from TradFi to begin with, before crypto, we were in TradFi. And now we're still able to take that TradFi discipline to find those fundamentals, and that's where we want to direct our clients.
It's in a way, everything's changed. In a way, nothing's changed. That makes sense.

**Scott Melker** (3:49)
Right. So is your view that the ones with good fundamentals that are beat down and have existed for a while still can catch a bit, or is it time to look for new shiny things that are maybe crafted in a way to take advantage of having fundamentals hyperliquid, for example? I mean, that's been the big mover, and people can point to exactly the burns, and the tokenomics, and the structure, and they can understand why it would go up. I don't own any, unfortunately, but they can understand why it would.

**Christopher Perkins** (4:16)
Yeah, look, I think you have to be, each project you have to look through are very nuanced, and hyperliquid is a great example. Is there value accruing to the token? We're also seeing the line between equity and tokens kind of collapse when it comes to value accrual.