# Institutional Crypto Strategy: Tokenization, Risk, and ETF Growth

**Podcast:** The Milk Road Show
**Published:** 2026-04-29

## Transcript

I think we're still in a bear now, but again, the path to breaking through and kind of getting back to triple digits is there.
So that is our base case.
Bitcoin has been showing strength recently, but still has not been able to break 80k.
Are the bears going to win this battle?
Are we finally going to see Bitcoin and crypto break out of this long standing range?
Hello and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the podcast that knows that the Bitcoin conference is going on in Las Vegas right now.
So you might feel a little extra FOMO this week.
I'm your host, John Gill, and today is Tuesday, April 28.
And today we are joined by Christopher Jensen.
Chris is the portfolio manager and director of digital asset research at Franklin Templeton, where he leads the firm's fundamental research on listed token strategies and on digital asset initiatives.
Chris has over 20 years of experience in technology investing.
He's going to give us tons of great alpha and insight today on Wall Street, on digital assets, a lot of other things.
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Without further ado, welcome to The Milk Road Show.
Chris, how are you, sir?
Thanks, John.
Pleasure to be here.
I'm really happy to talk to you.
I want to just start with Bitcoin.
I think this has been on everybody's mind right now.
It keeps rising.
Well, it's shown some weakness recently, but we haven't been able to break out of 80K.
I'm curious your outlook here.
Do you think we're going to break out or break down and why?
So we tend to look at these situations in terms of, you know, kind of a range of potential outcomes and try to think about kind of probability weighting, you know, different scenarios.
I would say our base case is that we do break out here.
April has been a pretty constructive month.
We have been more or less chopping around, but putting in higher highs, also higher lows.
So I think there is room to be constructive here.
It seems that crypto markets are trying to kind of look past.
you know, everything that's going on in the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz and everything.
So, you know, it feels like Bitcoin wants to go up here.
Obviously, there's still a little uncertainty.
And with that kind of volatility, you know, we're recording, as you mentioned, on Tuesday, tomorrow is kind of a big day with FOMC.
We have a lot of big, you know, earnings calls on the equity side tomorrow.
And so, you know, I think, you know, markets are in a little bit of a wait and see.
It's choppy, but crypto prices and Bitcoin in particular seem to want to.
you know, before looking, look past that and resume their kind of upward trend.
And as you point out, we are kind of button up against some resistance, but hopefully we can kind of break through that and that resistance will turn into support.
I'm very encouraged to hear some optimism from Wall Street.
Chris, you touched on a couple of things here, but I want to get your thoughts on some of these major macro events that are kind of impacting all markets, but particularly Bitcoin and crypto.
You mentioned this trade of Hormuz.
We've got a new Fed chairman potentially coming in soon.
There's all these earnings.
There's all these crypto conferences.
And another thing is the Clarity Act is still potentially working its way through Congress.
Is there a specific catalyst out of all of these things, or maybe all of them really, that you're looking for for a signal for Bitcoin's next move here?
Yeah, I think it certainly is being treated as kind of a global macro financial asset, right?
And the nice thing about Bitcoin is you don't have to worry about supply chain shocks or earnings calls.
So it really is a way to express kind of that global macro view.
But I think with respect to...
you know, for instance, you know, tensions in the Middle East.
I mean, what we're seeing is it kind of resembles a little bit last year, 2025, everything that was happening with tariffs, you know, and kind of the back and forth there following, you know, Liberation Day.
And you had these echoes of it got worse, it got better.
And the headlines were really kind of whip sign prices around, but it tended to get muted over time.
Right.
And I think markets were eventually a little tired of the back and forth and trying to look through that.
I think we're seeing a similar effect here with respect to the tensions in the Middle East and the straight, in the sense that it does seem to kind of go back and forth which way things are heading.
But each time, the volatility seems to be a little bit less.
It does seem like we're getting close to resolution here.
And so we are seeing kind of volatility compress a little bit as we're nearing the potential end of this.
And again, I think the market's really trying to...
realize this is short term, trying to look past it.
But there is an interesting analogy to everything that's happening now with respect to, you know, kind of a year ago.
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Gotcha.
I think that's a helpful perspective.
