Strategic Optionality: Evaluating Whether Bitcoin Merits Corporate Treasury Attention!
===

Sourabh Verma: Good morning, good afternoon. Welcome everyone to Treasury Conversations podcast. I'm Sourabh Verma, VP of Treasury Strategy and Market Insights at ION. I've been with ION for 15 years now, and during that period I have helped about a hundred customers so far, in transforming their treasury landscape. By way of focus, I'm responsible for our treasury strategy, keeping a close eye on global financial markets, needs of corporate treasuries, and tracking latest tech trends. Over to you, Chris for your quick introduction. 

Chris Jackson: Thanks, Sourabh. Hi everyone. Yeah, great to be here. By way of introduction for myself, I'm Chris Jackson, I'm one of the sales directors at ION. My coverage is North America and increasingly parts of South America as well. I've been with ION for about three and a half years now. In terms of my background, I started off in corporate banking, in the UK. Spent about 12 years there. Really specializing in cash management payments and liquidity.

Moved to Bloomberg after that. Was there for about five and a half years, both in London and San Francisco, focusing on treasury risk management mainly, but also some KYC bank account management as well. And as I say, now, joined ION, based up in Canada but coverage right across North America. So really good to be here.

Really looking forward to the today's discussion. And welcome Stephen Cole from Castle. Be great to understand a little bit more about what you and Castle do first, but really excited to understand about the growing relevance of Bitcoin as an asset class and the conversations that we're starting to see in the market now compared to, say 12, 18 months ago, I guess. 

Stephen Cole: Thank you so much Chris and Sourabh for having me. It's great to be here. So I'm co-founder and CEO of Castle. Our focus at Castle is really on enabling businesses to be successful with Bitcoin as a treasury asset. And that's everything from small businesses to the largest corporates.

I've been in Bitcoin since 2013. Six years of that has been in venture capital with a focus on investing into early stage technology companies. And the Bitcoin sector has been the primary emphasis of that. So over the years I've spoken to all types of businesses, small local businesses, all the way up to Fortune 100 corporate finance departments, and very excited for the conversation today.

Sourabh Verma: Thank you, Stephen. That was a great introduction. So let me get straight to point. So Bitcoin's performance as an asset class has been nothing short of phenomenal. If you look at last 30 months since BlackRock filed for an ETF, I think even after we consider the recent pullback it is still up by I think 280% or 300% approximately.

And that equates to almost 80% analyzed return approximately. Which is outstanding, but it is still seen as a speculative and highly volatile asset class. Five to 10% overnight drops are not unheard of. And that is not something corporate treasuries want to deal with. Has anything changed in this regard in your conversations with companies or corporate treasuries?

If you can elaborate on that would be perfect. 

Stephen Cole: Yeah, it really has. So Bitcoin is a 16-year-old asset now, and during its 16 years of life, it's matured a lot, especially in the last five years in ways that are relevant to corporates and institutions. So today Bitcoin is a $2 trillion asset class.

It trades 24/7 fully liquid, has a fairly robust market, futures, ETF products and really institutional grade solutions that are now available for things like exchange and custody. And what I think is interesting about where we're at now is we've really seen early adoption across all types of entities, globally.

And some of these are of course a little outside the scope of corporate treasury, but just for context for the audience, there are now entities of all types that are holding Bitcoin today. That includes pensions, endowments, states. And sovereign wealth funds. As an example, Bitcoin was made legal tender in El Salvador, and the country is accumulating it as a reserve asset at the nation state level.

Within the US federal government has a strategic reserve of Bitcoin. There are three US states that have Bitcoin strategic reserves and legislation that's in the works across many more. Harvard's Endowment Fund holds over a hundred million dollars worth of Bitcoin, and there are two sovereign wealth funds, Bhutan and the UAE that also hold it already.

So we're seeing a lot of early adoption. 

Sourabh Verma: Yeah, and even Luxembourg joined the bandwagon, and countries' International Sovereign Wealth Fund has announced to allocate about 1% of the total portfolio into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. I think that equates to about Euro $7 million, which is good, but sovereign funds investing in Bitcoin for long term as a strategic reserve asset is one thing, right?

But a corporate treasury considering it as as a strategic reserve asset is another thing. It's an extreme different tangent. And a sovereign wealth fund can actually handle short to medium term correction, ranging from, let's say 10% to 30%, but not a corporate treasury, especially at these elevated levels.

