CFB Talks Digital Assets

CFB Talks Digital Assets

by CF Benchmarks
Investing
Season 1
Bitcoin's Breakout, The Fed's September Decision, & The New CME CF Indices
In a CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded September 3, 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk, Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, and CF Benchmarks Head of Product Thomas Erdosi. Fed rate hike odds for the September 16 meeting swung from roughly two-thirds to a coin flip inside 24 hours, after Governor Waller signaled support for holding steady and Chair Warsh's Jackson Hole remarks got read as more hawkish than intended. The panel works through what the data between now and the decision, NFP tomorrow and CPI on September 11, would need to show to settle the debate, then turns to Bitcoin's push through $80,000 on the broadest market breadth of the year. The back half covers the Middle East-driven oil spike and its interaction with the debasement trade, a sizable new Treasury buyback program, and closes with a first look at two new benchmarks: the CME CF Crypto Market Index and CME CF Emerging Crypto Index, plus the launch of the CF Benchmarks Oracle for on-chain price verification. Chapters: 00:00 – Disclaimer & Team Welcome 00:49 – September Rate Hike Odds Swing to a Coin Flip 03:09 – Base Case: Hold, With Oil as the Wildcard 05:41 – Warsh's Ambiguity and the FOMC's Historical Hiking Pattern 13:24 – Bitcoin's Push Above $80K 16:02 – Options Positioning Turns Less Lopsided to the Downside 17:23 – Key Levels: Eyeing a Push Toward $90K 18:40 – ETF Flows and MicroStrategy's Return to Buying 24:20 – CME vs. IBIT: Where the Call Buying Is Concentrated 28:06 – Tracking Vol With the CME CF Bitcoin Volatility Index 29:25 – Middle East Escalation and the Debasement Trade 34:07 – Germany's Fiscal Pivot and European Defense Spending 37:01 – Market Breadth: The Broadest Rally of the Year 39:08 – Getting Altcoin Exposure Beyond Bitcoin and Ether 40:14 – Inside the New CME CF Crypto Market and Emerging Crypto Indices 41:23 – Index Construction: Durability, Product Fit and Filters 46:02 – The CF Benchmarks Oracle Goes On-Chain 48:57 – Week Ahead: NFP, CPI, Fed Decision & Treasury Auctions
S1 · E73
Sep 3, 2026
54:20
The Debasement Trade Returns, AI Rotation Takes Shape, and CFB Launches the GPU Rental Index
In this CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded August 27, 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby, CFA is joined by Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, CFA, Senior Product Manager Cristian Isac and Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk, along with two guests: David Lawant, Head of Research at Anchorage Digital, and Pascal Hügli, Crypto Investment Manager at Maerki Baumann and author of the Less Noise, More Signal Substack. The debasement trade is back. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled the size of the long end buyback program on August 19, Bitcoin led the response and gold barely moved. The panel works through what that repricing means for positioning: whether debasement is a trade or a secular regime, what the CME basis, options skew and breadth data say about where we sit in the cycle, why fund flows point to capital rotating out of AI and back into crypto, and what to expect as Jackson Hole convenes on financial innovation and payments. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro & Panel Welcome 04:29 – Defining the Debasement Trade: Henry VIII, Nero & a $40 Trillion Debt Load 06:13 – Buybacks, the TGA & Bessent's "Whatever It Takes" Signal 10:21 – Bitcoin Leads, Gold Lags: Trade or Secular Regime? 11:11 – Anatomy of an Oversold Market: Apathy, Bad News & a $1 Billion Volume Day 17:25 – Fund Flows: The DRAM ETF as an AI Rotation Proxy 20:21 – IBIT Volume, $2.5 Billion of Flows & Why This Tape Looks Different 22:22 – CME Basis Off Multi-Year Lows: Fast Money Moves First 24:50 – The Coinbase Premium & Waiting on the Broader Market 26:42 – Basis Trade Mechanics: Who Takes the Other Side? 30:40 – Forward Call Skew: Buying Upside Instead of Protection 33:39 – Inside the Market Cycle Engine: Breadth & Momentum 38:30 – Is It Durable? August's Rally Compared to May's 40:15 – Beyond Bitcoin: Hyperliquid Onshoring & the DeFi Revenue Complex 44:24 – Altcoin Catch-Up, CLARITY Act Odds & "Buyback as a Business Model" 48:11 – Week Ahead: Jackson Hole Turns to Payments & Financial Innovation 57:00 – Launching the CF Benchmarks GPU Rental Index 1:01:04 – Closing Remarks
