The crypto market has performed fairly strongly so far in 2025, but Hougan argues the best is yet to come, driven largely by governments stockpiling crypto and favourable monetary policy out of the US.<\/p>\n
Hougan has long argued that ETFs<\/a>, corporates and governments will drive the next crypto boom. So far, though, only ETFs and corporates have been aggressively accumulating crypto.\u00a0<\/p>\n So far, two of those horsemen have delivered: ETFs have purchased 183,126 BTC, while public corporations have gobbled up 354,744 BTC. Given that the bitcoin network has only produced 100,697 bitcoin, that\u2019s been enough to drive the price up 27.1%.<\/p>\n Hougan believes that before the end of the year, we\u2019ll see governments start stacking Bitcoin<\/a> too, driving the market higher.<\/p>\n \u201cThe popular conception is that sovereign adoption of bitcoin as a reserve asset has fallen off the table. I suspect this is wrong,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Countries and central banks move slowly, but based on the conversations we\u2019re having at Bitwise, they are moving\u2026That realization alone could push prices substantially higher.<\/p>\n The Bitwise CIO also believes the market is underestimating the impact of looming interest rate cuts and potentially large-scale money printing in the US<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe market is pricing in multiple rate cuts by year-end, which should be supportive for bitcoin. But I think the market is missing a much bigger story here,\u201d Hougan explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Administration is strongly signalling that it wants much lower rates and a much weaker dollar. Not three rate cuts. Try six. Or eight.<\/p>\n As evidence for this, Hougan cited the appointment of \u201cweak dollar advocate\u201d Stephen Miran to the US Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Miran has previously called for<\/a> a new \u201cMar-a-Lago Accord.\u201d Hougan characterised this as being designed to \u201creduce the value of the dollar against its global peers, and has suggested the Fed can achieve this goal by printing large numbers of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Historically, Bitcoin has performed most strongly when the US has lower interest rates and a weaker dollar. If the US does in fact go down the path of aggressively cutting rates and firing up the money printers, Hougan thinks \u201cbitcoin could trade significantly higher.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: Bitcoin Posts All-Time High as Market Expectations Grow<\/a><\/p>\n Lower Volatility And Resurgence of ICOs to Further Boost Market, Says Hougan<\/p>\n Hougan also pointed out that since the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETFs in January of last year, Bitcoin\u2019s volatility has reduced significantly. The Bitwise CIO wrote that this reduced volatility has boosted interest from institutional investors.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my conversations with institutional investors, this lower volatility is translating into much higher portfolio allocation considerations than in the past. Whereas 1% was the primary starting point for conversations in the pre-ETF era, I now regularly hear talk of starting at 5% or more.\u201d<\/p>\n An important driver of the huge inflows into Bitcoin spot ETFs we\u2019ve seen recently is this reduced volatility, said Hougan, which has triggered institutional investors to increase their holdings.<\/p>\n The fourth overlooked market catalyst identified by Hougan is a potential resurgence of initial coin offerings (ICOs), which effectively died off in the wake of the 2017-2018 ICO era after a glut of scam projects and rug pulls soured investors on the concept.<\/p>\n Related: Project Crypto: Bitwise Names Three Key Winners From the SEC\u2019s Blockchain Utopia<\/a><\/p>\n Hougan believes we could see ICOs return this bull run, citing pro-crypto comments from new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins. Atkins called for purpose-fit disclosures, exemptions and safe harbours for ICOs to drive an explosion in innovation, during a speech he gave last month in which he outlined the SEC\u2019s new regulatory stance towards crypto, dubbed \u201cProject Crypto\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bitwise CIO, Matt Hougan, said the market is underestimating four key catalysts which he believes will drive crypto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,63,99,171],"class_list":{"0":"post-69666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Matt-Hougan-Bitwise-CIO.jpg\"\/)
Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer Bitwise <\/p>\n Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer Bitwise <\/p>\n Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer Bitwise <\/p>\n