Angie Lau

That's Omid Malikin, a Wall Street veteran and an academic trying to answer the simple question, what is Bitcoin?

And by that, I mean, is it a currency?

Is it a commodity?

Is it digital gold?

Or is it a teenager with a questionable haircut?

All right.

Maybe more important than asking what it is, I'm actually interested in its behavior.

What is Bitcoin's behavioral profile?

Because that is what will inform how it fits into a diversified portfolio.

After we hear more from Omid, I'm going to bring in Cosmo Jiang for you, general partner and portfolio manager with Pantera Capital, one of the earliest and most established investment firms focused exclusively on blockchain and digital assets.

I want to talk with him about other ways institutional investors can get exposure to crypto beyond purchasing Bitcoin.

This is Evolving Money, and I'm your host, Angie Lau.

This show is co-produced by Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms in the world, and Bloomberg Media Studios.

In this series, we are exploring how crypto is being adopted by traditional financial institutions as the next logical evolution of the monetary system.

Let's return to Omid Malikin, a little bit more about him.

He worked on Wall Street for Citi Venture as their crypto expert, and he's been an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia Business School for the past seven years, teaching college students about crypto and blockchain.

He's the best combination of practical experience and an academic perspective available.

So my first question for him is actually two questions.

What is Bitcoin?

And for an institutional investor, what role does it play in a portfolio?