2026 Crypto Outlook: Bitcoin Suisse AG & Crypto Valley Association Event Recap

Transcript

size, but that looks perfect. You know, we manage this quite well. So, welcome tonight for a co-organized event by the Cryptoval Association and Bitcoin Swiss. I'm Jerome Bay. I'm the president of the Crypto Association and really happy to see all of you tonight for a very exciting uh evening where you will learn a lot. Uh I hope uh you will appreciate the the event. Uh it's it's now kind of a tradition that we all coorganize this event with Bitcoin Swiss at the end of of the year to uh talk about the uh crypto outlook report that you produce for seven times I think. Um

congratulation. Uh we already had the chance to do several events together. It's always uh very in interesting. Um so we will have tonight um the presentation of the report followed by uh by a panel. Um so I want to thank all the speaker from Bitcoin Swiss uh from the Bitcoin standard treasury company and also for Bitwise. I just want to say a few words to Bitwise. Uh thank you for joining Bitwise the crypto association as a corporate member. It's one of the newest members. So you're welcome to to to the community. Uh very excited to have you. you were there already last week for our next event and uh already received a confirmation that you'll be

there for next uh event. So thank you very much repeat bitwise for uh joining the the the community. [clears throat] Um I won't be longer uh because the real information real insight will be after but as it's a it's a it's a it's a an event when um when we launch uh launch of your report we also launched the communication about our next flagship event um which is called the web three bunking symposium um so that's the first time that the crypto association organized a flagship event in Zurich uh saves the date uh March the 2nd, 2026.

This one is different to the crypto conference. I I hope you all know the C CVC uh longest running crypto conference in Europe. This one is really focused to banking and institutional. Um we had the chance to test the format uh two two years in a row. Last year we were in Geneva and this year you were we were in Lugano. some of you were were with us and so next year we are ready to be where everything happens in Switzerland when it comes to banking meaning uh Zurich uh we already had a lot of participant you see a lot of uh institutional and banking uh logos uh I hope you'll be one of them for the 2026

uh a few focus area will be um stablecoin international payment uh new rails for B2B payment asset tokenization, real world asset tokenization, banking infrastructure, how we integrate web 3 and uh new product offering, really high level um focus area and uh I think something you will like uh we have decided to do something in a very unusual place with focus on experience uh and we rented the Kun House Museum in Zurich which is if you're from Zurich you know it that's quite a beautiful area so we are the museum for us lot of experience on art also for networking. So I really

encourage you to save the day, join us as an attendee and maybe join us as a as a as a sponsor because yes we need sponsors. Uh we already have a few um a few sponsor that already have been taken. I can already share you informally that the presenting partner of the web street banking session 2026 will be Fontan Templeton. Thank you for their trust. they joined us last year as a corporate member. Um, we had the chance to meet Jen Johnson, their CEO, and they will help us forward the organization of this one. But still plenty of opportunity to put your brand and company uh up front. [snorts] Get in touch with us. Um, get in touch with me and any CVA members who are working in

the in the committee. Um then uh before ending I just uh really want to to do a special thank you to Bitcoin Swiss because Swiss has been one of the founding member of the crypto association back in 2017 uh one of the few uh few company who believed in this association and uh who's been there with us every year like each time we need support we know we call uh Bitcoin and they are there. So, it's really really something that uh I want to emphasize and I wanted to thank all the Bitcoin team here and and especially uh Peter uh thank you for

your support. It's really uh really important for us and last last point um a small announcement but also to [clears throat] confirm that we we value this relationship. So we have formally agreed uh that uh the crypto holdings of the crypto association will now be uh at the custody of Bitcoin Swiss. So that's the first time that we move the holdings of the association uh and we decided to do it with one of our special me uh members. So thank you very much for the uh opportunity and we look forward to uh 2026 together. Um and now um I want to introduce Peter Peter Kmenz who is the

new CEO of Bitcoin. So first of all congratulation for your new role and uh I invite you to say a few words in the name of uh of your company. [applause] Thank you for your work. Moving the funds into the clos of Bitcoin Swiss is maybe the best idea we were here today. So uh thank you very much. So um I think Bitcoin Swiss requires no lengthy introduction. We have been not only part of the crypto valley but maybe the main address of crypto valley since 2013.

Um and what since 2013 our clients want from us is a clear opinion. So not only a clear opinion but they want us to be the opinion leaders in the fields. And whereas in Trefi the economists and analysts and researcher often build their outlook around consensus it's no such thing as consensus in in our world in in the crypto world. So our predictions and our calls in the past have been quite bold and it is extremely interesting and makes me proud to see

despite the boldness of it how accurate we have been in the past with an accuracy rate of 80% in 24 now 75% in 25. I'm really looking forward to hear and see your calls for 26. I wish us all an interesting and insightful hour. And with that, I pass the floor to you. Thank you very much. [applause] Where's the mic? I think I take the mic.

Thank you, Peter, for the intro. also Sherome and the CBA for hosting this with us. I can just echo what you said. Uh I think we also deeply value the partnership with uh with the CBA. Um but now we are heading into Outlook content. So officially also welcome from my side to uh this year's um 26 Outlook event. Um I'm Dominic Bible. I'm heading the research department at Bitcoin Swiss. Um, presenting with me today is uh Dennis Overberman, our investment strategist. And obviously both uh we are both very excited to share our recent uh research and insights with you. Uh but that's not all. Afterwards, we have a

super like high-end quality panel uh including Andre and Sean Bill from uh both Bitwise and the Bitcoin standard treasury company. So there's more to to look out for after this presentation. Um the outlook as Peter quickly briefly mentioned it's our flagship publication and in it we outline what we expect in the year ahead uh in terms of trends in terms of macro developments but also in terms of potential threats uh both for crypto markets but also the underlying technology.

Um and Peter also mentioned we did quite well in the last couple of years and obviously we uh try to do that again in 26. Um before we dive into the forwardlooking content, [clears throat] I want to take a brief uh look into the rear view mirror. This is our periodic table of asset classes. Sorry, in the back we share we can share the slides afterwards if you can't see this. Um but I want your attention basically on the right hand column it shows you the the year-to-ate performance across different asset classes. And what is striking obviously if you look at the top uh gold outperformed all asset classes it returned roughly 60% year to date and then the the follow-ups tech equity AI

the S&P also performed uh remarkably well around the 20% mark on the opposing side basically rather flat and trading in the basement of the of these column uh are crypto assets so crypto assets really surprised to the downside this year. Although they usually rally alongside risk assets such as the S&P. So we are framing this year as crypto really overd delivered on fundamentals and heavily under delivered on the on the price. And there's a a basket of reasons. If you think about the AI narrative, it was very strong.