S1 · E72
Aug 27, 2026
1:02:31
New on CME: CFB's Basket Indices, the Bessent Put, and Our Jackson Hole Preview
In this week's CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded August 20, 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk and Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, with CF Benchmarks CEO Sui Chung joining as a special guest for a landmark product announcement. The panel unveils two new benchmarks, the CME CF Crypto Market Index (CMI) and the CME CF Emerging Crypto Index (ECI), set to launch on August 31, before turning to a frenetic twenty-four hours in markets: a US Treasury long end buyback increase that failed to hold yields down for even one session, a sharp Bitcoin breakout past key resistance, and a first look at the July FOMC minutes ahead of next week's Jackson Hole symposium, where Kevin Warsh takes the podium. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro & Team Welcome 01:33 – Breaking: CME and CF Benchmarks Announce Two New Crypto Indices 03:15 – Why Build Both a Market Index and an Emerging Leaders Index? 08:47 – Inside CMI's Universe: From 1,000 Tokens to the Top 12 14:57 – Product Market Fit: The Rule That Sets CMI Apart 20:19 – Unveiling ECI: Crypto's Satellite Sleeve 26:29 – ECI by the Numbers: Fees, TVL, Users & the DeFi Leaders Behind Them 28:32 – Why Launch Now? Regulatory Clarity Meets Market Timing 31:27 – Treasury's $4 Billion Buyback Bet Meets the Bessent Put 35:47 – Deficits, Duration & Why Crypto Is Outperforming Big Tech 41:13 – Bitcoin's Breakout: Reflexivity and the Levels to Watch 48:55 – FOMC Minutes Recap: AI Inflation Chatter and a Balance Sheet Task Force 52:35 – Jackson Hole Preview: What Will Warsh Say? 1:01:30 – Week Ahead: PCE, Fund Flows, MSTR & the Treasury Auction Slate
S1 · E71
Aug 20, 2026
1:04:39
Our Read on Inflation, Clarity's Odds of Passage & DeFi's Revenue Era
In this CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded August 13, 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk and Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo for a roundtable covering markets, macro, and Fed policy, with a surprise appearance from Bitwise Research Analyst Ishmael Asad. Chapters:00:00 – Intro & Team Welcome 02:46 – Strategy's STRC Preferred: Racing Back to Par 08:02 – ETH Treasury Preferreds, Issuance & the EIP That Could Lower Staking Rewards 11:35 – July CPI: A Setup for a Fed Pause? 16:43 – Bitcoin vs. Stocks vs. Gold: Who Wins on CPI Surprises? 19:52 – Oil, Iran & the Fed's Reaction Function 25:33 – 2022 Redux? Comparing Today's Labor Market to the Last Hiking Cycle 32:38 – Jackson Hole Preview: What to Expect From Chair Warsh 37:33 – Clarity Act: Reading the September Senate Vote 44:47 – DeFi's Revenue Era: Hyperliquid, Aave, Uniswap & Pump.fun 47:31 – Tokenized Equities: The Next 10x for RWAs 51:28 – The Return of Buybacks: DeFi's Value Accrual Thesis 54:25 – From Layer 1s to App Layer: Where Fees Actually Accrue 57:30 – Week Ahead: Jackson Hole, Clarity & ETF Flows
S1 · E70
Aug 13, 2026
1:01:43
Signs of a Bitcoin Bottom, Vault Adoption & The Fed's September Meeting
