Dan Weiskopf is a trailblazer in the ETF and ETP industry. He is the Senior Portfolio Manager at Tidal Financial Group and Co-Portfolio Manager of $NANC, $GOP and $BLOK. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.
Here is our exclusive interview with PM and financial industry legend Dan Weiskopf:
How Did You Get Started In The Financial Industry?
I started in the financial industry in the summer of 1987 and by October it felt like people were jumping out of the window because it was “Black Monday”, October 19 and the market was “Crashing”. Concerns over inflation, excessive market speculation and valuations were the main source of concern back then, but also there were issues with circuit breakers and technicals that contributed to the panic. I think that day the market was down almost 23 percent. This correction has similar characteristic of concern, but thus far has been more orderly despite the concerns around the risks that might come from the chaos coming from Trump tariff. My hope is that as a business man, President Trump knows companies cannot move as fast as his policy changes are dictating.
Why Are You So Passionate About ETFs And ETPs?
I feel like I was orange pilled on ETFs when I closed my hedge fund after rule FD was implemented in 1999 (rule full disclosure). Rule FD took away some of my edge on investing in companies, but I still talk to Managements every day, but to be honest about it the conversations are very different. For me ETFs have always been about access and the opportunity to create different investment steams and or alpha. I am very passionate about innovation that has come in the wrapper. I was so excited to join Tidal in 2018. I may not have been the first at Tidal, but let’s just say I was all hands on when we were just 8 people strong. Today in 2025 we are over 100 employees strong.
Over the 25 years that I have been involved in ETFs the problem of a few large asset managers dominating the asset mix has been a challenge for me. Innovation in the ETF market takes a commitment towards entrepreneurship. We need more early adopters who are financial advisors willing to embrace the next possible next generation of ETFs. Over the years I have curated a group of FAs who believe they can make a difference with their ETF selection. ETF flows should not be just be about the big firms and their ability to copy each other with broad indexes at lower fees. Sometimes it feels like there is an ETF oligopoly and investors deserve more than just low cost. We are very much trying to change that paradigm at Tidal which is a white label provider
What Sets Your ETFs And ETPs Apart From The Competition?
I work with Mike Venuto on various actively managed Funds. Our biggest Fund is $BLOK which has the picks and axes mandate that focuses on Blockchain. The Fund was early and launched in 2018 so it has a long history. Everyone knows about Bitcoin, but I am not sure everyone appreciates that it is a Blockchain. We have about 15-17 exposure to this area of “direct Bitcoin exposure”. We were early investors in 2020 in Strategy (MSTR) and had a similar success with Metaplanet last year (3350 JP). We recently bought into Gamestop (GME), but I am not a believer that just having Bitcoin as a treasury asset is enough to make a difference.
We think these three situations are positioned to differentiate themselves in different ways. In addition, we see the infrastructure building out really accelerating in 2025 now that we have a new administration. I am not going to get political on you, but it is literally a 180 degree change between Biden and Trump on the issues that surround digital transformation, forming policies and framing regulation. I mean in April a small quadrillion firm called DTCC announced its progress in the area, but in prior years their efforts towards the technology was all on the hush. See more on this X post here.
The space is a bit crowded with ETF now, but most of the funds are passively managed and have very little contact with management teams in the ecosystem. They are also highly concentrated in their holdings where our strategy seeks to manage risk through a diversified approach. We also write every month about the portfolio. Over the past 7 years we have been consistently holding about 50 investments. Untimely, it is likely that indexes, stocks and bonds will be offered on a 24/7 blockchain wrapped as tokens and referred to as digital assets. Just ask Larry Fink! I think Larry Fink’s Annual Letter is a must read for everyone.
BLOK is also different in that as an active Fund it can participate in IPOs. Recently, we bought into Coreweave (CRWV) IPO. When the stock market stabilizes we think the IPO market will heat up in this area. We think there are 15-20 companies with pending IPOs.
What Is Your Favorite ETF Right Now?
My favorite ETF remains BLOK, but that is because it has the most innovation and potential to disrupt. It also has the longest history of the Funds I manage with Mike Venuto.