Gold rally was very strong with the debasement trade. Stable coins. Teda bought like more gold than anybody else in Q2 and Q3. um we had like major retail participation in the uh buying gold and AI also the earnings often surprised to the to the upside meaning it's a a lot a lot of liquidity that did not end up in crypto assets right we know the the market is very reflects it leans into narratives and this year it just wasn't a the crypto wasn't just a big topic at the same time um we know there was some form of front running of of the notorious 4year cycle. Um then we broke uh this year this psychological

barrier of 100k. This basically prompted many long-term holders to uh derisk some uh take some exposure of distribute some of their holdings. Um we also know in the in this cycle is it was one of the few cycles where did where we did not see any retail mania like at all. no blowoff tops which also means to us if there's no uh blowoff and mania to the upside there might not be capitulation to the downside. So the ch the cycles are somewhat changing mostly this cycle was driven by institutional flows DATs for instance ETS very strong flows while the retail part was very muted. Um we

are very constructive on 26 and we outlined now why we believe uh 26 might surprise uh maybe to the upside. Um we basically structured this uh presentation into four different areas. We [clears throat] start a little bit with like outlining how we believe that capital flows how you allocate into crypto will develop in the next year. Then we will outline how infra how we believe that infrastructure and protocols will evolve uh mostly in terms of adoption and then afterwards uh Dennis will follow up and basically cover the macro framework and then our like beloved uh directional calls.

Everybody wants price targets, right? Um we start with the with the um crypto flows. One of our big calls for next year is that we do believe that ETFs will uh see their second major act. Um this bar chart basically shows you uh it's a it's a recent Schwab survey uh outlining how investors plan to allocate into different asset classes and ETFs. And what is really like very impressive is that cryptoc currencies range second with 45%.

Like basically on par with bonds at the same time bonds have 45% of assets under management. Crypto just 1% implying that there's a lot of capital influx in 26. Now at the same time on the institutional front we know that this long-term uh hold out Vanguard is now opening up to crypto meaning like uh 7 to 8 million people are now able to to to allocate into crypto. At the same time Bank of America is also now allowing their advisors to allocate into crypto meaning we are unlocking a multi- trillion capital pool. Then in August if you remember there was this executive order. now also opening up retirement

accounts to allocate into crypto which is another 9 trillion pool. You could also add for instance the crypto wealth transfer uh from older generations to younger for instance uh people above 70 years now in the US now hold 33% of the entire wealth. So this is distributed at some point to uh generations that resonate even more with crypto. So we expect like there are really strong uh institutional flows in 26. Um and at [clears throat] the same time also sovereign allocators are warming up. If you think about the Czech national bank recently, Luxembourg, Abu Dhabi, you name it. So one of the calls is that at

the end of 26 these passive vehicles will hold like roughly 10% of Bitcoin and 8% of EVE. And one might even argue this is very conservative almost. Um I just uh mentioned passive. We also believe in our in one of our first calls in the outlook that there is some form of tug of war emerging in crypto because the the these ETF flows they also tend to be very passive price insensitive and so forth that we know from the traditional world. uh meaning that they will anchor the large caps in in the top 10 like for sure. Uh what you see in this in these pie charts is basically

how topheavy the the NASDAQ is what you see is only 29% of this index is outside of the top 10. If you compare that to crypto excluding Bitcoin, it feels like this chart looks very similar to the NASA, but the assets outside in in terms of market capitalization outside um of the top 10 are only 20.2. If we now add our digital gold, Bitcoin, it's just 7.1%. So, crypto is very very topheavy, even way more topheavy than than the NASDAQ.

And we do believe these ETF flows will anchor the top line. But we also do believe that this 7.1% will increase. We will see new market prep in crypto. For this reason, what happened across the last couple of years is that we do know the revenue mata is getting more and more important. meaning we finally somewhat move away from these slop tokens and have tokens that distribute revenue to token holders. Here's a table with the top 10. Hyperlid for instance in the last 30 days distributed 100 million in revenue to the token holders.

So maybe you might say finally something where I can apply discounted cash flow models and things like that. And this chart is the striking part. Now after many years of like uh applications being online and getting traction and so forth, they are now driving 89% of the overall revenue. Meaning that just 10% is in the rest. But at the same same time, blockchains uh do like 90% of the market cap while they are only driving 10% uh of the of the fees and the revenue. So in our view, we do believe the ATFs will anchor the top, but we believe there's a a repricing overdue

and maybe also some L1s will soften in terms of L1 premium. Um staying in the market structure part we do [clears throat] uh the next call is that we believe it's finally time in 26 that options markets uh substantially pick up in in activity. What you see in this chart is basically indexed the the the relative growth of op crypto options crypto futures and crypto spot. What we see that there is some uh options on a relative basis grow already faster than the rest. It's now at roughly annual uh growth of roughly 40%. We also do hit new uh record volumes uh for for instance in October 250 billion and

there are like four major reasons why we expect uh that options will gain a lot of market share and eat into the market share of futures and spot. The first one is the market is maturing. more sophisticated players are entering the space and they are hungry for options because that's what's what happens in Treadfire as well. Then we expect some more volatility potentially especially around the midterms in 26 and options is where the music plays when there's when we are in a high volatility regime. Then we also deal or observe improved pricing models and we have like uh some text tech innovation and improvements uh for for cryptonative protocols. So these

will link to uh a relative outgrowth of of options markets in in our view. And here maybe just to to demonstrate or make this even more tangible on the left hand side you see how options markets the distribution of volume developed across the last couple of years across actually the the last three decades and you see that it's absolutely dominating and what you see on the crypto market side on the right right hand side options are tiny like you almost don't see it it's like 3% our call is that it grows to roughly 5% % in the next year and from there it will be potentially up only also you have like very uh more

