We regularly get questions from readers, as well as from viewers of our monthly webinars. Here are some recent ones.

Question: “With crypto markets selling off recently, are you still bullish on blockchain?”

Answer: The short answer is, Yes. But I offer that with the caveat that you should be wary of asking a barber if you need a haircut. Most of the time he’s going to tell you that you do.

The longer answers is that I’ve made a deliberate shift in my career, based on the belief that this technology is going to be at least as impactful as the internet. That’s my view. And so yes, I am as bullish as I’ve ever been on this technology.

As for cryptocurrency prices, those are a function of markets—and human fear and greed. That’s not unique to Bitcoin (BTC-USD) or cryptocurrencies or blockchain. It happens in every single asset class. It’s a normal part of the growth of any asset, and so recent price weakness has not deterred me one bit. Obviously, I feel a lot better when Bitcoin is at $20,000 than when it’s at $6,000. But in terms of entry points, I feel more comfortable getting into a brand-new, fast-growing ecosystem that has sold off 70%—there may be more value there than one would find in the same technology after it’s gone up 100% or 200%. So yes, I’m still very positive on this sector.

Question: “Do you still think 90% of Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s) will go to zero? Do you believe the ICO market is dead?”

Answer: I’ve said publicly that I believe 90% of ICOs will go to zero, and I think that’s a fair estimation. But to be clear: that is not a knock on ICOs. It’s just simple math from venture capital. I view ICO’s as start-ups—very early stage start-ups, or even seed-stage. Some ICOs may only have a white paper behind them, which merely outlines a concept.

In the venture capital world, 90% of the ideas don’t work out, and even if they may be good ideas, they might be too early, or management can’t execute. A 90% failure rate is a very normal venture capital type of ratio. So yes, I still stand by that.

As to the second question, Is the ICO space dead? Before I answer I have to point out that we do not have any ICOs in the (BKC) portfolio, because they are not equities. So they don’t qualify. But to answer the question as directly as possible: No, the space is in no way “dead.”

ICOs are an incredibly innovative way to raise capital for an early-stage company. We have certainly seen a lot of froth in that particular area. Initially, venture capitalists saw a disruptive threat on the horizon with this ICO phenomenon. Many of them opened funds and said, “We want in on the game.” There was a rush of money coming into the space, and certainly some of the returns we saw in 2017 got people excited. But there has just been an awful lot of money flowing into that space and valuations have become bloated. So we’ve got to work that off. But overall, the ICO space very much reminds me of the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin space in December 2017 where we had this frothy, foamy excitement out there and it’s going to take some time to work through it.

Question: “How is BKC exposed to crypto miners and traders without any of the exchanges being public companies?”

Answer: There actually are quite a few public companies that either operate exchanges or own shares in an exchange. For example, GMO Internet (GMOYF) operates the GMO Coin exchange; Monex Group (MNXBF) owns Coincheck, a bitcoin wallet and exchange; the Korean firm, Nexon (NEXOF), recently acquired a 65% stake in the Korbit exchange. So while there may not be many “pure play” opportunities to own shares of the exchange itself, investors can get exposure to exchanges through their operating companies, or firms that hold an ownership stake in an exchange.

Another way to gain exposure to this space is through chip companies like AMD (AMD), Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) and Micron Technology (MU). One of the things you might have heard me talk about on Fast Money is the new seven-nanometer chips coming out. What these new wafers allow you to do is run a mining operation much more efficiently—with a lot less electricity. Power consumption is one of the biggest cost inputs to any mining operation, and new, more efficient chips should see strong demand from the mining companies that keep these ecosystems running.

Finally, I would point to some of the financial companies, like Metropolitan Bank Holdings (MCB) or Shin Hung Financial (SHG). They provide services to cryptocurrency exchanges—so that is another way to gain exposure to potential growth in the mining and exchange space. Metropolitan Bank, in particular, provides wire transfer, deposit and other services to users of the Coinbase exchange, and MCB’s Shift debit card can directly link to a Coinbase account.

So there are many different ways to access opportunities in the mining/exchange sector, especially if you take a “picks and shovels” approach—i.e., investing in the businesses that service the ecosystem.

Question: “What is your impression of Bakkt’s potential impact on the industry?”

Answer: I think it’s very big news. But just to review, let’s remind folks what Bakkt is and who’s launching it: it’s a project of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. So right off the bat, you have to understand that securities industry heavyweights are behind it. Other participants include Microsoft (MSFT), and the management consulting giant Boston Consulting Group. Starbucks (SBUX) will also be a participant—not accepting cryptocurrency in its stores, but working on the convertibility of cryptocurrency to fiat currency… which can be spent in their stores. (In my mind, once you can convert cryptocurrency to dollars inside an app, it’s only a very small step to actually being able to spend the cryptocurrency itself.)

Bakkt is a global platform designed for buying, selling, storing and spending digital assets. But the biggest development with Bakkt is its ability to address a concern that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has had for a long time: it will be a U.S.-regulated exchange, and will maintain a licensed warehouse (just another name for custody) that can handle physical settlement of bitcoin futures contracts.

To me, this is game-changing type of stuff. It may allow regulated institutional investors to gain entry into a sector where they have been unable to have meaningful participation. That could mean a substantial influx in liquidity into cryptocurrency ecosystems. And it’s not even 90 days away now—as they are talking about being up and running by November 1, I believe.

Question: “Are we on the cusp of institutional acceptance [for cryptocurrencies]?”

Answer: From my own experience, I believe that is the case. Institutional interest slowed down after the entire cryptocurrency market experienced a retreat in prices. But within the last few months, the number of inquiries and discussions we have had with institutional investors has been rising. They seem to be further along than I originally had anticipated. So I feel more confident than I did earlier this year that institutions have an appetite to enter this market.

The other thing that I would say is that we, sitting here in the U.S., tend to focus on U.S. institutions. But it’s entirely likely—maybe even more probable—that Asian institutions could be the first big institutions to enter this space in a meaningful way. South Korea and Japan are the biggest countries for cryptocurrency trading, and banks there are already piloting programs using cryptocurrency platforms for cross-border payments, letters or credit, and those sorts of financial applications. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if a Japanese pension fund or endowment or life insurance company made the first meaningful allocation to this space.