The Unusual Whales Subversive Democrat Trading ETF ($NANC) and the Unusual Whales Subversive Trading Republican ($GOP) are a second favorite. Members of Congress ETFs took my passion for ETFs to a different level. There is a lot of talk that members of Congress should not invest in stocks given their conflicts of interest. Maybe this is true, but many are quite wealthy and very successful investors. The ETF wrapper is a wonderful transparent deliver tool to see how those members of Congress are allocated. The disclosure is supposed to be after 45 days. Nancy Pelosi has a wonderful track record of timely targeted investing and she runs fairly concentrated with her strategy. NANC has some overlap with her personal strategy, but again we are trying to model not to just one member of congress. To this point, however, historically we would highlight that NANC has tilted heavily towards growth and technology. Conversely, GOP recently really tilted towards Bitcoin.
David McCormick has multiple consecutive buys in the spot ETFs. For those who don’t know, Senator McCormick was also the CEO of Bridgewater so he is known to surround himself with smart people. Then there were two members of Congress, Neal Dunn and Jefferson Schreve who in March both disclosed StrategyB (MSTR) buys within the same week. Obviously, this research is also constructive for BLOK. I try not to let personal biases influence the decision making process for NANC and GOP, but in the case for Bitcoin and MSTR I had to get a little excited.
A passive fund that I am amazed that does not get enough attention is the $WOMN ETF. The process is systematically focused on choosing stocks which are aligned with women’s empowerment. It has a long term history of strong performance. As a PM, I would note that there is a study that supports that stocks with women who are CFOs outperform their male counter parties. Take that one to the bank!
What Are Your Thoughts On The Recent Market Volatility And Downturn?
Two funds I haven’t mentioned that Mike and I work together on is a solution we built that lines up with the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE). The tickers are FIRS and FIRI. The FIRE community is a wonderful lifestyle and admirable goal. Most people would benefit by saving more in the early years so that when they are older they have a better lifestyle or at least one with less financial pressure. The thing is that after two back to back years that cumulatively compounded at a 50 percent rate we thought a little diversification offered to the FIRE community would make sense.
Kind of like the treasury market shouldn’t always be expected to rally, especially after a 30 year trend; we thought looking for income in other places made sense. Using the Tidal platform we launched these funds off of a strategy that Mike had been running for over 10 years. We don’t charge a fee for the active management Mike and I do on these funds because we want to be authentic to the community, but the managers on our platform do charge a fee. Most importantly, we think we are providing a best of breed service in selecting these ETFs on our platform.
Anyway, FIRI generates income through options premiums and short duration ETFs. The overlap to the Barclays Agg is minimal. FIRS is the wealth builder strategy and is modeled after Harry Brown’s Permanent Portfolio.
Your question about volatility is a challenge for me. Truth is I hate volatility, but you can’t be a supporter of innovation without the expectation of times when you feel uncomfortable. Markets are always right in my opinion. However, as I said before we are pleased that these two funds, as alternative strategies, are doing what they were designed to do and manage downside in a less correlated way than other strategies.
Funny thing about the expectations around volatility in 2025. Really, who can be surprised? President Trump is polarizing and his plans are aggressive. This is not a political statement - when you get on a plane we think it’s best to cheer for the pilot - even if they are flying the wrong direction. Landing safely is the first priority!! Having said that - while the honeymoon is over - my gut tells me that while change is scary - I see him addressing many foundational issues. I just hope my heart can handle it! The key, however, is going to be that investors need to follow the policy. He may polarizing, but he has been transparent in telegraphing his agenda. My brain tells me that he is a better businessman than a politician or dancer.
What Is Your Top Piece Of Advice For Investors?
I often write that Structure Matters. My advice is to look at investing as a journey that you must own for the benefit of yourself. If you want to be a Vanguard disciple just know what you own and why it works. Do not just set it and forget it under the principles that history will repeat itself. The world is constantly changing. Similarly, if you want to compliment such a strategy, the FIRE Funds are a good match, but again look under the hood and know what you own. At a minimum, you will learn something. Put differently, we are believers that security selection matters as a compliment to the plain vanilla discipline of investing. Structure matters also with how Blockchain will disrupt many different industries.
We already know that HELOCs can be offered cheaper and faster on-chain. Term life insurance policies programmed as smart contracts on the Blockchain are also done in such a way payment to the beneficiary is automatic. A dirty little secret in the insurance industry is that a good portion of term insurance is never paid out. My advice - always take a breadth and assess the situation through the lens that structure matters. Untimely, such an approach will walk you through a decision making process that is constructive.
Thank you so much for this incredible exclusive interview Dan Weiskopf, we greatly appreciate your ETF and investing insights in this volatile market!