sophisticated tools. Uh we are also expecting that perpetual options will also pick up um in in terms of adoption. Now we are briefly diving into rails and resilience. So more the infrastructure part. Uh one of the deepest and most important topics are stable coins especially with genius. Now, we know stable coins supply is at an all-time high. It's the first cycle where stable coins decoupled from the underlying crypto cycle, implying there's like a lot of utility. We know there's like 120 billion in annualized payment flows right now across B2B, peer-to-peer, Catholic payments, and so forth. Yet this entire indust area is hugely

dominated by just tether and circle. They do like 86% of the supplies from Ted and circle alone. Our call is that this dual poly will weaken in 26. We are calling at least for 75% uh as we move into a multi-issue landscape and we do believe that this uh dual poly will also end in some at some point. The reason is we have more regulatory clarity. The other reason is we know tether and circle they do hold 250 billion in reserves. They make a a twodigit billion in profit on these reserves and other companies do want part of the cake. Ted is uh the most

profitable company uh per employee globally and all of these like fintex banks and so forth are waking up to that fact and they want they want part of these uh stable [clears throat] coin supply chain and now with the genius act we know uh that tech companies might uh start to challenge banks and that stable coins uh might start to challenge uh bank deposits. So if if you think about the news, Clana is involved. Amazon, Walmart is considering it. We have a paper PayPal stable coin already. We know Sockchain, Stripe is launching uh Tempo with huge partnerships uh among them. Entropic. And then from the

cryptonative side, they are also getting corners. We know Hyperliquid [clears throat] is launching their own stable coin. Mega Eve is launching their own stable coin. They all want to tap into this uh into this carry. Um therefore we be believe that the dual poly will basically substantially weaken and another aspect is if you think about the regulation isn't it weird that both mika and genius ask uh for prohibition of yield distribution. So in our view it will Teta and circle will not only be cornered by the um the entities I mentioned before but it will also be cornered by smart entities that just work around uh basically um and and and come up with yield bearing stable coins.

What we see is yield balance stable coins are now almost 13 billion roughly 4.3% of the supply and in terms of a relative growth aspect they are growing way faster than payment stable coins. Payment stable coins meaning they do not distribute any yield and we as a customer obviously we want access to that yield. Genius for instance, it has a small loophole where you can provide yield as a third party or rewards and they are actually the banking lobby is challenging this right now within the market structure bill although it has nothing to do with stable coin actually.

Um so we do believe that regulation will force this two-way lane market where we have these compliant payment dollars. These are challenged and then uh like tether and circle and it will also be challenged by uh yield bearing stable coins. [clears throat] It can be whatever yield rapper can be a a strategy wrapped into a pack dollar for instance. Um then just briefly we do believe that poly market uh is getting crowned as the prediction market king. Right [clears throat] now it's uh still KI. If you check the volumes here, Kali is slightly dominating uh the prediction markets. We know prediction markets uh 25 was really the the year where

prediction markets crossed into into mainstream relevance. If you check the volume chart, this was around the US elections. Afterwards, it dropped. Fair enough. But now there's genuine traction. So there's like sticky user retention uh and a lot of users just very keen to to play around with with uh prediction markets. And it clearly proved during 25 that prediction markets are not a one-trick pony or one hit wonder. It's here to stay and it's only becoming more relevant.

Although uh for this entire time poly market had no access to the US markets and it's the most capital heavy market. This is changing right now. We also know there's like major partnerships including a IC investment which is like really implying a lot of institutional confidence and uh strikingly this gray bar of Kali 50% of the volume of Kali is driven by a Robin Hood partnership >> and Robin Hood is now exiting this partnership because they want to launch their own prediction market. So strong arguments that uh poly market will overtake ki and I thought this chart is also quite interesting. You see

basically across which sectors the activity is distri distributed in both prediction markets and you see poly market is quite equally distributed across crypto sports and so forth. It's definitely the more cryptonative platform and ki is like heavily anchored into sports. So if you think about it, it's way easier for Poly Market to gain market share than it is for for for Kali. The Kali basically the onshore non-cryptonative player and Poly Market more the offshore uh cryptonnative player. Then lastly, this is something that Andre might like as well. Um we do believe 26 uh should shape up as a year where the community is seriously

considering how they want to approach the quantum threat. We know that in the last couple of months there was like huge progress in terms of quantum uh the timelines are compressing faster than we can blink. Uh it becomes like [clears throat] really a tangible threat. There are like estimates that we we deal with a quantum uh ready computer by by 2030. And if you think about like uh high level uh low or lowhanging fruits in terms of targets, blockchains are very uh the the earliest basically high value target because um you can harvest public keys now um like exposed public keys. It it depends on your address type and I

basically attack them later. The ch I'm very sorry. So, uh let's go back to the quantum topic. Um so I said uh that that blockchain are really the the the the earliest high value target because you can basically um farm exposed public keys basically attack them later. And as of now, as you see here in this chart, uh you have diff two different types here. [clears throat] At risk due to unsafe address type and then at risk due to reused addresses. Uh both basically mean that uh the public key in some form might be uh visible and you can basically then uh derive the the private key with a with a sufficiently powerful

quantum computer from that public key. Uh in our view um 26 is really the year where the community has to start figuring out and digging deep on how to deal with it. We have a couple of Bitcoin improvement proposals already. I think the traction is uh is quite strong already. Um and it's important because we know that Bitcoin is highly oified. It takes a lot of time if you want to uh get consensus on a soft or hard fork. Um and definitely if you look at the timelines 26 has to be the year where we start like forming some form of uh consensus uh consensus that means 26 initiates uh the soft soft fork path in

our view um and it's a it's a it's a very positive development because as I mentioned earlier the quantum threats are just very uh very strongly compressing in timelines. I think it will be a a good topic later on on the panel as well. Uh and now we head over into the macro framework and to and into the directional calls. Thanks everybody for the attention. [applause] [clears throat] All right. I was already worried Dominic might cut off the price predictions with the So where are we in 2025? It's been a volatile year. I would still say it's been quite a bullish and

positive year overall for the crypto industry. As Dominic mentioned, price-wise, we've been looking quite bleak at the end of the year, comparably maybe to gold or even to silver, which doubled year-over-year. But if we zoom out a little bit in terms of where are we with the cycles overall, with the economy, with the markets, what we can generally say, of course, is that the business cycle overall has fairly stabilized over the recent years. Um meaning of course usually once we see economic downturns in the past we've also seen a recession there's been major corrections in the markets but so far what we saw actually during 2025 especially also with the tariff backdrop in the markets was stabilization across the board right you know the IMF and the world bank they're also projecting that

