16min chapter

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The Last Trade E017: Tipping Points of Institutional Adoption with Fidelity's Chris Kuiper

Onramp Media

CHAPTER

Fidelity's Influence on Bitcoin Investment

This chapter highlights how Fidelity, along with other major investors, is leading the way in embracing bitcoin and influencing others to consider investing in it. It discusses Fidelity's cultural lens of disruption, their research approach, and the importance of educating clients about bitcoin. Additionally, it explores different ways of incorporating bitcoin into investment portfolios and the impact of allocating funds to it.

00:00
Speaker 2
Eighty years later,
Speaker 3
we're all looking at the skies again, and not only me, but the whole world, apparently. But if I see it, however many other people have seen it, I will be the only one who has seen it twice. I've got to keep breathing. Indeed.
Speaker 1
Rebecca Murrell reporting there on this celestial event set to take place in the skies for the first time in 80 years. Something not just astronomers will be looking for. Music You're listening to NewsHour on the BBC World Service. Well, not long to go before we say goodbye to 2024 and what a year it's been. More than half of the world took part in elections. Governing parties everywhere became less popular and in many cases suffered defeat at the polls. Wars got worse and a 50-year brutal dictatorship ended in Syria. The question, what next, is being asked the world over, as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House with his mantra of America first. What impact will he have around the world? The BBC's chief political correspondent in North America, Gary O'Donoghue, has put that question to three of our correspondents. Sarah Rainsford, our Eastern Europe correspondent, Celia Hatton, our Asia-Pacific regional editor, who joined Gary in one of our London studios, and also me when I was recently in the Syrian capital Damascus. And Gary started with me. Lise,
Speaker 6
let me start with you. The remaking of the Middle East is an oft-quoted phrase. What part do you think Donald Trump's administration can play in the remaking of the region now? It's
Speaker 1
a really interesting question because we've seen in the Middle East they've been missing in action, including in Syria, where they really just had 900 forces to fight against the remnants of so-called Islamic State. But with the stunning reversals right across the region. It's a whole new Middle East that Donald Trump will confront when he takes power for a second time. What is absolutely clear is that it will be in very strong, unshakable partnership with Israel. So whatever he decides to do across the region will, I think, be influenced in part by what Israel thinks the shape of the Middle East should be. But we have to remember that he has vowed that he is going to be the president who stops wars and doesn't start them. And I think what is on Prime Minister Netanyahu's agenda is that he thinks he's dealt with Hezbollah, he's dealt with Hamas, dealt with President Assad, dealt with Iranian proxies across the region. And now, from what we've seen so far, he'll want to deal with Iran. I think that will be the big issue next year, what to do about Iran. I think President Trump will have his own ideas on it. But Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it his life's mission to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 6
And as you say, he's promised not to start wars. Does that mean he won't support or is less likely to support Israel if it wants to attack Iran? Well,
Speaker 1
there may be a distinction between starting a war and just sending a very strong message. You'll remember, he started his first term with what was called the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan, which sent a strong message. He's already indicating that he wants all the current wars to be stopped before he actually enters the White House. Israel cannot attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure without the firepower of the United States. So it is something that Donald Trump would have to sign up to. Sarah,
Speaker 6
the fall of Assad is obviously a huge blow for Russia. It's had bases in Syria. That was its foothold in the Middle East. When we turn to Ukraine, President Trump promised to end the war on day one of his presidency. We don't know what the blueprint for that is. What do people there think he means? Yeah,
Speaker 2
that was that famous pledge, wasn't it, that keeps getting repeated. And I think he's going to regret claiming that he could end any war, and particularly this ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. It's going to be a heck of a lot more complicated than that. But Donald Trump is claiming that there is a plan. He's not revealing the details. Well, I think his latest words were, it's got to stop. We've got to make a deal. But I think it's going to be fiendishly difficult. I mean, the whole point is that whatever sort of blueprint the White House might have under Donald Trump, they need Vladimir Putin to agree to play ball in the first place. And they need to believe that when he says he's playing ball, he's actually on the same pitch. And of course, they need Ukraine to be able to come on side with whatever's agreed. And I think at the moment, all three parties in what essentially will be, I think, ultimately, a three party discussion are still really, really far apart. And I think there's this basic principle of not really understanding whether in fact, Vladimir Putin is in a position that he actually wants to stop this war, despite the fact that the Kremlin keeps saying that, you know, it's ready to negotiate, it's ready to talk. Of course, all we've heard so far is that those talks have to be on Vladimir Putin's terms.
