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In this episode of Crypto Office Hours, we had the privilege of hosting Nate Geraci, a prominent figure in the world of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). As the President of The ETF Store, Host of The ETF Prime Podcast, and Co-Founder of the ETF Institute, Nate brought a wealth of knowledge to our discussion.
The Intersection of ETFs and Cryptocurrency
One of the episode's highlights was Nate's insight into how ETFs intersect with the burgeoning world of cryptocurrency. He delved into the potential impact of ETFs on the crypto market, offering a unique perspective that blends traditional financial instruments with digital assets.
Key Takeaways
Listeners were treated to Nate's expertise on several fronts, including the future of ETFs in a digital age, the role of regulatory bodies in the ETF market, and the evolving landscape of investment opportunities.
Learn more about The ETF Institute: https://theetfinstitute.org
Transcript
00:02
On this episode of crypto office hours with Tyrone Ross, Nate Jiracy joins us for a wide ranging interview on crypto digital assets, and of course, ETFs and what advisors need to be thinking about in today's environment. Later, I'm going to have the opportunity to discuss with Nate the ETF Institute, and how it could benefit you as an advisor. But first, advisors, have you built a great business but on the wrong platform? Do you find yourself trapped in your current firm?
00:32
Gain the confidence you need to escape the oppressive bureaucracy of your big firm with our proven system that provides clarity on your options and a guide for your journey to independence. Find freedom, go independent. Learn how by visiting advisorbreakawaysystem.com. Tyrone, we've just wrapped up Thanksgiving. What did you do for the holiday? Well, before that, I thought you were...
00:55
that was like an open for crypto, the way you were saying that, oppressive bureaucracy and all that other stuff. I was like, yeah, we got them. I spent all weekend writing that ad. Maybe I should start writing crypto ads. Oh man, that was great. Thanksgiving was phenomenal. It was a solo giving. I stayed in California by myself. It was quiet. It was good.
01:25
and then I will see my family for Christmas. But as I was telling you guys before we came on, I get one that I choose to go back to the East Coast. I chose to stay home for Thanksgiving this year, but it was good. Excellent. How was yours, my friend? So I'm very fortunate. I married a great woman who also happens to be a Cajun. So we got to go to southern Louisiana and they know how to do Thanksgiving right down there. It's it's still turkey. It's still mashed potatoes, but it's all the stuff that goes around it that makes that Louisiana food so good.
01:54
Love it. So good. You're still full is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, you get to be my age, you have a new diet plan, even if you're already on a diet after something like that. All right. I want to give you an opportunity once you introduce our guest. Yeah, absolutely. So Nate, Jirisi is, I would say what he is to me, been a good friend, good contact, he was very helpful in what we were building over at OnRamp.
02:22
He is what I call a member of the ETF Mafia. I joke, I say that lovingly as folks who know any and everything about ETFs. They've been a really good friend to me. Does a lot of things for advisors from an education standpoint. It's just, again, super, super, super, super great individual, very few of those in our space. He happens to be one of them. I know you guys will get into the ETF store and the ETF Institute and all those things later, but Nate, thank you for coming on. Good to see you.
02:52
And looking forward to this convo, my friend. You too, Tyrone. Thank you for the very kind intro. And you know what I did over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend? I intentionally tried to tweet about Bitcoin ETFs just to annoy you. I've been following closely all of them, my friend. And I can't lie, every time I see them, I'm like, oh, I feel like this is a dark. So give us your thoughts, man. What are you thinking here? I think obviously, listen, we know advisors want it.
03:21
I've been saying that forever. I would not deny that at all, but I think it would be good for them to hear your side, your perspective and what you think happens here, imminently or not. Yeah, there's a couple, let me put something out there right up front, which I think is really important anytime we cover this topic, because I joke about me tweeting about Bitcoin ETFs, and I've been doing that for a long time. And so I think people see that and they make this assumption that...
03:48
I believe Bitcoin is going to go to the moon and this is some sort of investment call. And I just want to be clear that my advocacy around a spot Bitcoin ETF has really been based on two things, which we can get into. Number one, I know firsthand because I talk to investors that there is a growing segment that wants exposure to the price of Bitcoin. Again, we can talk about the best way to do that. So that's number one.