we are stabilizing global GDP growth at around 3.1% next year currently we're at 3.2% 2% and historically answering maybe also that questions what many people have in the markets right is there maybe now going to be a recession year ahead it wouldn't really look that way in the charts as of now if we also look for example how's the economy doing in terms of general liquidity and financial conditions we have the national financial conditions index down here meaning once that index rises there is contracting liquidity and credit conditions in the market and if it's going down it's actually easing and also there what we see across the report since roughly 2023. We see actually easing conditions in terms of liquidity access for the broader economy, which is

quite striking, right? Because the Fed has been communicating quantitative tightening since 2022 as well and only ended that as of last week. So overall, economically, what we can observe certainly is stabilization across the board and also rising sentiment and activity again while at the same time the liquidity conditions for businesses are fairly easy. Why does it matter? Of course, because we have uh let's say anomaly in the market, one irrational player, that's of course the central bank usually because the central banks have uh have an impossible dual mandate you might call it, right? On the one hand, they're obliged to cause stable prices.

Stable prices means low inflation and prices are not changing much. And on the other hand, what they should do, of course, is cause or be responsible for full employment in the economy. And that's basically an impossible mandate because one of these two variables always comes at the cost of the other, right? You cannot have full employment and stable prices usually in the economy. Why does it matter? Of course, because postco what we saw was very much doubledigit inflation rates. Maybe not in Switzerland, but if we look at Europe or also the broader Yas economy, double-digit inflation rates were basically on the menu. And that is also quite important because usually high inflation [clears throat] causes rate hikes for the Federal Reserve or for the Federal Reserve target rate. And historically what

happens also in the meantime, usually once we see inflation rising, rates being hiked, we see that the labor market is softening and unemployment rises historically. Sorry for maybe some tall guys in the front line, especially Dominic. But down here on the unemployment rate chart, what we can see actually is that unemployment historically rose quite steeply coming into or out of a recession historically. So we know the crisis unemployment almost doubled more or less. The same time global financial crisis later also in the 2010 years the Euro crisis Greece Cypress etc. the unemployment rate more than doubled and postcoid it even tripled over the time of less than a year or maximum two years. If you now look where we're currently at economically and also in terms of the

labor market we saw that since 2022 and 23 the [clears throat] labor market weakened and the unemployment rate rose only by relatively 30% over the course of more than two years. So relatively stable and resilient economy overall in our opinion. If you now look what this irrational big player in the market does, what we see of course is the rate has been hiked postco, we're now or we came back of a target rate of almost 5%. But what's striking of course is once we come off of that plateau again, meaning once rates are cut and we go back into that easing regime, what happens historically in the markets?

Historically, of course, rate cuts always perceived as bullish, but usually they mean the markets contract in the short term because it also means the economy has been weakening, markets sell off. Again, if you compare the three prior major crisis that we observed since this millennia, basically what we can see is the rates have been cut very very steeply in a very short period of time. So, usually within a year or even less than a year, the rate has been cut by more than half already. And in basically one to two years the rate has been cut almost entirely from the target or from the peak federal reserve rate.

Meaning it's been cut almost to zero and then panic attempt to really restart the economy. And again if we look where are we coming off from now currently after 12 months the rate has been only cut by relative 20%. And the forward pricing one year's time from now that's also in our outlook what we address. It's currently priced at 3% meaning the rate is not even cut in half over almost two years. So very very moderate approach and a perfect soft landing scenario which is also what we anticipate. What we now actually anticipate is that the current futures pricing in the market is wrong and we think that the rate will actually be cut way more steeply and more towards 2% compared to the 3% that markets price incurrently meaning of course uh that based on economic factors higher rate cuts are warranted but

there's another irrational play in the market which is unusually politicians and we know of course that Trump would like to have the rate lower. There's also economic reasons to that actually. If we know the US is currently running at a deficit of 6% and has to refinance 9 trillion in debt upcoming year and if you have to refinance 9 trillion of a fiscal deficit, you'd of course like to do that at a lower interest rate. That brings us to our favorite topic and an overarching topic which is of course the general dynamics of liquidity expansion in the market. We know liquidity expansions they actually drive market and asset prices and that's especially the case because assets are usually limited in supply whereas cash is not.

The past four and a half years actually have been quite interesting. However, we know the quantitative tightening regime ended after four and a half years by the Fed as of last week. And what that means of course is that global net liquidity so what central banks actually hold on balance sheet meaning buying and selling off assets has contracted by 8 trillion over the past four and a half years. All while the broad money expansion underwent basically to the upside by more than 10 trillion over the same time. Why does it matter? We know of course that global M2 so the broad money base is more of an economic supply liquidity indicator. Where is the global net liquidity means what are central banks directly buying in the financial markets meaning liquidity and liquidity easing also to asset markets.

That matters of course because if we now zoom out a little bit in terms of relative asset class performances what we expect for the upcoming year is actually broadening rally and an economic reaceleration [clears throat] that is based further more by deregulation. We know there's via uh tax cuts coming in the United States. Trump is going to launch his uh big beautiful bill soon and that also means roughly two to three trillion in annualized uh spending or fiscal stimulus and all of those indicators basically project and underline that we're coming more into an economic fundamentally supported regime but also regime that is compared to the past four and a half years easy in terms of lower interest rates. We know global rate cuts hit more than 300 rate cuts over the past two years and at the same

time QE will slowly and gradually come back into the market. not yet but it would over the upcoming months and that will also have a lagging effect in terms of liquidity available for assets. Now to the part of what does it actually mean and where does it place our favorite asset class especially [clears throat] ours which is crypto. Um, so I start basically with our favorite chart, which means where is Bitcoin standing in terms of its cycle and what does it show in terms of risk dynamics, both price risk dynamics and onchain risk dynamics. And what we can see is that this bull run so far has been actually one of the most boring bull run so far, you could say, right?

