Gemini tops $30B in crypto under custody as digital coins surge
The Yahoo Finance Live panel discuss the latest in cryptocurrency as Gemini tops $30 billion in crypto under custody.
Video Transcript
ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. In today's crypto corner, digging into the progress being made by the Winklevoss twins over at Gemini with the company announcing that they crossed the $30 billion threshold there in crypto assets under custody. And the update's interesting considering the fact that we've been talking about Coinbase and their lead there in custody in Galaxy Digital of course, paying a big and the largest crypto deal we've seen to move into custody as well as they're going to have about $40 billion in assets under custody over there at Galaxy Digital.
So big updates, I suppose, for the Winklevoss twins here, Akiko, when it comes to maybe what they're trying to do in the crypto space. Actually, Gemini has a lot of different things going for it with a much more forward facing consumer model, where you can actually buy crypto on the platform. They of course add a doge maybe in a bid to attract a lot of attention there from retail investors interested in crypto. But kind of different spaces of this industry starting to take off now with each little piece falling into place here.
AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, I mean $30 billion certainly significant there. And to your point, it does point to the growth that we have seen in the space. One of the headlines that caught my attention though was the announcement that we got from eBay saying that they are now going to allow for digital collectibles to be sold alongside physical collectibles on the platform. And of course, we're talking about NFTs. But that seems like a really big step here for this space at a time when there are still a lot of skeptics who are saying, well, is this just kind of a fad just like the ICOs we saw back several years ago?
But when you've got a big player like eBay coming in, it feels like that gives some credibility, or lends some credibility to the space. eBay of course, saying that there's still going to be limiting what kind of NFTs are on the platform there. So they're talking about music, entertainment, trading cards, not opening it up to everything. But it feels like there's a real opportunity, or at least they see a real opportunity, which is why they're opening it up in this way.
ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah. And I mean, we've talked about some of the bigger headline numbers. Of course, we had Christie's on the show talking about that $69 million Beeple auction. And I think it's interesting to see eBay jump on the bandwagon here when it comes to NFTs because as Gary Vaynerchuk told us here on this show, every celebrity out there is probably saying, why am I not going to do an NFT? And there's no reason for them not to. When it comes to platforms, you can make the same case that there's no reason for a legacy auctioneer auction site like eBay not to also add NFTs because they're leaving cash on the table.
But when it comes to the actual space itself, we've seen the steam come out of it. nonfungible.com kind of tracks unique sellers and things like that. We've seen that fall by about 2/3, close to 2/3, since the March peaks when a lot of these headlines were coming through and the excitement in the NFT space was there. I mean, outside of some fringe projects where we're seeing some crazy numbers, and the important thing to keep in mind too Akiko when we talk about auctions, it's always the highest willingness to pay.
So it's not as if this is kind of an average price in liquidity markets. There are markets that are more liquid when we're talking about what a stock price is. You're just talking about the guy who is willing, maybe crazy enough, if you want to call him that, crazy enough to pay as high as the prices we're seeing when it comes to these NFTs. So it's important to keep in mind whenever we throw headline numbers out there that some of the enthusiasm, the exuberance in the space, when it comes to specific NFTs might be overblown.
But obviously the technology is what the technology is. And it will be exciting to see how platforms like eBay play their part in maybe doing things with Ticketmaster when it comes to resale on tickets and other things. So that I think will be exciting to watch. The headlines, and the excitement, and over exuberance, probably less fun if you are a platform like eBay and people don't have fun trading NFTs.
AKIKO FUJITA: Or you could just argue they're trying to cash in like everybody else while it's hot. To Gary Vaynerchuk's point, why wouldn't you do it when you are seeing these auctions command such high prices? So I mean, we'll see. It seems like this is kind of making it into a sort of taking a step into a broader market. We'll see if the demand is still there. But an interesting headline coming out of eBay on that--
