«Three trillion is like a mag 7 stock, 20 trillion is an asset class,” said Anthony Scaramucci, founder and CEO of SkyBridge Capital. “So if you tell me that bitcoin can get to $500,000, people will be writing stories that bitcoin is an asset class.”

That provocative benchmark from Scaramucci set the tone for a spirited conversation at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 conference, where he joined Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of WisdomTree; Pasqual St-Jean, President and CEO of 3iQ; and Andy Baehr of CoinDesk Indices to discuss whether crypto, particularly bitcoin BTC, has finally become a bona fide asset class.

While panelists largely agreed that crypto is getting there, they emphasized that the path to institutional validation requires more than just price appreciation.

Bitcoin Leads the Way

Pasqual St-Jean argued that bitcoin has already cleared many of the hurdles that traditional assets must meet to be deemed investable by institutions like gold. “It has hedging mechanisms. It has different wrappers. It’s a little bit easier to understand. It’s a digital gold for a digital age,” he added.

This accessibility, he noted, stands in contrast to other types of crypto assets, such as governance and utility tokens, which remain more difficult for institutional allocators to grasp.»When we talk about governance tokens, it’s a little harder for institutions to wrap their minds around,” he said. “What exactly am I owning?”

The ETF Effect

The panelists pointed to the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs — especially in the U.S. — as a turning point in crypto’s journey toward institutional legitimacy.

Jonathan Steinberg, CEO of WisdomTree highlighted the irony in how former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler’s enforcement-heavy approach inadvertently laid the groundwork for a highly competitive and mature market.

«Gensler created just what he didn’t want in the US,” Steinberg said. “There are more bitcoin ETPs than S&P 500 ETFs. He created a tremendously competitive and mature foundation for bitcoin, which I think is deserved for the asset class.”

St-Jean agreed, calling the ETF wrapper a «game changer,» particularly for bitcoin. It allowed legal and compliance departments to step back and treat it as a regular investment decision, opening the door to more widespread adoption among institutions, he said.

Education and Diversification Are Key

Despite the strides made, Andy Baehr warned that bitcoin’s dominance may be holding back the broader crypto ecosystem.

«The crypto asset class is a bit hamstrung by the fact that there’s this giant singular thing standing there that people have to understand first,” Baehr said. “Yet you miss out on real blockchain technology, Layer 1s, infrastructure, DeFi—if you don’t dig deeper.”

He likened the current moment to 1999, when online brokerages made tech stocks accessible to a wider investor base. Like then, liquidity vehicles such as ETFs could help create allocation engines for the crypto space, turning short-term trading into long-term investing.

Still, the panelists were realistic about the growing pains. Steinberg pointed out that many institutions are still early in their due diligence. While some hedge funds have made the leap, most large allocators are still getting educated.

The Road Ahead

Panelists emphasized that the final push toward broad asset-class acceptance will likely depend on continued infrastructure development, regulatory clarity, and institutional products.

«We had to educate them that the regulator doesn’t have the right to pick which asset class is investable if the infrastructure problem is solved,” St-Jean said.

Looking forward, he argued that staking products, Layer 1 blockchain investments, and more diversified index products will be critical. «You just own HTTP,” he said, drawing a parallel to early internet protocols. “Bitcoin they understand, now they’re starting to understand Layer 1s.”

Scaramucci, for his part, remains bullish. «We may not actually be bullish enough,” he said, citing the explosion of capital in the space, the wave of copycat strategies following Strategy’s lead, and Wall Street’s “selling machine” now pushing bitcoin and crypto ETFs.

He added that while political risks remain, particularly with crypto becoming a hot-button issue in U.S. politics, the incentives are lining up for bipartisan support. «If you get bitcoin to $500,000, people won’t just say it’s an asset class—they’ll treat it like one,” he said.

Whether or not that price target is reached, the panel agreed: the foundation is there, the wrappers are in place, and institutions are finally showing up. Crypto’s transformation from curiosity to asset class is no longer a question of “if”—just “when.”

In the absence of a U.S. federal framework, New York’s crypto regulatory regime remains a guide for domestic and international regulators, and that includes Congress, Adrienne Harris, head of the New York Department of Financial Services, said Wednesday at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.

Harris said the process to become regulated in her state can be difficult but, she argued, New York’s high standards have proven effective.

«The proof is in the pudding when you see that FTX, Voyager, Celsius didn’t pass our test and therefore couldn’t do business in New York,» she said, naming firms that later spectacularly collapsed.

Among U.S. states, New York has been in the vanguard of crypto regulation, having established its BitLicense to regulate crypto firms, and devoting what Harris said was a 60-person staff to the work.

With Congress still working on crypto regulations, the narrow jurisdiction of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) remains the only federal-level supervision, so the states represent the remainder of U.S. oversight of the industry.

Harris’ deputy overseeing digital assets, Ken Coghill, also appeared at Consensus on Wednesday. He said the key issue is on preventing money laundering and other financial crime. Crypto licensees and applicants often underestimate how much work it takes to become a regulated entity. Most applicants don’t make it, he noted.

«You’re not just presenting a product; you’re presenting yourself,» Coghill said. «There’s a tremendous amount of homework that needs to be done» — particularly in understanding and outlining «what the risks are that your business creates.»

Stablecoins are shifting from tools for crypto traders to the backbone of global finance and represent a «meaningful innovation for global payments,» Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoins at Ripple, said on Wednesday at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.

Speaking at a recent panel alongside crypto exchange Kraken’s head of consumer Mark Greenberg, McDonald argued the rise of stablecoins marks an «evolution» in how money moves globally. «It’s an alternative way of making a U.S. dollar payment, but doing it in a frictionless, cost-effective way,» he said.

Ripple’s entry into the space with RLUSD, a fully backed and regulated stablecoin, is part of a broader push to replace outdated, fragmented cross-border payment systems. “We’ve seen the use of stablecoins in payments, and that was a main driver for us getting into the business,” McDonald said.

Greenberg underscored the inefficiencies of the current financial system. “It is way, way too hard to move money around the world,” he said. “Stablecoins are the answer for that, and I think what we’re seeing now is a tipping point.”

Kraken is a founding member of the Global Dollar Network, a consortium of crypto and traditional finance firms that issues the USDG stablecoin.

Both executives said that yield-bearing stablecoins will be the next frontier—but regulators aren’t there yet.

«If you’re holding deposits, you should be able to earn on those deposits,” Kraken’s Greenberg said, though he noted differing regulatory stances across jurisdictions. For example, USDG cannot pay yield in the European Union according to MiCA rules.

McDonald said that Ripple want to offer yield on its stablecoin but would need to register RLUSD as a security in the U.S. “That’s a whole different journey,” he said.

In the next five years, both executives agreed that stablecoins are set to reshape traditional finance as they become more ubiquitous. McDonald pointed to Ripple’s acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road as a key step toward using stablecoins as collateral and cross-margin in capital markets.

Greenberg said he sees stablecoins become so embedded in the financial system that “no one talks about them anymore—just like no one talks about SWIFT or wires.”

Read more: Stablecoins to Go Mainstream in 2025 After U.S. Regulatory Progress: Deutsche Bank