Eric Balchunas has spent his career grading ETFs. For this episode, he’s on the other side of the microphone, talking through Both Sides of the Coin, the book he co-wrote with Bloomberg colleague James Seyffart.
MarketVector CEO Steven Schoenfeld and Head of Digital Asset Research Martin Leinweber sit down with Balchunas for a conversation that moves from how he went from Bitcoin skeptic to “suit coiner” sympathizer, to why his book and MarketVector’s own research independently converged on a 3% allocation as the sensible starting point, to the harder question underneath all of it: should investors own Bitcoin alone, or own crypto as a basket.
What’s Covered
Balchunas walks through the thesis that changed his mind on Bitcoin, the institutional adoption story behind spot Bitcoin ETFs, and why he calls index providers like MarketVector “suit coiners” for translating crypto into institutional language. The conversation turns to basket construction, drawing a direct parallel to how China A-shares, H-shares, and ADRs eventually consolidated into single, comprehensive index products. It closes on tokenization, and whether ETFs themselves are the next asset class to move on-chain.
Why It Matters for Index Investors
Single-asset crypto ETFs still dominate flows, but the index construction questions Balchunas raises apply directly to how diversified crypto exposure gets built: what to weight, what to exclude, and how to translate an asset class without analyst coverage into something an allocator can actually underwrite.
Watch the full conversation above, or find We Can Index That on Spotify and YouTube.
About the guest
ERIC BALCHUNAS is Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, where he leads the ETF and fund research globally. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences as well as co-host of the Bloomberg podcast Trillions and Bloomberg TV’s ETF IQ. Eric is the author of Both Sides of the Coin (2026), The Bogle Effect (2022) and The Institutional ETF Toolbox (2016). Eric holds a bachelor's degree in Journalism and Environmental Economics from Rutgers University.
This podcast is for informational and advertising purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of MarketVector Indexes GmbH and should not be considered investment advice. Opinions are current as of the date of recording and are subject to change with market conditions. Statements made during this podcast may constitute projections, forecasts, and other forward-looking statements, which do not reflect actual results.
Third-party information discussed is believed to be reliable but has not been independently verified.
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