And there's this evolution that's happening in this space and how people think about this.
Chris, that leads me into my next question.
I spent six years at BlackRock.
You're obviously at Franklin Templeton.
I'm always curious how other people on Wall Street are thinking about this and what the conversation is like around Bitcoin.
How are institutions or maybe other clients or just people you've spoken to thinking about this?
Do they view it as a tech stock?
view it as a commodity?
Do they view it as something completely unique unto itself?
And how are they thinking about that in their portfolios right now?
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think for Bitcoin in particular, there is this digital gold narrative that people want to believe in.
Some of the performance and correlations, sometimes they break down and suggest, hey, we're not there yet.
Maybe that's an ideal end state for Bitcoin.
So I think it is a little bit of that.
digital gold store of value, but there's this realization there is an adoption curve here.
And so, you know, that carries with it a certain amount of reflexivity to the upside and to the downside.
So I think when people are thinking about it, you know, including in a portfolio, it's a little bit in that, you know, kind of debasement trade, you know, category, but it also is a little bit of, you know, hey, this is also an asset with an adoption curve.
And if you can kind of buy into that secular story, then these, you know, more cyclical.
downturns, drawdowns are opportunities to add exposure.
So I think that's how people are thinking the role of the portfolio.
I think in terms of funding that position.
We recommend thinking about it on a risk-adjusted basis.
So really funding it from your risk budget of your portfolio.
If you're just stocks and bonds, it tends to be your equities bucket.
If you've got alternatives or something like that, funding it from those riskier parts of your portfolio.
And then sizing, I think we're kind of in that 3% to 6% from the institutional house view.
But that's how I think people are thinking about it on these.
Yeah, no, that's really helpful context.
And I think 3% to 6% is a pretty hefty allocation recommendation.
So I think that's really encouraging to hear.
And yeah, I think that digital gold narrative makes sense, but also still treating it like a risk asset, a risk portion of the portfolio.
That all tracks from me as well.
Chris, we're going to hop around a lot in this conversation.
keep up with me here on this.
I'm really curious your thoughts about this boom we've seen in on-chain finance and what your take is on this situation that's playing out with Aave right now.
And, you know, I have a lot of questions about this, but maybe just at a high level, I'd like to hear what you think about this and the response that there's been to this, not necessarily, well, hack or whatever you want to call this situation that's played out.
Just give me your thoughts on the Aave situation, how that impacts this evolution of on-chain finance.
Absolutely.
And, You know, I think there's several interesting issues and topics to really kind of discuss or unpack here.
I mean, one is certainly from the institutional perspective, right?
We're tokenizing some of our own funds.
We want to get more on-chain.
We want to meet, you know, the customer cohorts that are interested in Franken products that are on-chain.
We want to be able to meet them where they're at.
bring more products there.
I think we've announced tokenizing some of our ETFs.
So it's, and you're seeing kind of the rise of the vault space and institutions trying to think about what their strategy is there and how to play a role.
But then you see something like this recent Kelp Dow hack incident and the contagion effect from that.
And that was the second incident in April alone.
And so it is concerning, right?
As we're trying to all march ahead to do more actual on-chain activity and then figure out how our tokenized products can then get plugged into DeFi to enhance utility and this idea of composable money Legos.
That's one of the things that's so fascinating about blockchains and digital assets.
And so we want to partake in that.
But when these events happen, it does really reinforce the need to make sure that your risk management practices are sound.
I come from a credit background, so I'm always kind of focused on where could something go wrong and making sure that whatever risk that you are taking, that you're getting compensated for those risks.
So I think there's a lot of interesting conversations happening right now in terms of...
you know, what should adequate compensation for the risks for, you know, engaging in kind of these on chain activities be, you know, and who is really responsible for managing that risk, you know, obviously, with something like this, you know, it was it was kelp down, but you know, there was basically a bridge hack with layer zero.
So like that's involved and, you know, and then Aave had a bunch of TVL kind of drawdown.
And that impacted other projects that people maybe were doing looping strategy in Aave.
So you really see this kind of downstream effect.
So even if your protocol was completely buttoned up and sound, there is kind of that contagion or headline risk associated with an incident elsewhere in DeFi because it is all connected.