04:17
If you look at a lot of the options that have been made available to investors, they are what I would consider to be suboptimal. So we know the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, ticker GBTC, that's burned a lot of investors because it doesn't have open-ended creation and retention. So it's traded at massive premiums and discounts. Futures-based ETFs, which came to the market a couple of years ago, you know, they've done a pretty good job of tracking the spot price of Bitcoin. But
04:45
Because they own futures, they have the potential to be impacted negatively by something called Contango. And those have trailed the price of spot Bitcoin ETFs since they came to market, even though they've done a fairly admirable job. I think Tyrone about a company like MicroStrategy and Sailor out there really promoting that. That company essentially turned itself into a Bitcoin ETF proxy. But that company is loaded up on debt. There are other risks there. You know, we can keep going. Think about FTX.
05:15
you know, if you had, if you held Bitcoin at FTX, obviously there was a risk there. I think about investors transacting on Coinbase and some of the fees involved there. So all that is to say that in my opinion, I think a spot Bitcoin ETF would very efficiently and in a cost-effective manner track the price of Bitcoin. And that's been my advocacy just because I've seen all of these other suboptimal solutions in the marketplace and being an ETF guy, I know how the ETF wrapper works.
05:45
And this would solve that problem of tracking Bitcoin effectively, but also allow people to own it on existing financial rails. So if you have a Schwab account, Fidelity account, whatever, you could own a Bitcoin ETF right alongside your Vanguard stock and bond ETFs, your iShares ETF. So I just want to put that out there up front because I think sometimes people can misconstrue my advocacy for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
06:11
with me somehow making an investment call on Bitcoin. And I'm happy to offer my thoughts on Bitcoin as an investment, but let me put that out there upfront. In terms of where we stand right now, there are 12 ETF issuers that have filed for a spot in Bitcoin.
06:26
And I'm happy to rattle through that list, but you obviously have Grayscale, you have companies like ARK, you have the biggest name in asset management in BlackRock who filed for the iSURES Bitcoin Trust, Fidelity, etc. And if you look at the timing right now, the SEC has to make a decision on ARK's filing by January 10th.
06:48
If I were speculating, my current thought is that they will approve these products by that date.
06:56
And there's two pieces of this. So there's what are called 19B4s. Those are rule changes that would allow spot Bitcoin ETFs to list and trade on their respective exchange. I think New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, SIBO. And then the other piece of that is the SEC has to approve the registration statement. So the S1 or S3 in the case of Grayskills, I think the 19B4s, they could theoretically be approved at any time. But I think all of this is going to come to a head in January 2024. And I do expect approval.
07:26
by the SEC of these products. So let me pause there. I just threw out a lot on the table, but that's kind of the lay of the land right now. Yeah, again, all things that I think advisors listening to this want here, right? Let me ask you this. I think a couple of things. One, I think
07:45
that January 10th deadline. So it's ARKS that is up for approval. So you think that they would approve ARKS before approving Black Rocks? No, I don't. I think because they have to make a decision on ARKS by January 10th, and the current assumption is that they don't wanna play Kingmaker and anoint one issuer the winner, because in the ETF space, as you know, first mover advantage is so critical, right? First to market typically gathers the most assets,
08:15
Their ETFs typically have the most liquidity. It's a huge deal. The SEC doesn't wanna be in a position to where they favor one issuer over another. And so they have to make a decision on ARX by January 10th. And so I could see a scenario where they just say, we're approving all of them who meet our criteria.
08:35
by that day. One quick note, though, on that is, you know, grayscale, and I know for the crypto crowd, grayscale can be polarizing a little bit. Some people have some very negative views on grayscale. Some have some very positive views. Regardless of what you think about grayscale, one thing that we can say without question is that they have paved a regulatory path for Bitcoin ETFs. They filed a lawsuit against the SEC. They won that lawsuit. And
09:05
about whether the SEC is going to play Kingmakers, GBTC right now has something like $22, $23 billion in assets. And so if the SEC allows all of these products to come to market on the same day, including the conversion of GBTC into an ETF, well, the SEC is really playing Kingmaker in that scenario because they're allowing Grayscale to come to market with $22, $23 billion on the same day as everyone else. I think that's going to give them an enormous advantage. I'm not saying they shouldn't have that advantage. I just think
09:35
That's an interesting dynamic here in terms of how this will play out. That's a huge deal to be able to come to market with again, 22, $23 billion. That would put them like in the top 75 of all ETFs that are currently existing in the marketplace on day one. Yeah.
