Crypto Just Had Its Worst Quarter Ever… So Why Is Bitwise Bullish?
Speakers
Matt Hougan
— CIO, Bitwise Asset Management
Summary
Bitwise's Matt Hougan and Ryan discuss Q1's brutal crypto quarter but highlight accelerating institutional adoption and tokenized RWA growth. Matt presents Bitcoin as two bets: digital gold and a potential global currency, raising his price target to $2.3M by 2035.
- Q1 was the worst quarter across all major crypto assets and on-chain metrics.
- Positive forward-looking news includes Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs launching Bitcoin ETFs and SEC token framework.
- Tokenized real-world assets grew from under $2B to nearly $30B in two years, still tiny vs $600T global assets.
- Matt Hougan describes Bitcoin as a store of value with a call option on becoming a global currency.
- Geopolitical volatility, like the Iran conflict, increases the value of Bitcoin's call option.
- Bitwise's Bitcoin price target of $1.3M by 2035 may be too low, possibly $2.3M.
- Stablecoins and tokenization were bright spots in the Q1 report.
- The divergence between bad backward-looking data and good forward-looking news is historically large.
Trade Ideas
Bitcoin is two bets in one.
Bitcoin is a store of value (digital gold) with an out-of-the-money call option on becoming a global currency. Geopolitical volatility increases the value of that call option, as seen during the Iran conflict. Bitwise's price target of $1.3M by 2035 may be too low; it could be $2.3M.
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This Milk Road Macro video, published May 03, 2026, features Matt Hougan discussing BTC. 1 trade idea extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Matt Hougan · Tickers: BTC