# Fireside Chat with Maxime Seiler (STS Digital) and Chris Perkins (250 Digital Asset Mgmt) at ETHConf

- Channel: [ETHGlobal](https://streameth.org/ethglobal)
- Date: 2026-07-09
- Duration: 20:01
- Topics: STS Digital, Maxime Seiler, Chris Perkins, 250 Digital Asset Management, ETHConf, market making, options, structured products, crypto macro, institutional adoption, tokenization, decoupling, infrastructure, settlement, 24/7 markets, AI, token value accrual, dividend yield, DeFi, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Clarity Act, prediction markets, binary options, volatility, yield, wealth managers, private banks, TVL, token picking, retail traders, sideways market, capital rotation, digital assets, RWAs
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-rC98j1SNREw
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC98j1SNREw

## Description

In this fireside chat, Chris Perkins from 250 Digital Asset Management sits down with Maxime Seiler from STS Digital to unpack why crypto feels like such a strange market: record institutional excitement and progress like the Clarity Act, yet weak prices. Maxime explains that over the last two years a strong decoupling has taken place, where capital flows into infrastructure, M&A, and the rails that let institutions upgrade legacy settlement, trading, and clearing into 24/7 systems, rather than into tokens. Every major traditional institution now has a hands-on digital asset strategy building permissionless blockchain infrastructure, and he expects the token-level recoupling is only a matter of time. Chris likens it to the 2016-2017 era at Citi when the story was that the technology was amazing but the tokens were garbage.

Maxime argues the missing piece is value accruing to token holders: many projects launched tokens and shipped products, but adoption flows diverged from investor flows, with steady supply pushing prices down. Without clarity on how residual business cash flows back to holders (the equity investor's basic dividend-yield question), capital has migrated out of crypto into AI stocks. On AI, he frames intelligence as having become a commodity deployed to build, while blockchain is the settlement rail and AI the intelligence layer, with recoupling coming when commoditized intelligence starts transacting value between agents on the new 24/7 infrastructure. As a leading options market maker across 400+ tokens, STS sees retail traders migrating to AI equities, a post-October slowdown, and participants now accepting a sideways rather than bull market, selling rallies and buying dips while institutions sell options for yield, compressing ranges in a self-reinforcing slow grind. He predicts the era of all boats rising is over, replaced by a token-picking era with more dispersion based on real adoption and TVL growth. He covers the two sides of structured products (institutions harvesting yield, and wealth managers building tailored products offering Bitcoin upside with limited downside), how binary options price similarly to prediction markets (where STS is active on crypto outcomes but not unhedgeable real-world ones), and closes that slow markets are for building and reward patient investors.

00:00 Introduction
00:11 A Weird Time for Crypto: Excitement vs Prices
00:30 What Is Going On With the Macro
01:32 The Decoupling Into Infrastructure and M&A
02:02 Why Capital Flows Into Building, Not Tokens
02:36 Are We in the Max Blockchain, Not Bitcoin Era
02:57 The 2016 Citi Story: Great Tech, Garbage Tokens
03:30 Is This the Endgame or a Cycle Back to Tokens
04:07 Why Product Flows Diverged From Investor Flows
04:54 Why Tokens Need Real Value Accrual
05:29 The Basic Dividend Yield Question
05:59 Why Capital Migrated to AI Stocks
06:21 Is AI Competing With Crypto for Capital
06:44 Why AI and Crypto Are Symbiotic Long Term
07:08 Intelligence as a Commodity
07:31 Blockchain as Rails, AI as the Intelligence Layer
08:30 When Agents Start Transacting Value
08:58 How AI Is Impacting the Market Maker Business
09:45 Retail Traders Migrating to AI Equities
10:10 The Post-October Mindset Shift
10:42 Why the Market Turned Range-Bound
11:26 How Selling Options Compresses the Range
11:52 Why Slow Markets Slow Markets Further
12:09 What Could Catalyze a Change
12:46 Why the All-Boats-Rise Era Is Over
13:15 The Coming Token-Picking Era
13:51 Why Fundamentals Will Find Value
14:44 Two Types of Structured Product Clients
15:29 Growth in Systematic Yield Strategies
15:56 Wealth Managers Building Tailored Exposure
16:27 Bitcoin Upside With Limited Downside
16:49 Integrating Prediction Markets
17:11 Why Options Add a Non-Binary Dimension
17:34 Why Binary Options Price Like Prediction Markets
17:57 Why Real-World Outcomes Are Not Hedgeable
18:28 How the Market Evolves Over 6 to 12 Months
19:01 Why Slow Markets Are for Building
19:55 Closing

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