09:52
Again, great feedback. I have a ton of questions and rebuttals, but I'll wait on my rebuttals. But as far as the question, what are your thoughts on the in-kind versus cash redemption? In my opinion, the in-kind creation of redemption is much more efficient in the ETF marketplace. I think you're going to have tighter spreads. And the way that I always like to think about this without getting too far into the weeds, when I think about market makers and authorized participants,
10:22
interacting with crypto exchanges, you're talking about some of the smartest market participants that are out there. I would like to have multiple parties in the form of authorized participants and market makers going to these crypto exchanges because they're gonna sniff out any shenanigans, any wrongdoing. Whereas if you just have the ETF issuer going and purchasing the Bitcoin, that's great. ETF issuers are gonna be very savvy in the way they do that. I just like the idea of having multiple market participants
10:52
very savvy around sourcing the underlying, sniffing out what's going on at these crypto exchanges. So I just think the in-kind creation redemption for any asset class, but especially with Bitcoin, would be a better way to go. And I think longer term, it would better serve the SEC's purposes. Right? If the SEC has concerns around fraud and manipulation at these underlying crypto exchanges, wouldn't you want some of the largest market participants out there, the Jane Streets of the
11:22
Why don't you want these types of people going to these crypto exchanges and really figuring out how Bitcoin is priced and just everything that goes into buying and selling Bitcoin. It seems like a no brainer to me if I was the SEC. Yeah. Great points there. Last thing I'll ask, I definitely want to leave some meat on the bone here for Jay. If you and I get going, it'll be Thanksgiving to 2024. But where do you think, which is...
11:51
one of the things that no one ever talks about, but I always bring up and always get, oh, people start Michael Jackson moonwalking when I ask this question. Where are these things gonna price? Because wherever they're gonna price, they're too expensive. But where do you think they're gonna price? So I thought a lot about this. Interestingly, last week we got our first window into where some of these might price via ART 21 shares. So they updated their prospectus and that came in at 80 basis points, which-
12:20
I personally believe is on the high end.
12:24
I believe that ultimately the winner in this market will price somewhere around 25 basis points. Yep. But definitely somewhere below 40. 40 basis points is a huge cutoff in the ETF space. What you typically find for every asset class and every strategy, but in general products that are priced below 40 basis points tend to take in the bulk of inflows. And I just think, I know that a Bitcoin ETF is going to be much more expensive to operate on the backend, especially initially. I think those costs will come down over time.
12:54
But I'm just not going to be surprised if somebody like BlackRock comes in and says, you know what, we're going to run a loss leader here. We're going to price this thing at 25 basis points. And maybe we lose some money initially, but they're going to gather billions of dollars in assets, and over time, this will be something that they make money on. And I think if they price that competitively, they can clear out a number of competitors pretty quickly, some of the smaller competitors. Now, again, some people may not like to hear that, but that's how the ETF space is always operated for better.
13:24
works. So, you know, if I had a guess initially, I'm guessing somebody
13:31
will price probably around 50 basis points, Tyrone. But again, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody like BlackRock really tries to go for the jugular and goes lower than that. And I think regardless in the not too distant future, we'll see prices come down pretty quickly. I mean, this is gonna be a brutally competitive segment of the ETF market, just brutally competitive. And when you think about a Bitcoin ETF,
13:57
Excuse me. There's not that much difference between one or the other, right? They all own spot, Bitcoin. So it's a commodity product at the end of the day. And when you talk about commodities, what differentiates them? It's typically price, right? Commodity products, it comes down to price. I think marketing will play a big role here as well. And then the other wild card factor outside of price, I do think what I call crypto street cred.
14:24
is something that will be interesting in this space. And let me explain that. So if I'm an advisor and I look at my current portfolios that own, let's say stock and bond ETFs, and most of those are Vanguard and iShares and State Street, some of the biggest names in asset management, and I decide I now wanna add a Bitcoin ETF to the allocation.
14:49
I think that some advisors are going to feel like there's some cache to putting somebody like Grayscale or Bitwise or Valkyrie, somebody who's crypto native on that client statement because it's going to give the advisor the appearance that they know what they're doing in crypto even if they don't.
