In the 2025 conference known as Consensus held at Toronto, Anthony Scaramucci, founder and CEO of SkyBridge Capital, claimed that if Bitcoin attained $500,000, then it will be acknowledged as regarded asset class. He said “Three trillion is, like a mag 7 stock, 20 trillion is an asset class”. Therefore if you tell me that bitcoin can get to 500,000 then people will be writing stories that it is an asset class.
This panel discussion featured Jonathan Steinberg (CEO of WisdomTree), Pasqual St-Jean (President and CEO of 3iQ), and Andy Baehr (CoinDesk Indices), who touched upon the changing role of cryptocurrencies in the traditional finance. They emphasized the rise of the Bitcoin ETF, regulatory improvements, and the increased institutional learning as key aspects of driving mainstream adoption of crypto assets.
Pasqual St-Jean stressed that Bitcoin has managed to surmount a lot of impediments to be an asset class which the institutions can invest in pointing that it is “digital gold for a digital age”. He listed its hedging mechanisms and different investment wrappers that make it more accessible than other crypto assets, such as governance and utility tokens, which are still cumbersome to institutional investors.
The panelists talked about the major effect of Bitcoin ETFs, especially in the U.S., on the institutional legitimacy. Jonathan Steinberg noted that the strict regulatory regime championed by the former SEC Chair Gary Gensler inadvertently helped Bitcoin ETFs grow into a competitive and grown-up space publishing, “There are more bitcoin ETPs than S&P 500 ETFs.”
While Bitcoin has been on a domineering trend, Andy Baehr warned that the focus on this area may dwarf the big picture of blockchain technologies including Layer 1 implementations and decentralized finance (DeFi). He compared the current state to 1999, and new financial instruments could make the short-term trading into long-term investing.
As for the future, the panelists agreed that in order to achieve complete institutional acceptance of cryptocurrencies, there has to be investment in more development of the infrastructure, regulatory clarity and a diverse range of investment products. Scaramucci was optimistic though, and noted that political risks are decreasing and bipartisan support is increasing. He said, “if you get bitcoin to $500,000, people won’t just say it’s an asset class – they’ll treat it like one”.
