Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Industry execs and politicians take a victory lap at the Crypto Ball. 

• A more sophisticated BTC investment strategy is set to enter the ETF wrapper this week. 

Views from inside the Crypto Ball

If you aren’t in DC and/or have not spent your inauguration weekend scrolling through Crypto Twitter, here’s a quick recap: 

1. Crypto industry elites (and a journalist or two) donned black tie at the Crypto Ball Friday night. 

2. Halfway through the ball, Donald Trump launched a memecoin, $TRUMP, which hit a market cap of $1 billion before Snoop Dogg left the stage. 

Guests included incoming crypto czar David Sacks, Donald Trump Jr., Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent and, oddly enough, former Congress member and convicted felon George Santos. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Bryan Steil, the new chair of the digital assets subcommittee, also made appearances. 

“The reign of terror against crypto is over,” Sacks said during the only speech of the night. 

Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross and Soulja Boy performed. Almost all of the crypto bros adhered to the black tie dress code, and only one tux-wearer opted for a splash of bitcoin orange: Michael Saylor. 

Tickets to the main event started at $2,500 and eventually hit $10,000 before selling out. VIP tickets went for $100,000. $1 million got you four VIP tickets plus dinner for one with Donald Trump, who did not attend the ball, “at a later date.” 

Let’s dispel a couple of myths about the event: It was not “invite only” and it was not hosted by Donald Trump. MAGA Inc. and Bitcoin Inc. ran the event, along with several sponsoring companies. 

As for the memecoin, to say “no one at the ball knew about it” would be false. To say “few people at the ball cared about it,” on the other hand, would be more accurate. 

As someone in the room, the politicians, industry execs and the ultra wealthy were far more interested in hearing Snoop perform covers of Fleetwood Mac (odd choice, I know). 

Ball attendees may have missed out (or been late to the party, at least) on what turned out to be a lucrative trade, but the vast majority of the people in that room already have something far more coveted: political influence. 

“I’d hardly say the people in this room are the target audience for a memecoin,” one industry exec told me. “[Trump] already has our money, and we have a seat at his table.” 

Plus, it’s crypto. You don’t need to be sitting at a desktop computer to make a few buys. 

To be clear though, plenty of people at the ball weren’t happy about $TRUMP. But it wasn’t because they felt “left out” — it’s because they think the memecoin gives crypto a bad name. 

“This is a horrible look for the industry already trying to make the case that we’re not a bunch of hucksters, scammers and fraudsters,” one lobbyist told Politico. 

As of Inauguration Day morning, $TRUMP’s market cap was hovering just below $11 billion. 

I made it out of DC just in time to skip the chaos of the weekend, but I’ll be watching from afar to see which “day one” promises come to fruition. You won’t want to miss tomorrow’s newsletter.

— Casey Wagner

This March, join leaders from BlackRock to Abra as DAS NYC 2025 brings together the sharpest minds in investing, institutions, and digital assets. Dive into the trends redefining global markets — from macro shifts to the adoption of blockchain in traditional finance.

📅 March 18-20 | NYC

The transformation of finance is happening now. Be part of it.

A new type of bitcoin ETF is set to go live this week. It’s one that aims to bring a particular kind of investor off the sidelines.

The Calamos Bitcoin Structured Alt Protection ETF — January (CBOJ) is set to offer “systematic risk management” across its roughly one-year outcome period. In other words, investors who buy on the first day of trading will essentially be protected against BTC price drops if they hold shares throughout that span, Calamos Investments ETF head Matt Kaufman noted.

Read the fine print, of course.

While investors could gain BTC exposure with 100% downside protection, there’s a slight catch: The upside potential is capped (at an amount to be determined on the expected Jan. 22 launch date).

CBOJ seeks to achieve this strategy by investing in what are known as FLEX options, as well as other securities like US Treasurys. 

The demand for US spot bitcoin ETFs has so far surpassed the expectations of many; the funds notched net inflows north of $35 billion in their first year. 

A number of wealth managers — and even pension funds — have bought into them. Still, we know from 13F filings (and more anecdotally too) that many of these buyers are retail investors. 

Enter this new product, which could be a game-changer for some. Financial advisers and institutions are generally willing to give up some gains for a known protection against loss and reduction of risk, Calamos’s Kaufman argued.

“Such a capital-protected bitcoin strategy should exhibit relatively low volatility, though likely higher than a capital-protected strategy tied to the equity market,” he told me.

A Bitwise/VettaFi report published earlier this month found advisers are indeed curious about more sophisticated crypto investment strategies. Roughly a quarter of those surveyed expressed interest in buffered strategies — aka “defined outcome” funds — that seek to mitigate crypto’s volatility. 

The Bitwise/VettaFi interpretation? These pros allocating for clients “want access to strategies that can provide a differentiated set of returns beyond buy-and-hold exposure.”

Kaufman noted some might choose to pair CBOJ (or other risk-managed bitcoin ETFs) with a spot product like BlackRock’s IBIT “to reduce the risk of loss and shape their experience.”

It’s of course easy for an executive whose firm is selling such an ETF to say this. Flow data over time will give us a better sense of the demand for such tools.

— Ben Strack