15:05
Wow. Something else we can get into. That's a whole different, because you and I know there's a lot of advisors that talk the talk on crypto, but they don't really understand the space. And so I think I can just see some advisors going, this will make me look like I know what I'm talking about with crypto, because I have, you know, bitwise, who knows the space inside and out. I have the bitwise Bitcoin ETF on my client's statement instead of the iShares or Fidelity crypto. Does that make sense? No, I love that. It's an interesting perspective because I take the other side of that. I think advisors are going to.
15:35
to go within ice shares o of that brand cache. I th that advisors, let's just they are right there. Ran just the brand matters an event, uh fidelity ETF or ETF next to everything el rock. Mr Mrs client, you
15:59
I think your side makes some sense. I never actually thought about that. So I think. I think it's both. I mean, there's no question what you're alluding to. There's going to be a big segment of the market where that's going to be the case. Especially you look at.
16:10
investors who maybe are closer to retirement or in retirement, if an advisor thinks it's prudent to own Bitcoin in those individuals' portfolios, certainly having the BlackRock or Fidelity name is going to give those individuals some more confidence. I just think that there will be a segment of the market that wants that, again, that crypto street cred showing up on a statement. Is that going to be a smaller part of the market? Perhaps. But I bring that up in the context of fees because I think for those players, they may be able to get away with a little bit of a higher
16:40
fee if they have that crypto street credit. And something else to think about, look, advisors are fiduciaries at the end of the day, okay? And if you're going to put a Bitcoin ETF into a client's portfolio, and we can talk about whether or not that's prudent from a fiduciary standpoint, but let's assume that it is, you have to educate your clients on what's going on in the Bitcoin market. Why do we own this allocation? What's happening? What are the pros and cons? Who's going to provide better research?
17:10
on the crypto market or on Bitcoin? Is it gonna be a larger asset manager who offers every product under the sun? Or is it gonna be a firm who that's what they do day in and day out, they focus on crypto? And so I just think if you're an advisor doing your job and really doing due diligence and understanding the market, there is a case to be made that the crypto native firms are gonna do a better job of educating advisors and giving you the data points and research that you need to make sure your clients are educated.
17:40
an advantage here with Matt Hogan. I think the SEC should let this man have an ETF a long time ago, but I think based on his knowledge base of both sides, the research, their team there, they should have an advantage there with advisors, but we'll see. Yeah. The challenge with that. And by the way, you know, somebody like, um, Matt Hogan and Bitwise, you think about all the work that they put into this product, they're in a challenging spot now because you do have these larger players that are coming into the market and you know, I don't know that there is a, there's another way to handle this, but I do feel a little bit bad.
18:10
for issuers like that who put blood and tears into, you know, attempting to get this product to market and hopefully it will be successful because of what I just described with the crypto street cred, but they're going to be, you know, it's going to be tough sledding. Yeah, the behemoths will take over. I think that's the big step to the space looking very different in five years because the whales have showed up to the party. Last question for me. And then, you know, let Jay come on. If an ETF is approved.
18:40
and it's not adopted by advisors the way that everyone thinks so. Why is that in your opinion? Um, that's a great question, Tyrone. I guess I'll answer that in a couple of ways. First, I just don't expect that to happen. I think that there is pent up demand for this product from both advisors and individual investors, and I don't want to be.
19:03
over the top here, but I think if you, let's just assume we get seven or eight of these things that launch on the same day. I think in cumulative, this will be a historic launch. I think these products are gonna break ETF launch records. Here's where this conversation gets really interesting is that, let's take Schwab or Fidelity.
19:25
If the SEC is okay with investors owning a spot Bitcoin ETF in their Schwab or Fidelity account, then why would the SEC not be okay with allowing investors to own Bitcoin directly via Fidelity or Schwab?
19:45
right, that I can go in if I have an IRA or a brokerage account, let's say at Fidelity, and you're very well versed on Fidelity's digital assets, everything that they're building there. Let's assume I can go into my normal IRA at Fidelity. I can own my Vanguard ETFs, my iShares ETFs, etc. And then I can also own Bitcoin Direct. I think that's coming sooner rather than later. And so while I think spot Bitcoin ETFs are going to have a lot of success initially out of the gate,
20:13
That, you know, pretty quickly, if I can own spot crypto directly at my big brokerage, then why do you need a spot crypto ETF?
