The push for Bitcoin to $85,000 will cast a shadow over the market, especially with wider macro jitter, tariffs and government interventions. Investors are keeping an eye on the next move.
But for Bitwise’s chief investment officer, Matt Hougan, this latest price chop is noise against a much larger background of $200,000 starting in March.
“My basic case… it’s that both of these are false assumptions,” Hougan said, referring to economic concerns and market disappointment over the recent executive order regarding Bitcoin reserves. He believes the market is completely misunderstood the order, and claims that “I think (the market) will soon realize it is a bullish catalyst.”
That bullishness extends to Bitcoin’s long-term price target, which Bitcoin set at $200,000 by the end of the year. Hougan remains unsurprisingly in the short-term pullback, and while he can immerse himself in $72,000, it suggests that in the end it is not important to the grand plan of things. “From my viewpoint, if you’re investing in Bitcoin, you’re betting that it’s worth $1 million in the future,” he said.
Beyond Bitcoin, Hougan sees a major change in how Altcoins are valued. “I think people’s thinking about how to assess these assets is changing,” he explained, suggesting that the era of treating altcoins simply as high-beta bitcoin transactions is over. Instead, Hougan argues that each is judged by its own merit, especially when attracting users and applications. “I think you’ll see something that quickly separates the good and the bad.”
That shift could create some challenges for Solana, a chain that has surged in popularity during the memecoin boom, but activity has since dropped sharply. “I think that, given something like Ethereum suffering from the 2024 story gap, Solana is at the risk of suffering from the narrative gap, at least as she moves from the focused activities of memecoin to the more real world,” Hogan pointed out. Nevertheless, he remains long-term bullish and calls Solana an important part of the crypto ecosystem. “I don’t own a portfolio of crypto assets that do not include Solana.”
Meanwhile, Ripple (XRP) is one of the few non-Bitcoin tokens since Trump’s victory, a move stemming from Hougan’s resolution of its regulatory battle with the SEC. “They were unable to implement a strategy like the SEC that was on top of that strategy,” he explained, adding that XRP’s business model targeting financial institutions had been effectively frozen for years. He believes that XRP’s interests will be justified, but Hougan believes the entire crypto sector is due for reevaluation. “In my view, the whole space should be rethinked and rethinked in this new era of regulation, and I am honestly surprised that it hasn’t happened in the market yet.”
The story continues