"[The situation we're in now] is very different than 2008, the rising of rates seems to be a magic number," argues Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors and Chairman of HIVE Blockchain Technologies. "Signature bank falling was such a shock, but we moved our money out and it was all professional," he tells Daniela Cambone at the 2023 Swiss Mining Institute annual conference. "It's very tragic what happened to the shareholders of [Signature bank], it was a first-class operation," Holmes says. "Bitcoin validated the blockchain... there are 12,000 independent nodes around the world validating transactions," he continues. "You have to support getting auditors [in the crypto space] to actually chase away crooks like Sam Bankman-Fried," Holmes states. "We have, for the first time in history, an interesting black swan because America is dealing with two cold wars [between Russia and China]," he concludes.