EXCLUSIVE: Wall Street Veteran Winston Ma Unpacks the Bitcoin ETF Boom and Sovereign Fund Influx

During the recent CryptoAI Summit 2025, hosted by Bitpush, we had the privilege of an exclusive interview with Winston Ma, a seasoned investor and thought leader in the global AI-digital economy. 

As Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) hit a record $109 billion in Assets Under Management (AUM), signaling accelerated institutional adoption globally, Ma shared his profound insights into the evolving landscape of digital assets, covering everything from sovereign wealth fund strategies and the critical role of regulation to the geopolitical forces shaping the future of crypto.

Guest Profile

Winston Ma, CFA & Esq., is an investor, attorney, author, and adjunct professor in the global AI-digital economy. He is a partner of Dragon Global, an AI-focused family office (founding member: Dragon.AI), and he is also the Executive Director of Global Public Investment Funds Forum and an Adjunct Professor (on Sovereign Investors) at New York University (NYU) School of Law.

Most recently for 10 years, he was Managing Director and Head of North America Office for China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s sovereign wealth fund. Prior to that, Mr. Ma served as the deputy head of equity capital markets at Barclays Capital, a vice president at J.P. Morgan investment banking, and a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. He is one of a small number of native Chinese who have worked as investment professionals and practicing capital markets attorneys in both the United States and China.

A nationally certified Software Programmer as early as 1994, Mr. Ma is the author of more than 10 books on SWF funds, digital economy, and global geopolitics, including The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy  and most recently “Blockchain and Web3” (among and 2023 and 2024 “six must-read blockchain books” by TechTarget). He has been frequently interviewed by CNBC and Bloomberg TV and quoted by major financial media including WSJ, Reuters, and Financial Times. He was selected a 2013 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum (WEF), and in 2014 he received the NYU Distinguished Alumni Award.

Regulatory Clarity: The Trillion-Dollar Catalyst

Bitpush: You have tremendous experience in terms of investing and the regulatory landscape across the globe. New Hampshire just approved crypto for state reserves. Could this push sovereign funds to view crypto as a reserve asset too?

Winston Ma: I would say yes and no, because on one hand, more and more institutions are recognizing the value of crypto assets, especially Bitcoin. That's why we see more and more states in the US are following the federal government, essentially following Trump, to set up a state level or federal level asset reserve relating to cryptos. And then for the states, they are essentially expanding the definition to allow crypto assets to be taken as part of the State Reserve as well. So that's a very encouraging development. 

But at the same time, I would say the more fundamental change to drive more large sovereign funds, institution investors into the market would be a regulatory development, especially a comprehensive federal level crypto regulation framework to clearly to clear to clearly define what is crypto assets, who can hold it, who can trade it, and what what's the regulation of that trading.

Bitpush: With clearer rules emerging like MiCA and US state-level moves, is the regulatory gap finally narrowing for sovereign crypto adoption?

Winston Ma: Generally yes. We're seeing better, clearer regulations for crypto assets in recent several years. But overall, the sovereign funds need very clear regulatory framework. And they are very ready to take action if there is such clarity. So for example, last year, the US SEC has clarified that Bitcoin-based ETF is legal. And soon we saw sovereign funds jumped into this. According to SEC filings, Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi, UAE-based sovereign fund, in the last quarter of 2024 alone, purchased several hundred millions worth of Bitcoin ETF. 

This is just one regulatory improvement. If we have broad regulatory clarification, trillions, tens of trillions of dollars from the largest sovereign funds across the world will come to this market.

Geopolitics and the Diverging Digital Currency Paths

Bitpush: Do you think the US is going to lead this sovereign fund movement, and then the global market will follow, or are we going to see a different landscape potentially? 

Winston Ma: Yes, I think the US market is the bellwether for the global markets right now. Because of the US dollar connection, the US market still holds the most important status in global crypto assets. We see different pockets in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Middle East, but the US is the biggest financial market. Secondly, it's where the US dollar is; people who have crypto eventually need US dollars. Because of all this, we should still follow the US market as the bellwether. If the Trump administration in the coming years can clarify this, it will be a tremendous boost to the global markets as well.

Ma then delved into the diverging digital currency strategies of the US and China: 

"Essentially, the US and China are representing two very important but different directions. You know, one is public chain cryptocurrencies, another is government chain, central bank digital currency. For the US, Trump has stopped the US research on digital dollar. Instead, it moves into the direction of promoting the crypto assets on the public blockchain like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other Solana, you know, other crypto assets. In China, most of the focus has been on government-backed CBDC. China is the only country that has done mass-scale CBDC testing with hundreds of millions of people in various business contexts. In the middle of geopolitical tension, actually the two directions may go further and further, because the US side is trying to keep the public chain ecosystem active, and the China side, it probably is trying to use the CBDC to help the renminbi the Chinese currency to become more international."

Implications for Wealth Funds and Retail Users

Bitpush: What does this mean for wealth or institutional funds, and what does this mean for retail users?

Winston Ma:They're different. First, sovereign funds will likely embrace both. They certainly view crypto assets on public chains as a potential asset class for their trillion-dollar portfolios. But at the same time, they're sovereigns, closely related to their own government and global politics. Going back to the Mubadala example, it's the sovereign fund of UAE. It has been active in crypto investments, but simultaneously, the UAE government has announced plans to release a sovereign digital currency for UAE by the end of this year. To the extent the UAE digital currency becomes its own ecosystem, separate from the public chain ecosystem, I fully believe Mubadala and other sovereign wealth funds will also embrace the UAE's sovereign digital currency ecosystem.

For retail users, they're more familiar with the public chain. For CBDC, they probably worry about data privacy issues or government centralized data considerations. But ultimately, if both become robust, sizable, and scalable ecosystems, I believe retail users will follow the large institutions into the CBDC ecosystem as well.

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