And so I think as we think about, we're really excited about new tokenized products and strategies and bringing more on chain and really leveraging the composable nature of it.
I think being buttoned up in your risk management practices is just increasingly important.
Yeah, because as the DeFi ecosystem grows, so does the potential attack vectors or number of attack vectors in the surface area you have to protect.
So that'll make sense there.
I'm curious your thoughts about this DeFi United movement to sort of plug this hole, because I think that this is something that happened, from my perspective, alarmingly quickly.
And they've already, I think, to my understanding, crowdsourced enough funding to more than cover the hole.
Do you think there's a world where investors look at this and actually become more bullish because they're like, okay, this community, this ecosystem is going to protect me and my capital if there is a breach like this?
Or just like, what are your thoughts around this DeFi United movement we've seen?
So I was surprised at how quickly they were able to kind of move and raise, to your point, kind of.
crowdsource, the funds.
We have seen some of these types of collaborative, basically like a bailout before with respect to whether it was the wormhole, bridge hack several years back.
But I don't think a bailout is obviously the...
you know, the end solution or you want to rely on that or be able to underwrite that.
It's really nice to have in this issue.
But I think we do need to get to the kind of the root cause of this.
And obviously, you know, these attackers are quite sophisticated.
And I think, you know, an interesting conversation is, you know, as AI plays a bigger kind of role, you know, here with coding, you know, is that going to benefit the attacker?
I tend to think it benefits, you know, your defense a little bit better than the offense here.
But you know, I think we're in, we're chartering, turning into, you know, kind of interesting waters here with respect to maybe hear about Claude Mythos and I mean, all these things, all these topics are related, right?
I mean, quantum kind of plays a role here too.
And so, you know, I think it's, I think it's important that, you know, really the security of these protocols are, you know, really kind of shored up to the best of their abilities.
Yeah, interesting waters is definitely where we're heading.
I want to ask you about where Franklin Templeton is heading with this because a lot of people may not know this, but you guys have been at the forefront of tokenization for many years.
I think your Benji products, which is a tokenized security, a money market fund on chain, was one of the first projects to come to market from a major institution like yours.
And I think you guys are over 2 billion AUM now on that product.
So congratulations there.
But like after this situation with Aave and, you know, like you said, this need to reappraise risk.
Are you guys changing any of your plans for tokenized products or just things you're doing in the digital asset space?
Or are you just like, you know, re-underwriting your security protocols as you go forward here?
Yeah, I don't think it's really changed our plans, but it just stresses the need to, you know, obviously there's one desire to kind of, you know, get to market quickly, but, you know...
Each one of these work streams is a process and you've got to onboard with the right counterparties.
And there's a process there for a reason.
You've got to make sure it's all buttoned up and go through it.
And those do take time, but they're very important.
And so I think it hasn't derailed any of our initiatives, but at the same time, it just stresses the importance of making sure we're choosing the right partners to work with and making sure we understand the risks and that our clients understand the risks if they're engaging with some of our products on chain.
and kind of what that means.
I think this all goes back to reinforce the idea of, you know, education in the space, but we don't see it, you know, really changing the course.
We continue to think all assets are going to move on chain.
It's just a matter of when, and we're starting to see more and more of that.
And that is, you know, kind of the secular backdrop here.
I'm really glad to hear that because that's kind of been my assessment too.
It's like been a wake up call, but I haven't heard anybody like slamming the brakes yet, which is, you know.
encouraging.
I hope that continues.
Chris, I want to get your thoughts on something else that's been getting a lot of attention of capital and energy in the digital asset space, which is perpetual futures contracts, particularly hyperliquid, has been one of the strongest performing projects in digital assets over the past 18 months or so.
Do you think we're going to see a lot of competitors come into the perpetuals contract space to compete with them?
Do you think liquidity is going to continue to aggregate to hyperliquid as it kind of becomes a front runner in this space?
Or just Kind of give me your outlook in general on the perpetual future space as this evolves and is a major player in the digital assets industry.
Yeah, I mean, they've done a fantastic job.
I would say not just on the product and the technology, but also on the tokenomic model.
You know, I think, and in crypto, what we found, right, is...
Crypto is very good at copycatting things that work.