So while there are use cases for corporate treasuries such as asset to hedge against inflation or even protect against fiat currency devaluation and maybe 24/7 liquidity and global accessibility, but it still remains an alien to their excess liquidity or cash investment decisions.

So far, we've only seen the likes of MicroStrategy or Tesla and Block holding Bitcoin as part of their treasury holdings. But we have also seen Microsoft in last year declining a proposal to include Bitcoin as part of its balance sheet and they cited concerns around inherent volatility and the need for a stable, predictable investment to support corporate treasury functions and operations. I have to highlight one positive though the CFO of Microsoft stated that treasury team does look at all asset classes, including cryptocurrencies, and they're monitoring developments in this space. Now, having said that, do you think things are changing on grounds and corporates are warming up to it despite the realities of investing in Bitcoin and the volatility?

Stephen Cole: Yeah, I really do. Everything that we are seeing both in the industry broadly and in our conversations with corporates, suggest that interest in Bitcoin is increasing. So there are today 208 public companies around the globe holding Bitcoin. About 70 of those are within the US. And even if it's still early adopters, even if a lot of cases, the answer from the finance department is, "No or not yet." It's at least a conversation now. And even that trend of it being a serious evaluation is progress, and is notable. So you mentioned the votes by Microsoft and Meta that their shareholders held on evaluating Bitcoin. One other recent development. One of the high profile tech IPOs in the last year was the company Figma.

And when Figma filed their S-1 to go public, they revealed that they had quietly been holding $70 million worth of Bitcoin on their balance sheet, which was about three or 4% of their overall holdings. And so that's very interesting. And one distinction that I think is important to make for finance and treasurers out there who might be interested in this realm is that a lot of the headlines today are captured by Bitcoin treasury companies.

But really these companies are taking an extreme approach to this. And these would be names like Strategy, Strive, SeqOne, they're often betting the entire company on Bitcoin. High risk, high reward, so they're putting all their cash into it. They are, in some cases levering up by issuing corporate debt or preferred equity.

And that is something that is really representative of an extreme approach to adopting Bitcoin and really betting the farm on this asset. What we expect to see over the long term is that adoption by most corporations will not look like that. It will be much more measured and gradual. Perhaps an initial buy as a modest percent of a balance sheet, coupled perhaps with some ongoing accumulation strategy of putting a certain percentage of revenues into Bitcoin. And the volatility is higher in Bitcoin than most other assets that treasurers are considering. As you mentioned, Bitcoin is only a $2 trillion asset right now compared to $20 trillion for gold, $150 trillion for the bond market, and hundreds of trillions for real estate. So there are even single corporations today that are worth more in the US than all of the Bitcoin network.

Names like Apple or Nvidia have market caps larger than Bitcoins. So really going in eyes wide open about that volatility is something that we always encourage. 

Sourabh Verma: Stephen, I think comparison to a company like Apple would be a bit difficult for me to digest because it has earnings due to backup, it has cash flows, right?

It generates a return for you. Bitcoin on the other hand is more of a reserve asset, right? It's what people flock to, to protect against inflation, and maybe for infusion currency devaluation. But maybe, on that aspect, can you elaborate if it actually does generate any yield for you?

If you're just holding Bitcoin, does it generate anything for you, holding your Bitcoin asset and maybe lending it via some of the platforms? Does it make any money?

Stephen Cole: Yeah, great question. Bitcoin doesn't inherently have any cash flows. You're correct. It's much more like a commodity than a security in that way.

So much more like an oil or gold or silver perhaps. But there are ways to effectively get yield on Bitcoin. It is excellent, it has some attributes that make it excellent as collateral. It is traded, 24/7. You can take custody of the underlying asset digitally, so there's no physical storage requirements in that way.

But some of those ways to obtain yield on Bitcoin certainly introduce greater level of risk. On top of Bitcoins, already you have some volatility risk just by holding the underlying asset. And what we're really seeing, and frankly, what we encourage is a staged approach where really today, just having a modest allocation of Bitcoin and getting off of zero, so to speak, is a great way to start.

And then as the market cap continues to increase, then over time that volatility will dampen and ways to get yield might become more robust and well understood. 

Chris Jackson: And Stephen, I've gotta ask why only Bitcoin? Obviously there are a large number of options out there whether it's Solana, Ethereum, et cetera as well.

Plus, increasing options around stablecoins as well. So what makes Bitcoin your specific focus? 