Speaker 6
I mean, we do know, obviously, that the Republican Party in the US, very sceptical about Ukraine funding. They now control the House and the Senate. If American money dries up or dries up to a significant extent, Zelensky can't continue, can he? No,
Speaker 2
it's really, you know, the thing that Ukraine's been preparing for for a long time. I mean, the question of American funding has been an open question for a long time. And every one of my recent trips to Ukraine, it's been what everyone's known that that money is going to dry up. All along, you know, Ukraine's hope was that they they could persuade their allies, including America, to back them so much more strongly now that they would then be in a stronger position to negotiate. And so eventually, finally, we got that decision by Joe Biden, President Biden, that actually Ukraine could use Western-supplied longer-range missiles and start firing them into Russia, which was quite a sea change at the time. But now we've got Donald Trump saying that was a stupid decision and should never have happened. So, you know, Ukraine's still looking to America for backing, but I think it knows the reality is that things are going to change very, very dramatically. And now there's furious negotiations going on with European leaders to see if Europe can step in and sort of fill the gap.
Speaker 6
It might not be bombs and bullets in Asia, Celia, but there's going to be economic warfare, isn't there? Because Donald Trump has promised to slap huge tariffs on China. China won't like that very much, made reciprocate. How's that going to begin and end?
Speaker 4
Well, I think that Donald Trump is going to encounter a far different China than he encountered during his first presidency. So China is economically much weaker, but it's militarily much stronger and it's more confident on the diplomatic stage. Beijing is in quite a different place. When we think about trade, yes, I mean, he's already said he's going to slap additional tariffs of 10% and connected that with the fentanyl trade and really trying to push Beijing to clamp down on the sale of dangerous, deadly precursors to Mexico that Mexico then uses to make fentanyl and ship into the United States. So he's already coming out of the starting gate with kind of a threat to China. I think the Chinese leadership has been expecting a Donald Trump victory to mean a trade war for quite some time. They've been trying to send out quite calming messages to say that nobody really wins a trade war. And also they've been really preparing their economy for this kind of trade war almost for the past four years. You've seen them change their supply chains, try to become less dependent on some American goods. And they've really transformed their economy in some ways, even though it's weaker. China now dominates the sector for electric vehicles around the world. And so the Chinese economy is in a much different place than Donald Trump found four years ago. I think probably what we'll see is the attempt by the Trump administration to sit down and come up with some grand deal with Beijing, probably that will focus on China buying many more commodities, US commodities, probably because those things are not controversial if China wants to buy them.
Speaker 6
One of the striking things about his cabinet nominations and indeed his ambassadorial ones, he's picking real hawks when it comes to Asia. The nominee for Chinese ambassador, David Padua, real hawk, Marco Rubio, big China hawk. He's sending a pretty direct message.
Speaker 4
He is, but it's also a confusing message. I mean, if we look at Marco Rubio, for instance, who's been put up for Secretary of State, this is a man who actually has sanctions put against him by Beijing. He can't go to China. He is banned from going to China. Although interestingly, the announcement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry that announced those sanctions on Marco Rubio and others have now been removed from the Chinese Foreign Ministry website and the Chinese Foreign Ministry is refusing to comment on why that statement has disappeared. So that's an interesting little clue as to what we might see when Donald Trump actually comes into power. But Marco Rubio is a good example. This is someone who has been a very vocal supporter of the island of Taiwan, which the United States is committed to defending. But we've also heard in recent weeks Donald Trump questioning the United States' commitment to Taiwan. He said that Taiwan has stolen the U.S. microchip business. He also has mused aloud that Taiwan should pay more for US protection. We're getting mixed messages. I'm
Speaker 6
going to ask each of you just one final question, which is, do you think that the world in your region now thinks it knows Donald Trump having had that first term?

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