And so that is good, right?
I think we will see more and more projects.
But I think there is something to be said about competitive advantages relating to size and scale and the moat that...
that creates, right?
In the land of open source code, you're really, you're only differentiator, your moat is to really have that scale advantage and have that liquidity.
And what they're showing also is be vertically integrated across, you know, different types of products and use cases.
So I anticipate we'll see, you know, more entrance into the market.
You know, I'm excited to see, you know, some of the front runners in the Solana ecosystem and their ability to potentially compete.
But, you know, definitely the market leader has a nice head start and it's gonna be tough to kind of overthrow them.
But I think we will see competition heat up and that's for the betterment of the entire industry and users, right?
But I also think it's interesting with HIP3 and now people have to ask, do they wanna compete with Hyperliquid or do they wanna partner with them, right?
And maybe they're...
They're launching their own kind of perp decks for whatever other niche of assets.
And they're partnering with Hyperliquid.
And that allows them to get to market quickly.
And then Hyperliquid benefits because of kind of the economics sharing agreement there.
And so I think that's all really exciting.
So you might see more of these pop up, but they're actually kind of partnering with Hyperliquid on the back end.
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Yeah, I think that's going to be, I agree with you, a proliferation in the space.
And we'll kind of see which one of these things find product markets fits.
I think people are going to try everything they can.
But I'm curious, Chris, your view on how this is either competition or maybe like accelerant for some institutional markets because Hyperliquid has brought out.
purpose contracts on things like gold, oil, other things, basically anything they're going to try to offer a contract on now.
Do institutions view this as an opportunity to sort of expand their playbook here and like maybe get involved in some of these things or do they view it as competition or like what's that relationship like and how do you think that dynamic plays out?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's really exciting.
I think it's an opportunity.
I think the perpetual future, I mean, that model or idea, I think goes back quite a ways.
you know the early 90s if i'm not mistaken one of my uh my old professors uh robert schiller but uh uh you know didn't really take off until crypto right and um and it's just a better form factor for for a lot of reasons right and and then you you combine that with the ability to express a trading view 24 7.
you know you mentioned some of the examples of of gold and silver you know we've seen those year to date right i mean silver i think was back in january things happen on the weekend and they happen in the evening.
And I mean, oil moved, I think 20% on one of these weekends.
And the only way that you could actually express a view and put on a trade and take advantage of that is if you were on hyperliquid.
So I think...
you know, it's going to get to the point, it already kind of is, if you're a trader, you know, and you have a fiduciary, you know, duty to your clients, and you're not taking advantage of kind of 24 seven markets and the ability to express these views and put on these trades, you're almost at a disservice, right?
So it's a competitive, you know, advantage.
And if you don't do it, it's a competitive disadvantage, not to kind of embrace some of these new new technologies.
So I think we're going to see more assets.
I think I think this is a big trend that's here to stay as is kind of the purpose.
of everything that phrase is out there, but we're gonna see more of it.
And it also helps bring in more kind of real world assets on chain.
So we're already seeing that with a few of the examples you mentioned.
I think that trend is gonna continue.
Gotcha.
And I agree with everything you said there.
I'm curious if Franklin Templeton has any plans about this that you want to disclose in terms of how you're engaging with this or are there products you're exploring or just like, how are you fitting this into your overall strategy in digital assets?
Yeah, definitely.
So I think one thing is, and you mentioned clarity earlier, obviously regulatory clarity on how you can do this and through what venues and what partners.
I think from an institutional perspective, we're still looking for some of that.
clarity.
So, we're already kind of paper trading certain strategies that would use this.
We're obviously on the liquid token investing side, we're able to invest in some of these projects on the token side or on the venture side.
So, I think it's a trend we're watching.
It's one we're allocating capital towards in terms of product development and whatnot.
From an institutional perspective, I think we're looking for a little bit more clarity there.
trying to find ways to do it because it's pretty interesting.
Okay, Chris, I think that's a pretty radical position saying we actually need some clarity in the industry.
But I'm glad to hear that something is on the horizon for you all.
And I do hope we get clarity one way or another here.
Chris, another thing I wanted to ask you about that we've seen a lot of enthusiasm on Wall Street around is these ETF, ETP products.
BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, many others have all brought to market new ETPs around spot crypto products just in the last couple of weeks here.
So they're also finding record demand when they do bring out these products.
Why are these products so popular?
And do you think we're going to get to a point of market saturation on these soon?
Or what's your outlook around these ETPs that have come to market here?
Yeah.
So, I mean, it kind of fits into our view that, you know, traditional finance and decentralized finance or, you know, on-chain finance, right?
These worlds are colliding.
So if we think of it as two circles moving towards each other, you know, they're already overlapping, you know.
I think the Venn diagram is a useful mental model here.
And there's really interesting kind of innovation happening at the intersection of these two circles.
So, you know, ETFs are basically putting the traditional wrapper around crypto native products and strategies.
It started with, you know, here in the US, started with Bitcoin spot.
But we're moving to things like, you know, an ETF with multiple tokens in it.
Or a liquid staking token.
I thought that was pretty interesting.
Or some yield-based strategies, whether it's writing covered calls or, again, benefiting from the yield of the token being staked.
I think you're starting to see active management ETFs.
I think there's still a lot to do there.
I mean, we've already come a long way since it's just wrapping, you know, big spot Bitcoin.
And so I think we're going to continue to kind of see innovation here on the ETF side.
And really another way to think of that, ETFs are reverse tokenization, right?
So in this kind of intersection of our Venn diagram, tokenization is taking those real world assets, putting them on chain and ETFs are putting the traditional wrapper around the on-chain assets.
I think we're going to see innovation on both sides continue as these two worlds kind of come together.
And so we're trying to figure out ways to play on both sides of that, you know, whether it's with our ETF, ETP product lineup and with respect to new products, you know, new to on-chain for us, right?
You know, Franklin's got a lot of different products across different asset classes and strategies.
How can we get these on-chain as well?
Gotcha.
I think that's a really interesting...
perspective, a lot of people who are crypto native were kind of taking this view for a long time that we're going to just destroy Wall Street.
And a lot of Wall Street was taking the view that they were going to crush crypto.
And now we're seeing this hybridization, like you said, this Venn diagram coming together.
It's a really interesting environment and watching these things play out.
I'm curious, you know, you spoke about a lot of the innovations and it's kind of clear that the market is not saturated yet on these ETPs.
Are there things that you guys are exploring in this space that, you know, like, how are you thinking about entering here or evolving your offerings?
your products in this space as well.
Yeah, I think it's, so we have a couple of the spot ones and then we went with easy peasy, which right is kind of a basket of, of tokens.
I think the next place to go and others are already starting to do it is to think about, you know, how you can offer yield or active management or some kind of overlays to these types of products and strategies.
I think that's, you know, pretty interesting.
And the ETF complex for Bitcoin at least just crossed the 100 billion mark in terms of net assets and flows have been good in April.
So I think it is a convenient way for a lot of people to get some exposure.
and have that exposure represented alongside their traditional assets.
So it definitely has, I think, a value proposition that caters to certain customer segments.
And so then it's just figuring out how you can wrap different types of product and strategies in that wrapper, which people seem to like, are very familiar and comfortable with, so that it can go into their portfolio.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Well, I think we'll have to keep following the innovation that's happening here because like you said, there's a lot of exciting things happening.
I want to ask you about this.
Michael Saylor has gotten a lot of attention with this STRC, this stretch product, which he's called the lightsaber of money, which I thought was colorful, but...
not necessarily wrong.
And he's been pulling in a lot of capital.
It's coming out of institutional capital.
It's starting to notice this.
How do you think that the market is going to respond to this product?
And how are institutions going to try to compete with a product that's offering 11.5% annually paid monthly?
What are your thoughts on that?
How do you think that changes the market dynamics here?
I think it's a pretty creative product.
And certainly he's done an amazing job at productizing different parts of his balance sheet, right?
And kind of matching, you know, risk return profiles, all kind of related to Bitcoin for different, you know, customer segments, right?
So I've always thought that it's, you know, extremely innovative as a student of corporate finance, you know, there's a lot that's really interesting there.