Stephen Cole: One of my favorite questions. So what makes Bitcoin unique is really its limited supply. There can only ever be a maximum of $21 million bitcoin that can ever exist, and that's been true since day one.

And that limit is really and truly unchangeable. And while some other cryptocurrencies do have supply limits that exist in the software, those projects tend to be a little more, you could say, "socially centralized," which makes them subject to change. So there might be influential founding teams, developers, or in some cases even explicit corporate control and corporate governance.

And that type of influence can, in some cases, change the rules, the number of tokens that will exist, or the rate at which they come into circulation. And so the feedback that we hear from the market is that when it comes to a balance sheet asset and a store value use case, that predictability that you get with Bitcoin and its supply-side guarantees are really important.

And so we think about holding other cryptocurrencies as more similar to owning equity in a company as opposed to a neutral commodity. And as a concrete example of this, you mentioned Ethereum, Solana. Ethereum was created in 2014, over 10 years ago. During its life of about a decade, the supply rules around how many Ethereum tokens will exist have been changed multiple times, about five times so far.

And so Bitcoin really stands apart from the other projects in that way.

Chris Jackson: The concept that Bitcoin is a, an inflation hedge, but given its volatility and sudden drops, particularly when the stock market potentially drops, you often see a bit of a pullback in Bitcoin as well. Is that a myth, that it's an inflation hedge or is that, quantifiable and something that can be backed up with the data?

Stephen Cole: Bitcoin really has the attributes at a fundamental level that make it a fantastic hedge against inflation, in that its supply really cannot be altered. Even the rate at which Bitcoin enter circulation cannot be altered in the same way that, maybe we could mine more gold or extract more oil from the ground in response to an increase in price and an increase in demand.

However, to your point, it has been volatile and it definitely does not have, a tight correlation to global liquidity necessarily. And I think that's just really a function of how early we are. A lot of capital allocators are still beginning to understand Bitcoin and its properties.

And so in some cases it is thought of much more like an emerging tech stock or tech project and those attributes that really make it a hedge against inflation and give it some similarities to gold as perhaps a safe haven asset aren't yet in the the mental model of those capital allocators. But we expect that over time there is a path forward where that could really change and it could become treated and trade in that way that those hedges against inflation have historically.

Sourabh Verma: But, to Chris's point and then maybe on your point as well, Stephen, I think from my perspective, gold is the ultimate inflation hedge. And we, we have a long history to prove it. It has finite supply too. And I know that Bitcoin probably shares the same characteristics, but if you look at what happened this year, gold has been one of the best performing asset this year.

So if the question is, if corporate treasury still do not hold gold in their portfolio, why consider Bitcoin? It's the same use case to protect against inflation, to basically protect against the currency devaluation. So what makes only Bitcoin special and not other asset classes like, gold, silver, and so on?

Stephen Cole: Yeah, so gold has been historically a great hedge, the primary hedge against inflation. And, we often joke gold has a thousand year lead on Bitcoin, thousands of years of lead time on Bitcoin in terms of familiarity and the credibility that it's built up over its history. So 16 years of Bitcoin's life compared to 6,000 or so years of holders of gold.

So while they both still have attributes that make them attractive as a hedge against inflation. We think bitcoin's actually stronger in many ways. It's just not as well understood yet. So we aren't sure how much gold is in Earth's crust or especially in our solar system. But what's unique and really unprecedented is that we know with perfect certainty how many Bitcoin exists right at this moment.

And how many will exist even in a thousand years from now. So that supply side guarantee combined with the fact that Bitcoin is digitally native. So as more commerce moves online, perhaps AI agents are increasingly transacting and more economic activity is moving into that realm. Bitcoin is really compatible with that type of future and in that way, I think a lot of capital allocators see potential higher upside in the long term. 

Chris Jackson: We talk about the long term here Stephen. Interested to know, again, we talk about short term volatility and sure I've mentioned early on you can see fairly sizable swings certainly compared to other asset allocations, even just overnight.

But if you look at the long term, the trend is generally up and to the right. So if you're a corporate treasurer, thinking about taking a position, are there certain sectors of the market or certain use cases around matching off against long-term assets on the balance sheet, that kind of thing.

Where this approach makes more sense? Or do you see this being as something for everybody? 

Stephen Cole: Yeah, you really nailed it in that Bitcoin is highly volatile in the short term, we don't know what it's going to do in the coming weeks, even months. But the more that you zoom out with Bitcoin's historical performance the better it performs on long timeframes, ideally multi-year timeframes.

