The collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency empire was accelerated when the head of a rival exchange announced he was planning to dump holdings of something called FTT—a token created by FTX that afforded some perks to investors who owned it. At one point, the token was one of the 10 biggest coins in the market, which would have made it eligible for the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund.However, Bitwise never added FTT to the fund. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management, joined the What Goes Up podcast to discuss the damage caused by the implosion of FTX and explained why the fund snubbed its coin. “We look at assets that are at undue risk of being found in violation of federal securities laws,” he said. “FTT fell into that framework because we thought it was likely, or possible, to be deemed a security by regulators. And it was largely internally controlled, in our view.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange rattled the financial world this week when a crisis of investor confidence triggered a run, forcing the company to scramble for a buyer or bailout to avoid collapse. Joining the What Goes Up podcast to discuss the chaos that ensued are Sadie Raney, chief executive of the crypto hedge fund Strix Leviathan, and Nico Cordeiro, its chief investment officer. The firm said it had a limited amount of funds with FTX frozen. “We’ve been through a number of market crashes,” says Raney. “We’ve used Voyager in the past. We also used BlockFi. And when there were some indicators that maybe they were, I guess you could say over their skis, we stopped trading with them.” “This one,” Raney said, “I don’t think anyone saw coming.” Cordeiro adds that while their firm has “some funds frozen there,” it was “a small portion of our portfolio allocated there—simply because this space is the wild west.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cryptocurrency news this year has been filled with stories about how institutional investors are embracing digital assets. So if more big players are entering the space, why are prices for Bitcoin, Ether and other tokens so depressed compared with last year’s peaks? Leah Wald, chief executive of digital-asset investment firm Valkyrie Investments Inc., joined the What Goes Up podcast to share her thoughts on the topic. “Institutions have a longer time horizon. They also, as a fiduciary, cannot just jump in with a strategy,” Wald said. “There’s a lot of other hurdles that institutions have—whether it’s risk parameters, among others, and also just generally the vehicle that they need in order to buy it.” Wald also sheds light on the outlook for blockchain miners, use cases for crypto in developing markets and the prospects for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are better ways to combat inflation than destroying demand with interest-rate increases, according to Nela Richardson, chief economist for payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. She joined the latest What Goes Up podcast to give her take on half-century record American employment, decades-high inflation and signs of softness in the US housing market. “It’s about productivity,” Richardson says. “Productivity grows you out of inflation when more workers produce more output for the same amount of cost. That’s what productivity is. That’s what gets you out of the inflation wage-price spiral conundrum.” But to do that, she says, business and government need to invest in jobs and workers—something they haven’t been good at recently. “It takes more partnerships with community colleges to build an agile and skilled workforce in the places that the economy needs it,” Richardson says.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The stock market has been getting very volatile as the US Federal Reserve continues its historic effort to squash rising prices. Proclamations from policymakers suggest the central bank won’t let up until inflation is under control—even if it means trouble for the economy. Officials may raise rates by another 75 basis points at their upcoming November meeting, and the same again in December, according to Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco. “Seventy five is the new 25,” she says. “When you are raising rates in 75-basis-point increments and you’re not giving any time for it to process through and make its way through into the data, you’re playing a dangerous game,” she says on the latest episode of What Goes Up. “And the more you’re doing it, the more likelihood you create of having a recession—and a significant recession.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another hot inflation reading this week underscores the importance of the US Federal Reserve’s campaign to tame decades-high increases in consumer prices, with many market observers evoking the memory of a similar effort by the central bank’s larger-than-life former chairman, Paul Volcker. One key to Volcker’s success in the 1980s, achieved through interest-rate hikes and control of the money supply, was setting the appropriate expectations in the financial markets, according to Christine Harper, editor of Bloomberg Markets magazine and co-author of Volcker’s memoirs, Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government. Harper joined the latest episode of What Goes Up to discuss her experience with Volcker, and what lessons learned from his time as Fed chief are useful today.   “Psychology was really important,” she said. “He really understood the psychology of investors, the psychology of consumers and business people. And so much of what he did, and the inflation fight, was basically around changing the psychology.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Institutional investors are playing a more-influential role in crypto markets as retail traders retreat, and that explains much of the recent range-bound price action, according to Michael Safai of proprietary trading firm Dexterity Capital.  “We might have been playing checkers two years ago,” said Safai, whose firm traded more than $1.2 trillion in crypto last year. “We’re playing chess now.”  Safai joined the What Goes Up podcast this week to discuss the state of the digital-asset market and how high-frequency crypto trading strategies differ from the famous “Flash Boys” of the stock market. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss triggered the latest wave of turbulence in global markets after announcing economic plans that include unfunded tax cuts. The move crushed the value of the pound while sending the already struggling country’s borrowing costs soaring.To Julian Emanuel, chief equity and quantitative strategist at Evercore ISI, the move was reminiscent of US tax cuts imposed under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, what came to be known as “Reaganomics.” In both cases, the policy was at odds with moves by other nations’ efforts to combat high inflation. Emanuel joined this week’s What Goes Up podcast to discuss the latest bout of volatility across asset classes, and the role the new Tory leader has played in causing it. “It does represent a radical change in policy that is more evocative of Reagan,” he says. “And investors are going to have to get used to it.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes it feels like you need to be a rocket scientist to trade successfully in modern markets. Well, George Patterson used to be one, having began his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before turning his attention to investing with quantitative strategies.Now he’s the chief investment officer of PGIM Quantitative Solutions, which oversees about $91.5 billion of PGIM’s $1.5 trillion in assets under management. Patterson joined the latest episode of the “What Goes Up” podcast to discuss his approach and share his thoughts on inflation, the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight it, and what it all means for markets. Normalization of inflation will be a “multi-year trend,” he says.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Cipolloni’s son is a video-game aficionado, and the teenager’s language has clearly worn off on his father. Indeed, the portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management jokes he’s found a “cheat code” in the bond market that’s helped his balanced strategy beat its benchmark with a heavy allocation to high-yield corporate debt. But don’t be alarmed: His “code” is really just fundamental analysis used to find bonds with attractive yields, but little risk. Cipolloni joined the latest episode of “What Goes Up” to discuss the strategy and offer his reaction to the wild ride in markets following the surprise inflation report on Sept. 13. Some highlights of the conversation:  “So the ‘cheat code’ in the bond market for me and for our strategy is: Where can you limit risk or where can you lower risk in a high-yield security? Well, you can find certain smaller securities because we are a small fund at the moment and we can buy these smaller securities, smaller issues. And you can find companies that have more cash than debt on the balance sheet.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.