“Three billion billions are like a stock of Mag 7, 20 billions are an asset class,” said Anthony Scaramucci, founder and CEO of Skybridge Capital. “So if you tell me that Bitcoin can reach $ 500,000, people will write stories that Bitcoin is a class of assets.”
This provocative reference of Scaramucci set the tone for an animated conversation during the Consensus 2025 conference in Coindesk, where he joined Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of Wisdomtree; Pasqual St-Jean, president and chief executive officer of 3iq; and Andy Baehr of Coindesk clues to discuss the crypto, in particular bitcoin BTC$103,465.57Finally became a class of assets of good faith.
While the panelists have largely agreed that the crypto is coming there, they stressed that the path of institutional validation requires more than just appreciation of the prices.
Bitcoin opens the way
Pasqual St-Jean argued that Bitcoin has already authorized many of the obstacles that traditional assets must encounter to be deemed investable by institutions such as gold. “He has roofing mechanisms. He has different packaging. It is a little easier to understand. It is a digital gold for a digital era,” he added.
This accessibility, he noted, contrasts with other types of cryptographic assets, such as governance and utility tokens, which remain more difficult for institutional beneficiaries to grasp. “When we talk about governance tokens, it is a little more difficult for institutions to end,” he said. “What exactly do I have?”
The ETF effect
The panelists underlined the introduction of the FNB Bitcoin Spot – in particular in the United States – as a turning point in crypto travel to institutional legitimacy.
Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of Wisdomtree, underlined the irony of the way in which the former president of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, inadvertently laid the basics of a highly competitive and mature market.
“Gensler created what he didn’t want in the United States,” said Steinberg. “There is more Bitcoin ETPs than the ETF S&P 500. He created an extremely competitive and mature foundation for Bitcoin, who, I think, deserved for the asset class.”
St-Jean has accepted, calling the “game changer” packaging, especially for Bitcoin. It has enabled legal and compliance services to step back and deal with it as a regular investment decision, opening the door to more widespread adoption among institutions, he said.
Education and diversification are essential
Despite the progress made, Andy Baehr warned that Bitcoin’s domination could retain the wider crypto ecosystem.
“The Crypto asset class is a bit inscribed by the fact that there is this singular giant thing that stands there that people must understand first,” said Baehr. “However, you miss the real blockchain technology, layers 1, infrastructure, DEFI – if you do not dig more deeply.”
He compared the current moment to 1999, when online brokerage houses made technological actions accessible to a wider investor base. As then, liquidity vehicles such as ETFs could help create allocation engines for cryptographic space, transforming short -term exchanges into long -term investment.
However, the panelists were realistic about increasing pain. Steinberg stressed that many institutions are still at the start of their reasonable diligence. While some hedge funds have leap, most of the beneficiaries are still educated.
The upcoming road
The panelists have stressed that the final push towards a large acceptance of the asset class will probably depend on the continuous development of infrastructure, regulatory clarity and institutional products.
“We had to educate them that the regulator is not allowed to choose which asset class is invested if the infrastructure problem is solved,” said St-Jean.
In the meantime, he argued that the development products, the investments of the layer 1 blockchain and the more diverse index products will be critical. “You are just an owner of HTTP,” he said, drawing a parallel with the first Internet protocols. “Bitcoin they understand, now they start to understand layers 1.”
Scaramucci, for its part, remains optimistic. “We may not really be optimistic enough,” he said, citing the explosion of capital in space, the wave of copy strategies according to the example of the strategy and the “sales machine” of Wall Street now pushing Bitcoin and Crypto ETF.
He added that even if political risks remain, in particular with the crypto becoming a problem with the chaud button in American policy, the incentives are tailoring for bipartite support. “If you get Bitcoin at $ 500,000, people will not only say that it is an asset class-they will treat it as one,” he said.
Whether this price objective is achieved or not, the panel agreed: the foundation is there, the packaging is in place and the institutions finally appear. The transformation of the crypto from curiosity to the asset class is no longer a question of “if” – just “when”.