20:22
Now, and so how I see this evolving is I think we're going to get approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF. I think we'll get approval of a spot Ether ETF. I think in the not too distant future, you're going to be able to own spot Bitcoin and Ether at Schwab or Fidelity or any major brokerage. Once that happens, you don't need the spot ETF. You can just remove that fee, right? Why pay whatever the fee is? 25 basis points, 50. You don't need it anymore. And so I think where this will
20:52
in the ETF space at least, actively managed or index-based crypto ETFs are where the industry will ultimately evolve here. Right? So you'll have...
21:03
And I'm surprised somebody hasn't filed for this already, but maybe you'll have a combined Bitcoin and Ether ETF that's just market cap weighted. Or if we get other cryptos approved down the road, you'll have more active management there or just index it based on market cap. I think that's where it will head. So I know it's kind of a roundabout way to answer your question. I just based on investors and advisors who I talk to, I think the demand for spot Bitcoin ETFs will be there on day one.
21:33
a little bit from where it would have been a couple of years ago. Yeah, maybe. But I still think this is easily a multi-billion dollar market pretty quickly. But longer term, yeah, there's risk in that. You know, why do you need the ETF if I can just own Bitcoin directly?
21:50
Yeah, and fidelity is tested that now through WellScape. And I've said this before. Exactly, yeah. And I think that's a much bigger deal than the ETFs. They make that live to all their advisors. That's a big deal. So all great perspectives, man. Awesome, awesome answers. Great chat with you on this. We clearly need more time. We need to do a podcast or a Twitter spaces or something, but appreciate you as always. Jay, you there? Thank you Tyrone, this was fun. Yeah. Hey, before you leave Tyrone, I wanna ask a question to both of you. You're the perfect group to ask this to.
22:20
Alright, so the reason I do the show with Tyrone is I'm a bit more of a skeptic Nate, as it relates to digital assets. We've been doing this for about five years now in different capacities, I own some Bitcoin and ether because of these conversations. But when I think about the idea of recommending it to clients, do I really have that extra regulatory cover? If I say, Hey, Mr. Mrs. Jones, you should have a 3% allocation to this Bitcoin ETF, versus buying it directly? Like, how is that dynamic going to change for advisors?
22:50
Well, I think ultimately as an advisor, you have to have rationale for anything that you own. Whether we're talking about high-yield bonds or emerging market stocks, you name the asset class, CLOs, whatever, you have to have some rationale there.
23:05
I think by the SEC approving a spot Bitcoin ETF, obviously, they're not endorsing the underlying. They're just saying like, hey, yes, we're allowing people to own Bitcoin via the ETF wrapper. They're not approving the asset class and saying invest in this. That's going to be up to the advisor. And I think there's going to be a lot of debate around Bitcoin. I always compare Bitcoin to gold. Right? So everybody likes to talk about Bitcoin as digital gold.
23:31
It's a digital store of value that doesn't rely on any one person or entity or intermediary. And so I think, you know, at a very high level.
23:40
The same type of underlying drivers for physical gold are relevant to Bitcoin. But if you think about physical gold, of which, by the way, there's a hundred billion dollars plus in assets, plenty of advisors own physical gold ETFs, right? GLD and IU. Where I'm heading is if you ask, if you, if you pull 10 advisors, five are going to say, if not more gold is completely worthless, right? It's a yellow rock that just sits there. It doesn't do anything. It only has value because other people think it has value.
24:09
you're going to have the same debate with BitCore.
24:11
Right? You pull five or 10 advisors, you're going to have some that say Bitcoin is just vaporware. You know, it's going to get hacked or whatever. And you're going to have others that say, hey, look, this is a portfolio diversifier that if you would have owned a small allocation of Bitcoin in a globally diversified portfolio, you position size correctly so you didn't load up the boat, you made sure to rebalance. Bitcoin was additive to a portfolio because it was uncorrelated. And so there's going to, I guess what I'm getting
24:41
a lot of debate around that, but that's the case with a lot of types of investments. I go talk to advisors, again, ask advisors whether or not they want to own high-yield bonds. You'll have some that go, you know what? That's basically equity-like exposure. I don't want to own high-yield bonds. The bond portion of my portfolio needs to be a ballast. I want to own conservative treasuries, investment-grade corporates.
25:02
So that's what's going to come down to. I think any advisor though, you better have documented, you better have good rationale for why you own anything, whether it's a Bitcoin ETF or otherwise. Tyrone, what are your thoughts? Capital N-O.
