Hougan – Finance News Today https://financenews.one Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:03:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.1 https://financenews.one/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cropped-marketnewsjournal-1-32x32.png Hougan – Finance News Today https://financenews.one 32 32 Bitwise’s Matt Hougan Lays Out 5 Forces That Will Drive Crypto’s Next Cycle https://financenews.one/2026/09/20/bitwises-matt-hougan-lays-out-5-forces-that-will-drive-cryptos-next-cycle/ Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:03:17 +0000 https://financenews.one/2026/09/20/bitwises-matt-hougan-lays-out-5-forces-that-will-drive-cryptos-next-cycle/ Bitwise Asset Management Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan outlined what he believes will power a new bull cycle in crypto, one he said has the potential to be more durable than the boom-and-bust runs that preceded it. Bitwise, founded in 2017, is one of the larger crypto-focused asset managers and builds its business around exchange-traded […]]]>


Bitwise Asset Management Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan outlined what he believes will power a new bull cycle in crypto, one he said has the potential to be more durable than the boom-and-bust runs that preceded it.

Bitwise, founded in 2017, is one of the larger crypto-focused asset managers and builds its business around exchange-traded funds and research aimed at financial advisors.

Speaking on a September 9 webinar hosted by financial advisor Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals (DACFP), Hougan argued that, unlike past cycles driven by a single catalyst, this one is being driven by five forces compounding at once – regulatory tailwinds, institutional adoption, stablecoins and tokenization, on-chain finance and revenue-generating tokens – each reinforcing the others rather than standing alone.

Regulation: From headwind to tailwind

On regulation, Hougan said the SEC under current Chair Paul Atkins has dropped the enforcement actions the agency brought against major exchanges during Gary Gensler’s tenure and ended what he described as “debanking” pressure on crypto firms.

Under Gensler, the agency sued nearly every major exchange and treated most crypto assets other than Bitcoin as unregistered securities, pushing firms to debank and entrepreneurs offshore. Atkins’ SEC has dismissed those suits, as well as litigation against Coinbase and Kraken, and his Project Crypto initiative has continued loosening rules around token trading.

For institutions, Hougan argued that regulatory clarity lets firms like BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), Nasdaq, NYSE and DTCC operate in the space, building businesses in crypto markets rather than just allocating to them.

“When that happens, what gets built stops being crypto-specific,” he said.

Hougan pegged the crypto market at roughly US$2 trillion against a global stock market worth over US$150 trillion. “Bringing even a fraction of that onto blockchain rails multiplies the market that platforms like Uniswap or Aave can serve many times over.”

Edelman raised the SEC’s floated plan to let blockchains serve as the official record-keeper for securities, and the London Stock Exchange’s stated intent to move its top 100 stocks on-chain for 24/7 trading as evidence that this shift is not just theoretical.

Further reinforcing the narrative, wealth managers’ capital market assumptions have moved from debating whether to hold any crypto at all to allocations that, according to Hougan, roughly double what many portfolios held a few years ago even at the lowest end.

He pointed to the billions that have poured into Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs over the past month alone, with hundreds of millions more into funds tied to XRP, Solana, Hyperliquid and Chainlink. Bitwise’s own Bitcoin ETF, (NYSEARCA:BITB), charges a mere 0.20 percent expense ratio.

Institutions favor ETFs specifically, Hougan argued, because…



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