Volatility is all-time lows. Bitcoin hit all-time highs this year. And basically, everyone is asking where is the bull run? And I say, well, Bitcoin went up more than eight times from the from the bottom roughly two and a half years ago. But what we can also observe is of course an increasing maturity maturing of the asset class itself. Right? So on a net basis more than 26 billion has been bought in US ETFs for Bitcoin this year. And you might think well that's not a lot and why is the price not way higher. On the other hand actually long-term holders and people exiting their Bitcoin positions realize more than four bill 400 billion in net profits. Meaning there's been a sales wave in sales pressure of net more than 400 billion absorbed in the market. So if you now consider you almost sell half

a trillion in profits in the market and here we are almost closing at close to six figures after the whole year. That is actually very very impressive and also sign of a maturing asset class. A bit on the short-term side where is Bitcoin actually right now? So we came out of a let's say steeper correction especially after year of low volatility right Bitcoin corrected by more than 30% twice in the year as I said however if you now take some onchain valuation bands so basically looking at true cost basis something like realized price balance price meaning what is the actual cost basis at which Bitcoin has been bought and how much money truly flew into the market cap of Bitcoin we can then derive certain valuation bands that are actually based on true market

behavior and true liquidity that flew into Bitcoin. And that all-time fair value is currently at 125,000. And if you look over the past that is roughly two years, what we can see is that Bitcoin traded very very close to this fair value the entire time. And we also believe that based on past indicators, past uh dynamics that this extension definitely warrants Bitcoin going higher in the upcoming year. We have that cycle target of roughly 180,000 and we also think that it's going to trade above 150,000 which based on historical patterns is quite likely and we also have to contrast it with the entire bull run so far being in basically a tightening regime compared to now more easing economic and monetary conditions.

If you zoom over so Ethereum the second largest asset which also had tremendous traction from DATs to now more treasuries buying it ETF inflows of more than 12 billion net uh company like Bit miner so the Ponto micro strategy now also holds 3% [clears throat] of all ETH supply we see that the picture is very similar in terms of where ETH is currently in the cycle and also relatively what does a journey ahead hold similar here actually to Bitcoin if you now look at how much sales pressure has ETH actually withstood throughout the here it's almost 100 billion which is very substantial given the market cap is not a lot larger for Ethereum. So substantial liquidity and redistribution took place over the year and also shows that this asset is really way more

oified and fundamentally stronger at the same price that you had actually a couple of years ago already. That means also of course we start out from let's say a more oified fundamentation of the price bands and what is the true fair value of Ethereum right now. You can also see there that Ethereum is actually undervalued by roughly 30% relative with the fair value being at 4 and a half thousand whereas the current price is trading in the lower 3,000s. So likewise also for Ethereum we think that now with the easing regime going on that the prices will trade a lot higher and also on in terms of the risk dynamics we observe in the market it's actually if we go back one chart we see that

actually ETH really fully underwent this entire cycle reset in terms of the dynamics where is it with the adoption trend and we also believe that uh there's good reason to believe that Ethereum will trade higher which is also then our direction of call we did put out the price target for Ethereum roughly two years ago already it was rather ambitious at the time it was actually hitting 10 to roughly 13,000 at the time which was quite ironic because that prediction was made uh roughly in the bare market east at 1100 but here we are and if we look that uh Ethereum is already trading fair value wise at close to 5,000 that call that we now extended slightly lower to around 8 to 9,000 range uh is likely very feasible going forward

[clears throat] what does that mean and what trajectory can we actually observe in the market for 2026. We know of course also Dominic outlined that fundamentally crypto seeing more adoption than ever. Stable coins are a very hot narrative on the blockchain in the crypto asset space. We know prediction markets a true crypto adoption use case actually is really finding its mainstream narrative and place as of now. It might even turn into some professional or institutional hedging market soon betting or hedging for economic events. And at the same time, we know that passive flows are coming, right? Be it the 401 case in the US, the traditional asset managers that not only open Bitcoin and crypto assets now for allocations, but they actively say one, two, three, maybe even 4%

allocations warranted will cause tremendous inflows into the asset class. At the same time, if we look at institutional and sovereign adoption, right, we know Bitcoin sold off and a lot of cryptonative players were very very bearish in the last few months. But we also know Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, the state of Texas, they all continue buying Bitcoin or Texas even made the first Bitcoin purchase recently. And you might think, well, Texas is just US state, but if you look in terms of GDP ranking, Texas would actually be the eighth largest country globally. So steps like that really push the industry forward tremendously.

Next up, we know also economic conditions are reacelerating. Liquidity is easing and since we already come so far in this cycle so far for crypto. In our [clears throat] view, it's highly likely that it will continue on the back of fundamental uh economic easing. So, deregulation, tax cuts, rate cuts, and we also know the liquidity regime is not tightening anymore as of uh today. Last up, uh what do we think more concretely would happen in the year? So we of course think there will be new altimize for both Bitcoin and Ethereum and that the uh crypto market will expand but also we have definitely an eye of caution already on the midterms.

There will be some volatility. We definitely think that Trump will run the market hot coming into the election but the odds of course of major volatility and a correction also rise substantially around that time horizon. With that being said um we don't need the laptop anymore so far fortunately. Uh thank you for your attention. Uh but then I would also like to welcome two gentlemen on the stage uh Andre from Bitwise and Sean who flew all the way from California from uh the Bitcoin standard treasury company. Thank you guys. [applause] All right.

So we have a quite an exciting panel. I mean you heard now the outlook from Bitcoin Swiss but we want to broaden that let's say narrative and what we can expect in the year ahead with two very special gentlemen who came here a long way maybe not so long for Andre just uh coming bit north but we have of course two people joining the panel now next to Dominic and me who require no further introduction we have Andre Ragos he's from Bitwise in Europe he's heading the research department there and we're happy to have him here today especially because he's going to share his uh general experience experience or also his background in economics uh and also in financial history and very interestingly he actually has written a book which is called exponential gold

and I think that might imply Bitcoin. So very warm welcome for Andre. >> Thank you. Then next up, [applause] then next up we have the CIO of uh formerly Blockstream but now the BSTR, Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company, founded as uh basically the second largest DAT in the United States. Um previously Sean was also a fund manager for pension funds in the United States. We're happy to have him here. And most interestingly, the slogan actually of the BSTR DAT is we're flipping the script and bringing the Bitcoin to the Wall Street. So, warm welcome to Sean.

