Mike Novogratz, Founder, CEO and Chairman at Galaxy Digital

In this episode of The Scoop Novogratz talked about Galaxy’s multi-faceted role in the crypto market, why it is expanding into San

On this episode of The Scoop, Mike Novogratz, founder, CEO, and chairman of Galaxy Digital, returns for a follow-up conversation about building a crypto merchant bank through one of the industry's roughest stretches. Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs and Fortress Investment Group executive, founded Galaxy Digital in 2018 near the top of the prior bull market, only to spend much of the following two years steering the firm through a prolonged crypto bear market. 

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By the time of this September 2019 conversation, bitcoin had rallied earlier in the year before cooling off again, and the broader market was still working through the fallout of 2018's crash, with institutional adoption arriving more slowly than many had predicted a year earlier. Galaxy had grown considerably in that stretch regardless, expanding from a handful of employees to more than 80 across trading, advisory, asset management, and principal investing, even as the firm's own stock and financial results reflected how difficult the surrounding market had become.

The conversation covers how Novogratz thinks about Galaxy's business as a merchant bank for crypto, running an OTC and electronic trading desk, advising companies on capital raises and security token offerings, and managing venture funds and index products alongside the firm's own balance-sheet investments. He discusses the difficulty of raising traditional-style funds from institutions during a bear market, noting that many large allocators still preferred to wait on the sidelines rather than commit early, functioning more as cautious observers than active participants.

Novogratz also lays out his long-running thesis on bitcoin as digital gold, argues that tokenizing real-world assets like real estate, art, and music royalties represents a major future opportunity for the industry, and weighs in on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, sharing his views on candidates including Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang. It's a candid mid-cycle check-in from one of crypto's highest-profile institutional voices, offering a window into how a bear-market-era crypto bank was positioning itself for the next upswing.