Has Bitcoin bottomed and what could determine its next move? Recorded live on August 6, 2026, this episode of CF Benchmarks X Space examines Bitcoin’s performance relative to gold and the Nasdaq, the growing adoption of on-chain asset-management vaults, and the outlook for the Federal Reserve’s September meeting. CF Benchmarks Head of Research Gabe Selby, CFA, is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk; Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, CFA; CF Benchmarks Senior Product Manager James Flamant; Head of Business Development Peter Stern; and special guest André Dragosch, PhD, Director and Head of Research for Europe at Bitwise. The panel begins with Bitcoin near $64,000, Brent crude below $80 and a softer-than-expected ADP employment report. They assess whether Bitcoin has formed a bottom, what market breadth and return dispersion suggest about the broader cycle, and which indicators they are watching next. The conversation then turns to on-chain asset-management vaults: how they work, where they sit on the adoption curve, and why curation, valuation and round-the-clock creation and redemption introduce risks that investors must understand. The episode closes with a discussion of oracle reliability, the safeguards needed for on-chain derivatives, and whether a September rate hike is now off the table. Chapters: 01:38 – Meet André Dragosch: Bitwise Europe's Research Chief 06:45 – Market Snapshot: Bitcoin at $64K, Brent Below $80 & a Soft ADP Print 08:34 – Has Bitcoin Bottomed? The Relative-Value Case vs Gold & the Nasdaq 13:32 – CFB's Market Cycle Engine: Market Breadth, Return Dispersion & a Still-Bearish Structure 17:41 – What Thomas Perfumo is Watching 23:00 – James Shares What's on His Watchlist 24:06 – A View From Sales: The Summer Lull & the Wealth-Platform Unlock 25:12 – On-Chain Asset Management: What a Vault Actually Is 28:26 – Curation, Valuation & 24/7 Create-Redeem: The Index Provider's View 34:58 – Where Vaults Sit on the Adoption Curve 44:01 – Oracle Robustness: The Weakest Link in On-Chain Derivatives 52:15 – Rapid Fire: Is a September Rate Hike Dead? 59:24 – Week Ahead: NFP, CPI, ETP Flows & CLARITY's Last Gasp 1:07:27 – Closing Remarks
S1 · E69
Aug 6, 2026
1:07:45
Post-FOMC Debrief, Treasury Companies Under Pressure & CLARITY Stalls Again
In the latest CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded July 30 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby, CFA is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk, Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, CFA, and special guest Tyler Evans, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of UTXO Management. Tyler is a career Bitcoiner. He co-founded BTC Inc, the publisher behind Bitcoin Magazine and The Bitcoin Conference, before launching UTXO Management, a Bitcoin-native asset manager focused on asymmetric opportunities across public and private markets. The Fed held for a fifth consecutive meeting with three regional presidents dissenting in favor of a hike, the most unified dissent since 2016. The 30 year yield closed at its highest level since 2007. Q2 GDP came in at 1.5% against expectations near 2.1%. Strategy raised another $544 million of common equity without buying a single Bitcoin. And with the Senate's August recess days away, the CLARITY Act remains stuck behind an unresolved ethics provision. The panel works through what all of it means for Bitcoin, treasury companies, and the broader crypto market. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro & Team Welcome 04:02 – Grading Warsh's Second Press Conference 08:14 – Three Inflation Shocks & the Case for a Hold Through Year-End 12:52 – The Yen at 40-Year Lows & the Carry Trade Read-Across 14:24 – Is the Fed Losing Control of the Long End? 16:22 – Yield Curve Control: Playing Against the House 20:47 – GDP Misses at 1.5%: Soft Headline, Firmer Internals 23:08 – Best Case, Worst Case: Oil, Tariffs & the AI Capex Wobble 26:07 – The K-Shaped Economy & Why the US Is Insulated 28:42 – Dissent Contagion & Volatility Sequencing Across Assets 31:25 – Saylor on Defense: Cash Reserve, Dilution & STRC Buybacks 34:56 – Rebuilding mNAV: Aligning Equity Accretion With Bitcoin Per Share 37:32 – Stretch at $89: Betting Against Strategy Means Shorting Bitcoin 41:15 – Digital Asset Treasuries: Throwing Out the Baby With the Bathwater? 46:00 – Supply Concentration: Bitcoin vs ETH & Hyperliquid Treasuries 48:54 – Volatility Harvesting & the Coiled Bitcoin Spring 54:21 – CLARITY at the One Yard Line: UTXO's Bearish Base Case 56:58 – Week Ahead: Jobs, ECI, Strategy Earnings & the CLARITY Act