[applause] Zoning out maybe very high level if you now had to pass a review for the year 2025. Maybe Andre starting with you. What were actually your highlights but also maybe some unexpected downfalls that the year brought that you didn't have on the let's say bingo card for 2025 if you could enlighten us. >> Yes, of course. Yeah, thank you for the invitation again. Um yeah, I think uh we were very bullish going into the year for various reasons because 41k uh openings up ETF flows in general. We actually expected more flows this year than last year. last year saw around $30 billion US net flows into global Bitcoin

ETPS. We saw slightly less. We saw around 25 billion which was still like positive but still I think the market um I think decoupled at some point right especially in Q4 because of this um this [clears throat] huge number of long-term holder selling essentially. Um so that was not on our radar. didn't think um long-term holders would react to this kind of four year cycle pattern and would actually take [clears throat] profits above 100k already because our price target was actually 200k but that being said I think um what this has actually caused is significant undervaluation and mispricing right you

mentioned 30% it depends on what you're looking at but I think relative to global money supply we see relative undervaluation relative to glo gold we actually see significant undervaluation relative to the global growth outlook next year. We see also significant undervaluation uh steepest mispricing since co essentially [clears throat] and also on on an absolute basis if you look at MVRV or any kind of metric for bitcoin. So it was a bad year in hindsight was more or less stable. Yeah, we expected a bull market, but that has actually caused uh yeah, lots of opportunities.

>> All right. So, I I just came in from Abu Dhabi, so it's like 10 p.m. there, and I've been hitting the hay like at 10 every night. Like, it's kind of shocking. Uh so, I did have an espresso shot though to kind of get it going there. Um so I think definitely from the perspective of the US uh you know definitely the big change is the dynamic with the administration in 2025 uh Jan 15 um you know having them come in and the Genesis act getting uh approval uh that's certainly huge. I'd say the second big thing would be the kind of this rise of the treasury companies uh going back into like April 25 with Metafinet. Um I think that kind of kicked things off into high gear. I think um you know obviously you know uh

strategy had kind of paved the path there and then when metaplan started showing such tremendous growth I think it really got everybody's attention. I know it got our attention and you know we uh certainly uh pivoted uh to try to take advantage of it. Um the >> [clears throat] >> uh big surprise for me I think would definitely have been probably this this October 10th selloff um with the Athena and uh the DPEG from the the exchange we all aware of. Um, so I think you know wiping out 20 trillion and you know or sorry 20 billion uh that day uh which was pretty wild. Um those are the things that definitely make me uh lose sleep at night. Um you know I've been I was doing macro hedge funds before this and for since 1994 actually down when they were

actually open outcry in the pits. I was at the Chicago board of trade. So it' be like I'll sell you 500 at a quarter. We great you know. Uh so so uh that's always the one thing like that's that was something that you know I think we maybe thought we had gotten past u but seeing that up again was definitely a bit unnerving and unsettling. >> Yeah I guess from my side not too much to cover. You mentioned the most important topics. I guess on a on a on a positive surprise note, you you could say that uh October 10th did also prove uh on a positive note that uh blockchains in the meantime became quite scalable, right? With these like uh fee hotspots on Solano, for instance, there weren't like very large congest

congestion fees. Uh so uh it kind of proved that the system is more resilient and and robust and maybe like uh ready for more mainstream adoption. Um I guess biggest surprise uh for me was this decoupling uh to the downside. Surprising to the downside although like tech equities rallying so strong that we didn't see any like retail mania at all uh that the institutional flows were so strong. Um, and I guess like that both the ETF flows and the DAT flows now cooled off a little bit. It's just very organic. Uh, but uh I think nobody expected it to to happen that early. I

think the market front almost everybody. >> So Andre, you're working at one of the biggest global crypto index fund providers. Are you seeing any typical client behavior or maybe also inflow dynamics now that you think give a hint already at where we're heading in the next year? >> Yes, very good question. So I start in general terms and then more specifically. So in general terms what we saw this year is most flows acrewed to Bitcoin around 25 billion acrewed to Bitcoin globally right into Bitcoin ETPs. We also saw that internally obviously. So Bitcoin is also our big biggest product. Uh second was of course

Ethereum. It saw half the flows which is incredible because usually ETH uh so the the relationship between Bitcoin flows and ETH flows 5 to one but we saw 2 to1. So we saw significantly more flows into ETH. Uh the other crypto assets saw like 10 to one flows. So there uh bitcoin 25 billion crypto assets x e all the other altcoin single tokens so 2.5 right so 10 to one that includes salon less includes xrp uh multi-asset and index funds thematic funds included negative flaws so I think what we also see internally is uh

especially with institutional clients is there's not so much appetite for index products yet like Bosantics. Um there's still so much demand for like plain vanilla Bitcoin in Ethereum and so on like the blue chips and I think um you can also see it in institutional investor surveys. Um there's actually a shift happening from like diversified products to these single tokens mainly Bitcoin, Ethereum and Salana. Not so much XRP, not so much any other altcoin.

These top three uh we expect this to change with like newer investors adopting the asset class. So we actually bet on like the rise of index products next year. But that's what we're seeing. I I just came back from a [clears throat] conversation with the UK asset manager like big institutional asset manager like 50 billion under under management and uh what did they greenlight? Bitcoin in the yearly >> no index product but of course like the FC FCA has only green lighted these two asset assets as well so that's definitely overlap but I think even in US we see the same kind of behavior

which just been uh approved by these warehouse bank of America both bank of America and wells Fargo and uh yeah same story Bitcoin Ethereum right so I think that's the current trend and we talked about passive flows. I think that's definitely the case for this to be made there. I mean, there might be some nuance because of generic listing standards and all kinds of altcoins waiting for the SEC's approval. I think around 150 applications that are still pending, but I think that's definitely this case to be made for higher concentration.