We would really encourage any treasurers, any CFOs that are evaluating Bitcoin to consider that and assign a lot of weight to that in your decision about whether it is right for your business at this time, and really for those to be important inputs on your treasury strategy. So not to think about Bitcoin as cash management where you will have any, near term needs for that, but really much more of a long-term strategic allocation.

Chris Jackson: That makes sense. And I guess as a follow up question to that, beyond the assets itself, what about accounting and things like that? Obviously those are critical areas for corporate treasurers to consider above and beyond just the asset. How are changes in the market affecting that and are answers that treasuries can now start taking and saying, okay, I can act with a little bit more certainty around accounting, treatment, things like that.

Stephen Cole: Yeah, there have been some really notable developments in accounting treatment of Bitcoin over the last couple of years. So one of those, and probably the most important is in late 2023 the FASB guidance, so the financial accounting Standards Board guidance was updated regarding treatment of Bitcoin.

And prior to this change, there was this asymmetry in how Bitcoin was treated on the books. So it was valued previously using this "Cost Less Impairment Model." And what that meant is corporation buys Bitcoin if the price dips below their entry point below their cost basis, they need to mark the value of the asset down.

But if it rebounds and returns or even increases above their original cost basis, they were not allowed to mark it up until, if and when they ever decide to sell the asset would be the only time they'd be able to mark it up. And so that really had a negative impact. It created a lot of friction for finance teams in this because it would negatively skew some of the optics of their balance sheet in a way that the street might not understand unless you really dig deeply.

And so that guidance changed and took effect last year. And so now Bitcoin is simply valued mark to market, fair market value on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. And that's really enabled businesses that are holding it to be valued and be understood in a much more straightforward way. And we saw just anecdotally in some conversations with corporate teams, that was a deal breaker in some cases. Even if they were interested and they said, "We do think Bitcoin would be relevant." It was just a non-starter due to that treatment. And so having that change has been a big tailwind and really removed a lot of friction. Another more recent small change is the IRS did also release clarification just in the last few weeks about the corporate alternative minimum tax implications, the CAMT.

There was some worry that Bitcoin appreciating in value might might put corporations. Over a threshold of earnings and would end up triggering what would effectively be unrealized gains on an asset that has no cash flows. And so the IRS clarified that that is not the case and that even if Bitcoin increases in value, that it won't trigger any of those types of unrealized gains. So that's been another positive tailwind recently. 

Chris Jackson: I mean there certainly seems there's a lot of developments in the market with this. And I think that's one of the things we've seen to a degree has been, Bitcoin has gone off like a rocket essentially. And the rest of the market in terms of whether it's accounting or regulation, et cetera, has been struggling to catch up, which has held a lot of things back.

And now, Sourabh mentioned that earlier in the discussion, you're starting to see ETFs, et cetera as well. From your perspective, you see those kind of reporting mechanisms continuing to catch up until they're at parity and then they will move forward with Bitcoin and it will be more acceptable to everybody from a corporate perspective going forward to that point.

Sourabh Verma: And then Chris what really interests me is what kind of conversations are you having with customers or companies, and what are they telling you about their plans on this front? Do they feel this is the right time? Do they want to let the volatility die down a bit let it become stable and then get into it?

Or are they not concerned about Bitcoin at all because it's not something that fits the treasury goals for short, medium, or long term? 

Chris Jackson: Really good question, Sourabh. There's not necessarily a clear answer there in terms of what companies want to do now in terms of how we're having discussions.

But what I am seeing, I think, to Stephen earlier point as well, is that there are a lot more clients thinking about it. Than there were previously. So if I look back over perhaps the last three months, I've had probably more conversations and questions from clients about crypto and stablecoins than I have had in the previous 18 months.

So it's certainly something that's starting to come to the fore and clients are certainly starting to think about what they might be doing and trying to work out what their position should be. I'm seeing more conversations around stablecoin probably at the moment than Bitcoin specifically. But again, if you go to conferences, you go to networking events, both topics are panel discussions. I'm actually attending a local AFP event here later this month in Calgary where the whole discussion is around digital assets. And so it's certainly something that people want to educate themselves on. And I think that is, that start of a trend as people start to move forward and understand what their position is strategically and when they want to get into the market, that at least shows that people are educating themselves.

I don't think that you're gonna see whole scale adoption in the next six to 12 months necessarily. But I do think people will have strategies on it. I think they will be asking more questions and they will know what is right for them and they'll be ready to act. Whereas if you perhaps went back 12, 18 months, the discussion was, it might be great for personal investment, but I wouldn't touch it from a corporate perspective.