S1 · E68
Jul 30, 2026
1:01:53
Cross-Asset Volatility at the Lows, the AI CapEx Reckoning & the Latest Text For CLARITY
Could oil be the catalyst that wakes cross-asset volatility? In this CF Benchmarks X Space, recorded on July 23, 2026, CF Benchmarks Head of Research Gabe Selby, CFA (@gxselby), is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilkoczuck; Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, CFA (@ThomasPerfumo); CF Benchmarks Head of Business Development Peter Stern (@sternpeter9); and special guest Craig Shapiro (@ces921), Senior Macro Strategist at NinjaTrader and author of The Aletheia Narrative. The conversation captures markets at a genuine inflection point. With July options expiry behind us and dealer positioning near cyclical lows, the cross-asset volatility suppressed throughout the year may finally be reawakening. Craig explains his “coiled spring” framework for record-low implied correlations and traces the potential sequence of a volatility shock—from oil to rates, credit and, ultimately, equities. The group also examines why the hyperscalers’ AI capital-expenditure boom is increasingly relying on external financing rather than free cash flow—and whether that shift is beginning to strain some of the world’s most profitable companies. The discussion then turns to the CLARITY Act, including the Senate draft’s ethics provision and the compressed timeline ahead of the August recess, leaving its prospects for passage close to a coin flip. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction and Team Welcome 01:55 – Meet Craig Shapiro: Two Decades on the Buy Side 04:14 – Market Snapshot: Bitcoin, Oil and Rates 05:49 – Implied Correlations and the “Cold Spring” Effect 12:15 – Semiconductors vs. Software: Where the Dispersion Lies 15:38 – Hyperscalers Turn Cash-Flow Negative 21:21 – AI CapEx: Payback, Funding and the Shift From Debt to Equity 29:52 – The Yen Carry Trade and Dollar-Yen at 40-Year Highs 35:45 – Oil, Inflation and the July CPI 38:43 – Crude’s Backwardation and the 2027 Supply Glut 39:59 – Can the Fed Ignore Oil? Warsh’s Next Move and the Balance Sheet 46:50 – The CLARITY Act: Inside the Senate Draft and Its Ethics Provision 56:12 – The Week Ahead: What We’re Watching Listen to the original X Space: https://x.com/i/spaces/1vKpPPAqaVmKE Follow the speakers and organizations on X: CF Benchmarks — @CFBenchmarks https://x.com/CFBenchmarks Gabe Selby, CFA — @gxselby https://x.com/gxselby Thomas Perfumo, CFA — @ThomasPerfumo https://x.com/ThomasPerfumo Peter Stern — @sternpeter9 https://x.com/sternpeter9 Craig Shapiro — @ces921 https://x.com/ces921 Kraken — @krakenfx https://x.com/krakenfx NinjaTrader — @NinjaTrader https://x.com/NinjaTrader
S1 · E67
Jul 23, 2026
1:01:15
Cooling Inflation, Q2 Earnings & Strategy's Balance Sheet
In this week's CFB Talks Digital Assets live X Space, Head of Research Gabe Selby, CFA is joined by Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk and Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, CFA, with Blue Coin Capital Founder and CIO Mike Treidl, CFA joining for the second half. A cooler-than-expected June CPI print, a widening reality check on corporate AI budgets, and Strategy's evolving balance-sheet playbook frame a wide-ranging session across macro, markets, and digital asset structure. The team works through the disinflation signal against a still-unresolved energy backdrop, debates whether the AI capital expenditure cycle is approaching a return-on-investment reckoning, and closes with a detailed look at how Strategy is managing its capital stack in a compressed NAV environment. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro & Team Welcome 2:39 – June Retail Sales: A Softening Consumer? 5:02 – Cooling Inflation & the Rates Market Setup 8:53 – Oil, Energy & the Inflation Impulse 12:41 – A Bifurcated Oil World: Diesel, Refiners & Inventory Risk 17:17 – Fed Speak: Waller's Hawkish Turn 20:00 – Warsh's Fed: Agenda-Setting & Constructive Ambiguity 26:49 – Q2 Earnings: Financials Surprise to The Upside 28:58 – Hyperscaler CapEx & the AI ROI Question 32:53 – The AI Spending Reality Check 38:18 – AI's Moat Problem: Low Switching Costs 43:03 – Guest Mike Treidl Joins: AI Moats & Walled Gardens 45:30 – Strategy's New Playbook: ATM Raises Over Bitcoin Sales 48:33 – The USD Reserve Debate: The Right Use of Cash? 59:38 – Week Ahead: FOMC, the Clarity Act & Fund Flows 1:01:57 – Closing Remarks
