Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP Investors Aren't Keeping Pace With the Market, Bitwise's Matt Hougan Says: Beware

Crypto investors may be underestimating how large the industry’s next growth phase could become since market perception has failed to keep pace with reality, according to Bitwise’s Matt Hougan.

In his Aug. 18 weekly CIO memo, Bitwise’s Chief Investment Officer highlighted three mistakes investors are currently making.

Crypto Apps Targeting All Assets + Crypto

Hougan’s first argument is that investors continue to value decentralized applications such as Uniswap (CRYPTO: UNI), Hyperliquid as measured by Hyperliquid Strategies Inc (NASDAQ:PURR), Aave (CRYPTO: AAVE) and Chainlink (CRYPTO: LINK) as if they are confined to the roughly $2 trillion crypto market.

That could dramatically understate their eventual addressable market if stocks, bonds, real estate and other financial assets increasingly move on chain.

Hougan pointed to roughly $150 trillion in global equities and $350 trillion in bonds, arguing that platforms currently associated with crypto trading and lending could eventually serve markets orders of magnitude larger.

He compared the mistake to viewing Amazon solely as an online bookstore during its early years.

“It’s widely accepted now that tokenization is going to eat every kind of asset you can imagine,” Hougan wrote. Investors have yet to fully incorporate that shift into valuations of the platforms facilitating those transactions.