So heading now also into this global easing regime but especially after deregulation happened quite happily heavily and rapidly in the United States. John, you're a Bitcoin only allocator. What do you think for the year ahead in terms of Bitcoin? What are the challenges but maybe also opportunities going out of that regime shift now? >> Yeah. So I think um one of the things that definitely jumped out to me, you know, if I put on a macro hat would be that, you know, the a lot of the other coins are not make didn't make a new high. So while Bitcoin was making new highs, we didn't see a new high in Ethereum, for example. So that to me is a red flag, right? I mean, that's that's a problem uh for the the ETH heads. The um you know, so the so like you know,

what's what's working, what's not. I mean, I think that, you know, with Bitcoin, um, you know, I I actually don't I don't take issue with any of the projections I saw. I thought they were relatively reasonable. Um, I do think that big picture wise, my sense is that we'll probably see a little retest here at the 1 to 105ish, 100 area, um, where you broke down the support and then, um, it wouldn't surprise me if we go back and retest the lows to to see how they handle it. And uh I think if you take those lows out then uh you could potentially open the door into the into the 70s and low7s u and then I think at that point you're still in a bull trend right you're still in that upward market but you probably you know you probably

would wash out some of the weaker hands. So when I when I saw the the the slide on I think it was 21 or what have you that was u showing that 500 billion had been distributed my first thought was okay so the whales have distributed 500 billion you know or monetized $500 billion of profits and who's buying that well I I think you know we've seen the surge in uh the ETFs and what have you right so it's retail some hedge funds some other investors uh so that that got my got my attention too um but in general I think um I think you know, we're positive and constructive on Bitcoin. We wouldn't be surprised to see it kind of be in a sideways, you know, sideways range and and maybe retest the low and then we'll see if it gets back on track longer term

going out, you know, um uh like a, you know, say 5 to 10 years. Uh I would say uh we think that, you know, Bitcoin will eventually get to a million dollars. And uh there's u um Gio uh Stratoto Sunonny I think it is Stratsoni I think is the name uh from the power law on Bitcoin that does some great mathematical research on that and I I actually think it's kind of like you know because as a trader I love the Fibonacci I love the you know the mathematics of trading and to me that it kind of makes a little bit more sense you know I think a lot of people are like oh my god we're going to be a million bucks in two or three years well I don't know you know uh it' be great for me as a treasury company if we

got to a million bucks in a couple years, but I don't expect that. Um, I do think that uh the 180 target you guys have is is pretty reasonable and I think probably, you know, I'd be pretty supportive of that. >> Good to hear. [laughter] >> Yeah, I think so. >> That's good to hear. We have the price target for the end, but I already see you're on board. >> Yeah. >> Speaking now maybe of what also Andre mentioned, right? There's very top heavy or top centered flows also into the large caps. Dominic, we know Bitcoin had still a very strong dominant pole position throughout the cycle so far.

But we also see already the dominance is weakening somewhat. There is overweight influence into Salana and also Ethereum so far roughly by 3 to1 by by institutional allocators in the ETFs. What do you think for the year ahead? Do we actually see a broadening rally and also the rest of the crypto market picking up in 26? Yeah, f first of all just briefly echoing what what you outlined I think that was quite interesting and at Bitcoin Swiss we also somewhat learned the hard way that the markets needs time to digest this like onset of crypto assets. So they took roughly a year to digest like what Bitcoin ETFs what ETFs mean in the US and now I feel like they are slowly warming up to Eve. Uh so it's

perfectly perfectly reasonable that by next year or the next two years [clears throat] uh they are becoming more more fancy in how they allocate in in in how deep they want to dive into the the crypto sphere. I think we outlined earlier that we do believe that application and application repricing is overdue. We see sticky um user retention across like many platforms. Obviously, Hyperlquid, the the biggest name to to mention, but also AVA, if you think about the TVL, it's crossed into the top 50 by uh uh banks, by assets under management. It's uh it dominates the entire lending landscape and it's just a incredibly important

protocol and it also now buys back the token with their quite um sound uh revenue streams. Um so I think yeah applications is some something to look look uh look at in 26 also per still have a lot of traction chance if there comes a a highly sophisticated onchain auctions protocol maybe also worth worth checking and then maybe like also looking back into 25 I thought it's I thought it was quite blessing to see that privacy picked up some some attention some focus again we know the CCash rally was very phone. Um, in a context of AI, uh, it's becoming more and more important that you also have

some privacy features on chain. There's also like very sound projects upcoming such as Ario, more Aztec and and others. So, this might be an area that I I found like uh, fundamentally really interesting and also important as AI deepens its relevancy. We now take what you just said and think about how for example ETFs have been very much in the spotlight so far. Do you think also that we now see a broadening institutional investor basis flowing into DATs or digital asset treasuries compared to the ETF same as you anticipate the broadening in terms of altcoins and other narratives picking up in the crypto market in the year ahead? I mean, he [snorts] is the DAT

expert. >> Yeah, I'm trying. >> I'm trying. I think in terms of DATs, uh I mean, super hot topic recently, especially as some were uh well kind of uh offloaded some crypto assets in order to to buy back their shares because they're trading below MNAF. Um yeah, I'm not sure. I feel like the flows we saw um it might be these very strong flows they might uh not be at that scale anymore in the next year and I think now it's time for uh the sound DAT companies to step up and prove such as Micro Strategy during the the last bare market they can that they can operate

throughout the bare market that they uh can get creative and find uh ways to to buy more more tokens uh in order to increase their uh crypto assets per per share crypto assets per share. So I think uh it will be more selective uh it will boil down to the strongest ones uh including hopefully uh your company obviously. >> I'll add a little bit to that if you don't mind. Yeah. So I think um you know like any digital asset uh if you if you think about uh you know coming out of Silicon Valley we kind of our our game plan is that we think that there's going to be one or two winners and just like there's one or two winners

in search with Google or one or two in shopping with Amazon maybe Shopify is the second or social it's like the cleanest among dirty shirts right Yeah, [laughter] >> they will build Bill Gross line. Take take the the least dirty shirt out of the camera. >> Exactly. And so I think like countries like Japan, they're way worse off. >> Yeah. >> And I mean if you look at ili liquidity in the JG market, it's at alltime record highs, right? We haven't seen like a big bull run in Bitcoin this year, but we have seen a bull run in Japanese bond deals right?

>> So it's of only So I think at some point this will escalate and that it will cause some kind of accident and I think these kind of bets including the geopolitical risks right I think they are short-term bearish with big ones but like medium to long-term bullish why because geopolit geopolitical events they imply more money printing right fiscal expansion the sovereign debt bubble essentially also implies more money printing like QE and so I think that will cause volatility ility in the short term but it's definitely bullish medium to long term.