S1 · E66
Jul 16, 2026
1:02:53
The Reflexivity Problem: MSTR Stress, ETF Outflows & Why the Bull Case Still Holds
In the latest CF Benchmarks live X Space, recorded June 25, 2026, Head of Research Gabe Selby is joined by a deep bench from across CF Benchmarks and Kraken: CEO Sui Chung, Head of Sales Peter Stern, Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk, and Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo. The team is joined by special guest James Seyffart, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, with a drop-in from Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen. With Bitcoin more than 50% off its all-time high, the panel takes on the question that's all over the headlines: is Strategy breaking the Bitcoin market? The conversation works through Strategy's preferred-share stress, its cash runway, an ETF holder base now underwater for the first time this cycle, the capital rotation into AI and the DRAM trade, and a hotter-than-expected May PCE print, before closing on what they're watching in the coming weeks. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro & Welcome 03:58 – Is Strategy the Single Biggest Driver of Bitcoin? 06:36 – Dividend Cut or Sell Bitcoin? Pricing the Digital Credit Premium 10:57 – Reflexivity vs Past Cycles: The DAT & ETF Twin Poles 17:16 – ETF Holders Underwater followed by $10B in Outflows 18:30 – What Institutions Are Actually Saying During the Drawdown 23:35 – The Long-Term Bull Case for Crypto 27:36 – Tokenized Equities Overtake Memecoins on Solana 29:00 – The XRP ETF Demand 31:45 – Tracking the 13Fs: Who Currently Owns These ETFs? 33:28 – How Big a Deal Is a Billion-Dollar ETF Launch? 35:38 – Why Index Funds Win Over the Long Term 41:23 – The Elephant in the Room: AI & the DRAM ETF Story 47:44 – Making the Bull Case: Real Incomes & Peak Inflation 50:47 – The Week Ahead: What We're Watching
S1 · E65
Jun 25, 2026
54:37
Warsh's Fed Debut, Bitcoin Covered-Call Strategies & Stretch's Dislocation
Recorded June 18, 2026. In the latest CF Benchmarks live X Space, Head of Research Gabe Selby is joined by Kraken Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo, CF Benchmarks Research Analyst Mark Pilipczuk, and CF Benchmarks Head of Business Development Peter Stern, with CEO Sui Chung calling in from London. The team also welcomes a special guest: David Lawant, Head of Research at Anchorage Digital and previously head of research at FalconX. The panel grades Kevin Warsh's first FOMC meeting, unpacks the mechanics of synthetic Bitcoin yield from David's new whitepaper on covered call strategies, examines the arrival of covered-call ETFs, and works through the price movements in Strategy's STRETCH preferred. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro, Compliance Note & Team Welcome 03:32 – The FOMC Recap: Rates Held, the Statement Slashed, a Dot Goes Missing 05:46 – Grading Warsh's Debut: The Panel's Report Card 15:17 – Killing the Dot Plot? The Forward Guidance Debate 18:45 – The "Fed Put" & Market Reflexivity 24:11 – Hawkish on Rates or the Balance Sheet? 30:38 – Synthetic Bitcoin Yield: Inside David's latest research piece 34:43 – Bitcoin's Volatility Risk Premium & a Call-Heavy Options Market 37:00 – Covered-Call ETFs Arrive: BlackRock's BITA & Advisor Appetite 42:53 – Muted Basis & Funding: Why Yield-Seekers Turn to Options 44:51 – STRETCH Under Stress: Strategy's Preferred Slips Below Par 47:05 – Reading the Spread: STRETCH vs Peer Yield Products 50:20 – Strategy's Mechanics: USD Reserve, Convert Buyback & the Dividend Standoff 53:28 – The Fast Round: What We're Watching Over the Next Week
S1 · E64
Jun 18, 2026
1:01:35
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