And what I think with the Stretch product, um not only are kind of traditional investors interested in it um and has a nice you know yield and everything but people are now tokenizing that and bringing that into defy so you know there you have an off-chain asset that has a nice yield um that then you can you know plug in and and whether it's you know looping or bringing it over into pendle A lot of different ways that you can take that yield and do more with it on chain.
And I think this very much connects to our discussion about the state of DeFi and whatnot.
And I think important with all of these products and strategies is you have to know where the yield is coming from, whether it's the yield is natively on chain, what's generating that yield, or if the yield is off chain and now is coming on chain again, what is the source of that yield?
Is it defensible?
But here you have the case of, I mean, it's not a senior secure tranche, right?
It's perpetual preferred, but people can look at the amount of Bitcoin on strategy's balance sheet that are kind of pseudo collateralizing that tranche.
And then in Aave, I mean, it might be two times covered and your yield is a lot less.
So I think as these worlds converge, people are going to be comparing risk return.
profiles across assets that are off-chain and assets that are on-chain.
And I think it really connects back to the discussion of what should investors be compensated for if they are investing in certain kind of yield products or strategies, whether that's on-chain or off-chain.
When you think about some kind of risk-free rate or base rate, plus a credit spread, a liquidity premium or discount, and kind of building up a required rate of return that way.
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing a lot of thoughts on that.
There's more happening every day and I can't keep up with all of it.
So I'm glad someone is.
Chris, I buried the headline a little bit here, but the big news out of Franklin Templeton recently has been this acquisition of 250 Digital and rebranding to Franklin Crypto.
And I'd love to just hear your take on the vision here, what you see as being the strategy and just talk to us a little bit about Franklin Crypto and what's ahead there.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, when you think about Franklin Templeton's digital asset business, I think a useful way to think about it is two sides of the house, the building side of the house, which is taking our own funds and tokenizing them, putting them on chain.
So it's got a tokenization engine.
It's got wallet technology, the on-chain transfer agent, right?
And Benji's a part of that.
And there we're doing a lot of kind of partnerships.
OKEx and Binance and whatnot.
So on the investing side of our house, it's typically been all kind of organic.
Again, we have the ETF business for kind of a low cost beta way to access the market.
And then we have these actively managed strategies.
We have early stage venture, liquid token investing, and all that's been kind of homegrown.
So I think with the acquisition of 250 Digital, it's really kind of stressing that.
hey, we want to double down on the investing side of our house as well.
Again, we think this asset class is here to stay.
It's being integrated into client portfolios more and more and being more accepted institutionally.
So I think rounding out that product lineup and that institutional scale and kind of rigor that comes and that our clients expect of us across all asset classes.
So this allows us to...
bring on a great team and not just the folks who lead it, but the full teams coming over.
And we're really looking to kind of build this out.
So I think it's just a vote of confidence in this asset class, it being here to stay and us wanting to kind of double down both in terms of talent coming in the door and different products and strategies that we can build.
and go after some of the larger institutional clients.
I would love to hear your thoughts on if you view this move as being driven by trying to meet demand from your existing clientele, existing user base, or do you guys view this as a way to try to expand and capture additional market share and what that market share is?
Just like, talk to me about how you view that.
Yeah, I think as, as digital assets becomes bigger and more institutionalized and, you know, has more Lindy behind it.
I think what we're seeing is, especially on the institutional side, like a client might determine they want to allocate a certain amount.
towards digital assets.
And they might look to a trusted manager to kind of help them with that allocation.
And that allocation might actually be broken out into, they want a little bit of the low cost beta, but they want some venture, they want some long only, maybe they want some market neutral, maybe they want some yield.
And so being at the size and scale and also having that comprehensive menu to be able to, again, to your point, meet these clients where they're at.
I think is critical.
I think initially it was just like, how can I get a little bit of Bitcoin exposure to dip the toe in?
And now the conversations evolved to what should a really kind of thoughtful institutional grade strategy look like for this asset class?
And how should I think about, okay, if I'm doing X percent for digital assets, how do we break down that X percent?
And what buckets does it go into?
And how should I think about that?
And so it's exciting that the conversations are evolving as the industry kind of evolves here.
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Yeah, I think that's really interesting, too, because, you know, what you highlighted here is sort of the institutional grade robustness of the platform.
and the liquidity there, but then also still being able to give that granularity in how you think about engaging with the asset class.