25:16
No, there's no air cover at all in my opinion for a couple of reasons. One, if the SEC did it right, it's funny, I joke with Eric all the time. If we were to be regulators at the SEC and me and Eric went around the country to advisors and look at their crypto book of business, we would make more business for the SEC than they've done in fines the last 20 years. Advisors are gonna have to, to Nate's point, you are gonna have to have a clear rationale as to why you did this, right? Or, hey, wait, you own some GBTC and you're recommending a Bitcoin ETF and you know the client has an account at Coinbase?
25:46
And you're wrapping this at 1%, but this client is paying. Oh, who wants that drama? No one's talking about that on all those ETF Twitter spaces, are they? They're not. So I think that's part of the issue here. But I do think, again, from our legal, right? And God bless him, dealing with me and Eric once a week, is he's like, there also may be an instance where the CFTC says, whoa, hold on a second, commodities.
26:10
you guys need to be a com advisor. You need that re could possibly happen. So thing. So I think an ETF, advisors and ability to g the truck, Mr and Mrs Cli their accounts, but I als going to leave themselves coming in and go, wait a at your book of business
26:31
all these different fee structures? Are you sure this is the right one? Did you redo the investor policy statement, all these other things? So those headaches don't go away. But to Nate's point, your fiduciaries anyway, no matter cowhubs, Bitcoin, collectibles, whatever you still got to you got to make sure it's right for the client. So this will just be added to the pot.
26:51
cow hooves and Bitcoin talk about diversification Tyrone. All right, I'm going to talk to Nate a little bit about the ETF Institute. I'll bring you back on for the final word in just a few minutes Tyrone. Nate, you and I actually first connected about a year and a half two years ago when I realized just scrolling through Twitter that you had created or co founded something called the ETF Institute. And I was shocked to somebody who does a lot of work in this space. I wasn't familiar with it.
27:16
And man, it really is a fantastic program that you guys roll out to advisors. Could you tell us a little bit about the Institute? Yeah, it's something that I'm really excited about and really proud of. If I go back a decade, you talk about attending ETF conferences or other industry events, I kept hearing from everybody that the industry needs to do a better job of educating and advisors and investors. And everybody would always talk about this at industry events, but nobody was doing anything about it.
27:46
And so we set out to create what we believe is the gold standard around ETF education. And the way that this is set up is that we have a full online curriculum that covers what I consider to be all of the foundational building blocks around the ETF space. So we get into creation and redemption, ETF taxation, Contango, which I mentioned earlier, and how that's relevant and futures based ETFs. Really everything that we think and advise.
28:16
would need to know to be proficient in the ETF space. There's a full online curriculum. It's self-paced self-study. Once an individual is ready, there's an online examination. If an advisor passes that examination, if they so choose, they can use the CETF designation. And Jay, I've been very, as I mentioned, excited because
28:43
we're seeing interest from a number of audiences. So obviously advisors who are using ETFs in their practice or they wanna start using ETFs in their practice and they wanna make sure that they're up to speed on ETFs. That's obviously one audience. ETF issuer, so if you think about say a mid-size ETF issuer who has a number of wholesalers and both internal and external, they have backend ops and administrative functions. They're hiring very smart people
29:13
business school or elsewhere, but those people don't always have a background in ETFs. And so those issuers will send them over to the ETF Institute to get fully educated again on all the inner workings, all the building blocks of ETFs. And so I'm really excited about that audience. But what we're doing is we're continuing to expand content there. So we have a partnership with Track Insight, which is a collaboration with the New York Stock Exchange.
29:43
ETF Central that's powered by Track Insight and NYSE. And so we're working alongside them to continue to expand the curriculum. And really what we wanna build longer term is a community of CETFs. I think the community aspect is really important. We wanna have a full community who we can share ideas, make sure the curriculum's always top notch. And again, I think this is the gold standard in ETF education now. We wanna keep it there.
30:14
Excellent. And what's the cost to go through the program and take the exam? So the membership fee is $495 and that'll get you the full access to the online curriculum, the examination, and then again once you pass you can use the designation. And then on an ongoing basis, so like here in the next week for example, we'll be rolling out a new module around ETF trading. And so you know, if you remember you're going to get access to that as we roll out that
30:44
talking about crypto ETFs and Bitcoin ETFs. Once those come to market, we'll have a full curriculum around those products. We want this to be a living, breathing place to go for everything that's occurring in the ETF space, which as you know, is rapidly evolving. There's always something that is changing in the space. There's new products coming to market, and we wanna make sure we're at the forefront of educating advisors.
