Crypto’s Wall Street Takeover: Canary Capital CEO Says ETFs and Stablecoins Are About to Change Everything

WATCH: Crypto ETFs Are About to Explode — Canary Capital CEO Reveals What’s Coming Next!

Cryptocurrency is no longer just for techies with hardware wallets—it’s coming straight to your brokerage account. In an interview with AInvest’s Adam Shapiro, Canary Capital CEO Stephen McClurg pulled back the curtain on how new ETF rules, the GENIUS Act, and stablecoins are rewriting the rules of finance. McClurg, a veteran of both crypto and Wall Street, says we’re entering an era where Bitcoin looks less like a niche experiment and more like a high‑octane version of the Nasdaq, while stablecoins quietly morph into the digital equivalent of money market funds. And according to him, the SEC is finally opening the floodgates.

The big news, McClurg explained, is that the SEC has worked with exchanges like NASDAQ and CBOE to create a “generic listing standard” for ETFs. Translation? The same playbook that governs gold and oil ETFs now applies to crypto. “Most everyday investors that don’t want to deal with opening a crypto.com account can simply log into their brokerage account or talk to their financial advisor,” McClurg said. That means no more confusing wallets or obscure exchanges—crypto exposure is about to be as easy as buying SPY.

So why bother with Bitcoin now? McClurg was blunt: correlation or not, it’s a rocket ship. “Even though they’re moving in the same direction as equities, the beta is much higher,” he said. “Bitcoin is up over 150% in the past year. Not many equities are.” Once viewed as purely an inflation hedge, Bitcoin now behaves more like a turbocharged risk asset, moving in lockstep with the Nasdaq but delivering far bigger swings.

Then there’s the GENIUS Act, which McClurg called a game‑changer. Signed into law this summer, the act lays down the first U.S. federal framework for digital assets. Its biggest impact? Stablecoins. These dollar‑pegged tokens have been dismissed by some as the next bubble waiting to pop, but McClurg says critics are missing the point. “Think about Venmo,” he explained. “You put money in, and behind the scenes they’re holding Treasuries to earn yield. Stablecoins work the same way.”

In fact, he argues stablecoins are becoming the digital cousin of money market funds. “They’re taking your dollars, putting them into mostly short‑term Treasuries, and sometimes giving that yield back to you,” McClurg said. But he issued a stark warning: not all stablecoins are equal. The safe ones, like Tether and Circle’s USDC, are backed by “plain vanilla” Treasuries. The risky ones—like Terra Luna, which famously imploded—held volatile assets like Bitcoin. “If you’re chasing yield without looking at what’s behind it, you’ll get burned,” he cautioned.

The risk, McClurg admitted, is a digital replay of 2008’s money market meltdown. “We broke the buck in 2008. It can happen again if people aren’t careful,” he said. The key, he insists, is regulation: U.S.‑regulated stablecoins now have guardrails, but offshore tokens remain a potential minefield.

Meanwhile, Canary Capital is seizing the moment. The firm is preparing ETFs that give investors exposure to tokens like Injective, a protocol McClurg described as “like Apple creating an Apple Coin usable across every app on the iPhone.” These protocol tokens, he explained, are more than digital money—they’re the currency of entire decentralized ecosystems, generating returns through transaction fees and network growth. “It’s American Express travelers checks for the blockchain era,” McClurg quipped.

As for the SEC? McClurg is surprisingly upbeat. “We’ve got a new administration that’s moving things forward. Innovation is back,” he said. For him, the combination of regulatory clarity and growing investor demand marks the beginning of crypto’s mainstream takeover.

McClurg’s bottom line: Bitcoin may look like a risk asset today, but its higher beta means outsized returns. Stablecoins are quietly replacing money market funds as the go‑to vehicle for liquidity and yield. And with ETFs soon to be as easy to buy as SPY, everyday investors are about to step into the crypto fast lane—whether they know it or not.