And again, that largely comes down to the volatility, but there's certainly a desire to educate teams about what they should be doing now. 

Sourabh Verma: There's another thing which I picked up recently on my conversation with one of the companies, and that was if it's a tech company, you want to be positioning your brand as forward looking adopting latest tech trends, then it's fashionable to be able to say that, "Hey, I'm investing in Bitcoin."

We may not be at the point when it has become fashionable as a trend in the market. But that is one different aspect that company highlighted to me that, hey, we want to be looking as a brand. And if we want to do that, then this is one of the avenues we could be looking at.

But then, volatility is the number one concern, of course. And that is something corporate treasuries always look at before deciding anything, but any other concerns which figure on the top of treasurers from your perspective, Chris that you have picked up as part of your conversations?

Chris Jackson: Volatility is the key one Sourabh, as you call out. Even if you take this position of, long term, it's up and to the right, people will always point to the fact, rightly so, that the stock market has performed very well like that, but you have major crashes and, past performance is no indicator of future results.

So volatility is massive and I think for two reasons and both I think are perfectly valid. The one is what does happen in the long term? Could this still just be a fad that could crash? But also there's that, "What happens if I'm left holding the baby? So I need to cash out. I take a long-term view, but it crashes during that period, that's bad."

And similarly, there's also the emotional perspective to consider that even if long-term you make a good gain, if you're speaking to your CFO and he says, "We've just invested in this and I've just seen a 5% drop," that causes concern to a treasury who is essentially employed to manage risk.

You're not going to get huge promotions for saying, " Look, I've invested this money and I got great returns on it. Because treasury is inherently not a speculative organization, but if you turn around and say, "Yeah, I just lost 10, 15, $20 million of money because the market dropped." That's severely career limiting.

So until the volatility starts to soften and become a little bit more like a, a well established asset, I see that being a major hurdle for a lot of people. I'm not saying that it doesn't make it right for some people and there aren't certain use cases for it, but I think that inherently has been the concern that I have seen.

It is just, that downside risk rather than the upside that could be unlocked. 

Sourabh Verma: So the concern is legitimacy, "Can I consider it from investment standpoint and not lose my entire sum?" And I think that legitimacy is still the question by a lot of corporate treasuries.

For example, recently JP Morgan suggested that Bitcoin fair value is around $170,000 dollars according to its gold base pricing model. And it's the same JP Morgan, which said a few years back that Bitcoin is a scam. The trust factor the legitimacy factor is probably more important than volatility.

Volatility is important, but you don't want to lose your entire sum, your entire capital. But anyway, you know what really is something I picked up recently is, while Bitcoin has been talk of the town, but quietly something else is happening in the background. Stablecoins quietly crossed $300 billion in circulation and processed more payments than Visa this year.

Nobody's talking about it, not at least to the same level as Bitcoin. And Tether and Circle now hold basically $200 billion in US treasuries, earning $15 billion in interest while moving $10 trillion dollars. So every stablecoin is a treasury bond purchase, and every transaction is basically goes towards strengthening the dominance of dollars.

So there's a huge use case for cross border payments especially in Latin America and Middle East. And with the help of stablecoin, corporates can potentially slash 70% of the payment costs. So it looks like, based on certain estimates that by 2028 we could be looking at $2 trillion in circulation by stablecoins.

And maybe stablecoins will form 25% of global remittances by then. So I think from adoption perspective, stablecoins are probably going to lead the charge, in my view. Backed by strong use cases for corporate treasuries, but we are getting to a point when the discussions are happening from Bitcoin as investment as well, but probably not going to be something which will pick up the pace as fast as the stablecoin is picking up. And even Bank of England proposed a framework recently it was today that is aimed towards integrating stablecoins into the UK's payment system. To Stephen, I think my question would be where do you see market going in the next three to five years from Bitcoin perspective, given that stablecoin is picking up pace and that is important because there has use cases but from Bitcoin perspective where do you see the market going in the next three, three to five years?

Do you see explosive adoption by corporate treasuries or that remains to be seen in terms of what could be the inflection point in future? 

Stephen Cole: There's been a lot of excitement around stablecoins recently. They've really come into the limelight. As you mentioned, the US administration loves them because it provides a sizable buyer of treasury bonds.