That's interesting and sort of like helps me understand how you view like the differentiator of Franklin Crypto.
Who do you view as your competitors?
Do you feel like it's a host of different players?
Is it the Coinbases of the world, the Hyperliquids of the world, or is it just other asset managers on Wall Street?
How do you think about that in terms of situating Franklin Crypto in the market and differentiating it from other players?
Yeah, I think you're always going to have people who want to do it yourself, you know, the do it yourselfers.
And then you're going to have people who want a trusted advisor to, you know, help them with the allocation and the strategy.
And even though there might be passive components to that allocation, in addition to actively managed, I think, you know, having someone that they can.
Trust, I think we're up to 80 person, kind of full time team just focused on digital assets and institutional grade research and risk management that comes with that.
So for a lot of people, the crypto part of the portfolio is still a single digit percentage, right?
So they can't afford to be focused on it with 100% of their time.
And as you know, if you're not focused on this space 100% of the time.
it can be quite challenging.
And so that's where a trusted manager can really help with that.
So in terms of competitors, I think it's less of, say, Coinbase or the exchanges where a lot of people are kind of doing it themselves.
It's more kind of other large global asset managers that have really kind of emphasized growing their digital asset practice as well.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
What are the next steps from here?
Obviously, you've made the acquisition, the rebrand is happening, you're clearly doing the podcast circuit to kind of get the word out.
But what do you view as the next thing in line for Franklin Templeton?
Or are you waiting for the Clarity Act to come through to make that decision?
Just talk to me about what you view as the next steps for Franklin here.
Yeah, I think there's a lot to be done on the product innovation side.
as you know we're starting to embrace this technology as it gets more lindy again you know these these hacks they they do kind of set things back a little bit or make you pause but i think the general direction is is again these worlds are colliding so how can we come up with interesting products and strategies that are really kind of meeting the client's demands.
And so I think there's a lot to do on the innovation side.
So I think you'll see more announcements from us in terms of things we're rolling out, things we're excited about.
And I think what's helpful too on being on the venture side is you get to see the innovation pipeline.
And so we see things that are coming down at the early stage.
It gives us an informed view of where this is all headed.
I know you've had Sandy on the show as well.
So she sees this world where no longer do we have account views.
It's all your assets are in your wallet.
So in that world, what is the role of an asset manager?
And what does wealth management look like?
And so I think we're starting to really kind of envision that and figure out different things that we can do to help support.
you know, the industry moving in this direction.
Chris, we started this conversation with Bitcoin and you gave us this optimistic bullish outlook here.
If we do break out past 80K, and you're welcome to punt on this question if you don't want to do price predictions, but do you guys have a target in mind for 2026?
Because I've seen wild valuations from lots of asset managers.
And I'm curious if you have a price target for 2026 that you're watching for for Bitcoin here.
Yeah, you know, and I will say we do a lot of valuation work on all these protocols and tokens and it's never a point estimate, right?
Everything's kind of probability weighted.
But if we're talking about our base case, you know, I think.
I think we think we're back above the 100K mark, which is kind of a key threshold, right?
So I'm not one of the million guys in 12 month type of forecast, but I see the path for us to kind of first reclaim the 200 day.
And again, there's still gonna be volatility and chop, but we are putting in higher highs, higher lows, we're consolidating.
Bitcoin's moving between different cohorts.
When you look at the on-chain data, I think we're still in a bear now.
But again, the path to breaking through and kind of getting back to triple digits is there.
So that is our base case.
Chris Jensen, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, thank you so much for coming on The Milk Road Show, sharing some insight, wisdom, and some hopium with all of us.
Where can we send people to find more of you and your work online?
Sure.
I think best places on X, FTDA underscore US, I guess right there.
And then we also have, if you just type in or search for Franklin Templeton.
there's a digital asset research hub that's for more long form you know kind of papers and um and that sort of thing but but the x account is probably the best place i recommend the long form papers if you haven't they do great research so uh check them out keep following chris chris thanks so much for being on the milkrow show want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event subscribe to our channel Join the Milk Road daily and pro newsletters and start investing like the top 1%.
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