>> Thank you Andre. So as you said it first must go up before it can go down. I see some guys already getting a bit tired and waiting for the liquidity event that we have outside waiting. So two very short questions for the panelists and then we'll wrap it up. So very briefly each of you, what is one major catalyst or narrative that you think will drive 2026 for crypto? So I think you mentioned retail has mostly been absent this year, right? I think what many and it's just a working hypothesis of my my but for me personally but I think the like what's on my bingo card positive bingo card is essentially retail come back because what we've seen like you mentioned the

labor market like labor market in the US has been like deteriorating right but like leading labor markets in they actually imply that's improving even like employment indicerating there's like an ASA staffing index in it's a daily index of staffing activity among US companies and it's really accelerating and uh there's a funny correlation between US consumer sentiment like the un University of Michigan sentiment and crypto asset sentiment like consumer sentiment in the US is at all-time lows or record lows right crypto asset sentiment also very low right where do we go from here it's very asymmetric

it's most likely to the website and as I think the labor market moves in [clears throat] the US I think there's a high chance that we see this kind of comeback but it's still some kind of working >> yeah so I think that the cryptos definitely have the wind at their back with um you know the uh money printing and I just don't see that going away right and I think that's just a you know you kind of have the sale the wind in your sales right so that'll be the big driver um I think that you know one thing is I I you know in my former seat at Blockstream as the former CIO there.

Um I always loved having the visibility into all the portfolio uh pieces that flow through Blockstream and one of them is the liquid layer 2 network and and you know that network uh in the last I don't know probably 18 months or so went from uh let's call it somewhere around a billion of total value locked on there to now it's over five billion of total value locked on there and you know it's open source code there's no advertising there's no marketing plan you know uh most a lot of people I've talked to don't even know it's, you know, out there, right? But the thing is growing like a weed and it's like um, you know, it's got these things like, you know, small business loans and hash rate for mining and, you know, Micro Strategy

stock and just all these, you know, things that are on there. So, I think the tokenization is going to be really interesting to to see how this blossoms. >> Yeah, finally after all these years, right, [snorts] hype tokenization. I think on my side I might go with the with the sovereign part. Uh maybe more sovereign adoption of of Bitcoin as a as a reserve asset. Uh we know they are uh quite comfortable right now with like uh rotating out of US assets into into gold uh especially the the the bricks block.

I think at some point we saw early signs [clears throat] now with with the Czech central bank and um other countries like Luxembourg which I mentioned earlier with their sovereign wealth funds. I think this will pick up in in in 26. Uh I think it's a a reasonable call and I think uh they are ready uh despite being so conservative. [clears throat] >> I have one one little ad to that because that is an interesting point. Um you know first over in Abu Dhabi I think um definitely this I was there this last 10 days and uh there's definitely still very strong interest from sovereigns. Um we had some folks from neighboring countries that flew in for the day to meet with us and then flew home. So there's definitely still, you know, strong interest there. The other thing I

would say is in the US, um, you know, Adam and I, uh, did a panel at the State Association of California Retirement Systems in May of 2025. And, um, I did a panel there in May of 2022, and the contrast was pretty stunning. Uh, we we had maybe a 100 people at the panel in 2022. Um, this one was like standing room only, 650 people in there. You know, there trillions of dollars of assets there. So, I think that, um, you had I think it was like 30 or 35 questions, uh, from the audience, which was unreal. Um, you know, it was more than the rest of the whole thing had all the other sessions combined. So, I think

they're definitely sniffing around. I think they're definitely trying to figure out what's going on. I think they're definitely kind of like maybe it's pivoted from, you know, uh, do you get fired for buying Bitcoin to maybe now it's like, oh am I going to get fired for not having the Bitcoin on there? You know, I [clears throat] think it feels like it's kind of definitely getting getting warm. >> Exciting times ahead. So, the question of all questions, no fundamentals or evidence, just what is the price target for Bitcoin and ETH in 2026? I have to give it to the round. Who wants to go first? I think 180k is very reasonable. Um our official price is actually 200k again.

Uh but um so the the reason behind that is um I think most even quantitative models based on supply deficit they actually imply around 170 as a fair value. But since we undersshort all these uh fair values, right, I think there's a reasonable case to be made for like a kind of overshoot, right? Especially with respect to the macro. I think what the market will realize in 2026 is no recession, right? Market will realize okay um global growth stays robust and actually reacelerates because of preceding number of rate cuts. And so I think there will be be this kind of

catchup moment into risk assets probably some kind of rotation from gold and generally from safe haven assets into risky assets especially Bitcoin >> and that's why I think u yeah 200k next year is 180 right [snorts] >> yeah it would be weird if I deviate too much from our out [laughter] read the outlook I would just add maybe Um I fully sign up with that. Like I feel like some form of gold rotation into Bitcoin is overdue. Uh if you think about the recent gold really like many portfolios that hold gold are right now overweight gold. Uh and I think it's more than reasonable to rotate this

overweight into into the digital twin. Um so and on the Eve side I also think our call is quite uh quite reasonable. Uh we know it's now the institutional platform of choice. We heard there are very strong institutional interest. Uh Robin Hood and and its peers are launching institutional rollouts. We now have staking ETFs. Um and maybe yeah, if 25 was the the year where where the price surprised to the downside. 26 is uh might very well become the year that the price surprises to the upside.

>> Okay. I just want to make sure that there wasn't a newer higher high. So 200 here. Uh so I I would say uh uh I will go just a smidge higher. 210 [laughter] on that the biggest. >> Yeah. Yeah. I want to be like a little bit more bullish than everybody else. Uh you know, but um I I will also throw in that I don't think I don't think you see it below 65 if it gets pretty bad >> out there. If it does, you know, if there were some kind of you know, panic sell or anything like that, I'd say 65 volts. So I'll go uh that's my low. And I think you know the 180 210 you know in that zone is definitely very reasonable.

Uh and I do think uh over the you know longer term let's say eight years now uh you know I think you can make that strong case for a million bucks. Bullish time set. So big round of applause for our panelists and all. [applause] Thank you everyone for showing up. Um, as I said already, there is liquidity outside. Thank you very much for showing up to the event. Uh, you can find the report online. Uh, also happy upcoming holiday season and we'll see each other again in a year's time later to grade our homework and maybe come up with a new price target. So, have a nice

evening and see you outside. [applause]