And it also introduces this new vector for global expansion of US dollar dominance. And a lot of positive tailwinds, even from a regulatory perspective for those reasons. I think that over the years, the next few, we will probably see continued expansion of stablecoins, especially for remittance and payments use cases globally.

And perhaps Bitcoin will really shine when it comes to a store of value, use case and a treasury asset within the US, where stablecoins are a little less relevant since they're pegged one-to-one to the US dollar. As cliche as it sounds, we are still so early in all of this. I think we're at this cusp of perhaps transitioning from early adoption to mainstream adoption depending on how the next few years go.

And so we've got names in the public markets today, like Tesla, Block, GameStop, SpaceX holds... it's estimated at a billion dollars. They're a private company so we're not quite as certain there. But I think one theme is that finance teams are still able to look at these early adopters and say, "Oh, those are Bitcoin companies and so it's okay for them to be doing this."

Or maybe it was a whimsical, headline grabbing maneuver rather than a serious treasury strategy and an inflection point that we are really looking for over the next year or two, is a household name that has nothing to do with the Bitcoin industry, but that really starts to incorporate Bitcoin into its treasury, just for fiduciary reasons, because they see it as useful for a diversification and a genuinely useful input for a treasury strategy.

And I think that once that occurs. That could really spur a lot more finance teams to do a serious evaluation of the assets. So we're looking closely for that. And I'm curious too Chris, one thing we haven't really talked about much yet is the tools that are used; treasury management systems and all of the solutions that teams use to manage their allocation and their interface to this world.

What are you seeing there as far as questions, interest, interesting developments in the treasury management system space? 

Chris Jackson: Really good and timely questions, to be honest, Stephen. I would just take a step back. I would tend to agree with you that what you've discussed from Bitcoin is gonna be a different use case to what you're seeing on the stablecoin side.

There are some really interesting use cases around stablecoin for payments and certainly cross-border payments, making payments much faster, much cheaper that people are increasingly interested in. Now, whether or not that directly impacts corporates or whether that's something that they're able to unlock, but it sits mainly with their bank who is just facilitating those payments in a different way. Will be interesting to be seen.

But again, conceptually you do have the ability to make payments from one major corporate to another major corporate using stablecoin without a bank involved, which would be very interesting to see how that goes. And I have heard people talking about, wider impacts within the repo market and things like that, using stablecoins or whatever to make that truly 24/7, et cetera.

So I think there will be a lot of really interesting use cases there with stablecoin. And obviously I think it would probably be remiss to not to point out that obviously Ripple have recently announced GTreasury's purchase. So they're clearly betting very big on, on crypto within the treasury space. Will be very interesting to see where that develops.

And again, this could be one of those things that is completely transformational. It's something that we're obviously watching very closely. But is this another one of these ones, to your point, Stephen, where this is, an extreme example where, these are the ones that hit the news, but these aren't necessarily the things that are gonna be the mainstream use cases that people are interacting with on a daily basis. That's gonna be something that you've gotta watch very closely. I think it's gonna be really interesting, but definitely that's creating noise in the market and will spur further questions because I do think there are some really exciting potential use cases there. Again, it potentially opens up a lot of things around, if you're using stablecoin to, to settle payments, for example, great. And there are a lot of benefits there, but at some point you still have to bring it back into the banking rails when you want to, turn that money into real money within the balance sheet or on a bank account.

So again, how do you deal with holding those exposures in the short term and the accounting, et cetera. So a lot of things that need to happen there as the market tries to catch up to the reality of the technology. But it does make it a really exciting space. And I think if we have this conversation with you again in 12, 18 months time, I think we would see an awful lot more development there that we would not necessarily have predicted in addition to some of the things that we're already starting to see here becoming more nascent.

So it'd be definitely a space to watch. 

Sourabh Verma: Great, thank you. So then, I think as Chris said Stephen, we should probably put something in our diaries for the next six months or 12 months in terms of another discussion and checking where are we with respect to the growth in the markets.

It just remains to be seen, right?

Stephen Cole: Every day. There seems to be another exciting and often unexpected development in this space. In the time that we're here on this call recording this podcast, who knows what's being announced and hitting the wire. And so I think, doing another one of these in six to 12 months and checkpointing on where we're at, it would be fantastic.

Sourabh Verma: Thank you, Stephen, for joining us. Thank you, Chris. This was a very interesting and insightful discussion.

Chris Jackson: Pleasure, thanks Sourabh.

Stephen Cole: Thanks Sourabh. Thanks Chris.