31:11
Yeah, I tell you, Nate, because I work with advisors and help them with their portfolio construction, I'm amazed sometimes the questions I get asked by advisors who are managing significant amount of assets in ETFs. Your ETF education isn't set it and forget it, it is ongoing. And for $500 to be at the top of your game in the ETF space, that just doesn't seem like much of an investment and well worth time. No, I appreciate that. And, you know, to your point, I think there's just so many
31:40
things that an advisor has to stay on top of in their practice. And most advisors aren't only using ETFs, they're using other types of investments as well. They're running a business, managing a business. And what we try to do is put something together that really makes it efficient. It's a streamlined educational process around ETFs to help take that off their plate. And, you know, you think again about all the products coming to market. I think about covered call ETFs, something like JEPI
32:10
strategies, you have to make sure you understand how those work. And again, we want to be at the forefront of that. Especially the taxes. That's what most people miss. So, Nate, listen, Tyrone, and I really appreciate you coming on. Always learn about crypto whenever Tyrone's interviewing somebody. Podcast listeners to learn more about the ETF Institute, visit the ETF Institute.org. Nate, thanks for all you do for advisors. Thank you.
32:38
Tyrone, that was a great interview. You did a good job. Thank you, sir. Yeah, yeah, he's great. And you know, he's always been such a big advocate for advisors in the community. All he does is share knowledge. And you know, he's he's a real asset for financial advisors. Yeah, worth a follow on Twitter to any all the advisors out there watching. Definitely follow him on Twitter, maybe scroll past the ETF ones. But well, Tyrone, let's close like we always do with your final word.
33:09
The final word today is happiness. There's a recent study that came out by Empower, I believe, that showed it's 70 plus percent of millennials and almost 70% of Gen Z thinks that money buys happiness. And I am here to tell you that one of the greatest lies the devil ever told was one, telling people that pumpkin pie was better than sweet potato pie.
33:37
And the other thing is that money doesn't buy happiness. That's nonsense. It does buy happiness. And what we need to do is contextualize that statement. If you are at anywhere on the income spectrum, the narrative that is thrown out based on one study that over 75% money doesn't impact happiness anymore, nonsense. There's another study that has come out and debunked that. There's a lot of other factors that goes into this.
34:06
So I think to sit there and say as an industry that deals with predominantly ultra high net worth and high net worth people to say that money doesn't buy happiness is wrong. And it's a narrative that needs to stop. It needs to be contextualized, but we need people to understand if I'm worth $25 million and my kid is sick and I have the money to make sure that my child lives and they live, come on to live a healthy life. And I see them graduate high school and go to college. That bought me.
34:36
Happiness. If you're my mother who used to drive around looking for the next check cash in place to make sure that we can eat and keep the lights on, money buys happiness. Does it buy everything that everyone needs to be happy? No. Can you be in a hundred million dollar house and be miserable? Sure. But try being miserable without it. So I think what we need to understand is, I think it's very damning for our industry to keep saying,
35:05
Money doesn't buy happiness. Then why do you charge a fee? Then why do you go to work every day? Then why do you stay up late? Why do you work with that client that just lost a spouse? Because you try and get them to the point where, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Client, this is exactly why we went through your financial plan, why we went through your estate plan. Listen, we cannot bring them back, or we cannot bring her back, but here's what we can do. We can make sure that you are able to grieve in a manner and a way.
35:33
that makes you safe and secure for your future and go on to do some of the things that you wanna do with the rest of your life. Is that happiness to be determined? But at least in our job and what we do is help people use their money to achieve goals that makes them happy. Retirement makes people happy. Seeing their kids graduate from college makes them happy.
35:59
Being able to move from one area so a kid can go to another school makes them happy. So I will end here. It was also someone who wanted to throw some Bible verses out at me on Twitter as well. There was a verse in the Bible, Ecclesiastes, money answereth all things. If it's a thing, money answer it. All of them. Again, to be taken verbatim, no.
36:27
But the second most mentioned thing in the Bible is, tada, money. So I think we need to start contextualizing that conversation and just simply say, well, it depends as opposed to drawing this hard line and saying that it doesn't. And rant off soapbox. Everybody have a wonderful holiday.