Bitwise’s Matt Hougan Warns: Markets Still Sleeping on the SEC’s Crypto Revolution

The SEC’s seismic shift on crypto regulation isn’t just coming—it’s here. So why are markets still snoozing?

### The Regulatory Tidal Wave Everyone Missed

While Wall Street obsesses over quarterly earnings, the SEC’s crypto pivot could rewrite the rulebook overnight. Bitcoin ETFs? Just the opening act.

### Price Action vs. Policy Reality

Traders keep chasing memecoins while institutional players quietly position for the biggest regulatory greenlight in crypto history. Classic ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ behavior—except the rumor hasn’t even hit mainstream feeds yet.

### The Cynic’s Corner

Of course banks will launch ‘blockchain innovation labs’ the millisecond the SEC gives the all-clear—right after spending millions lobbying against it. Some things never change.

Wake-up call: When the dam breaks, it won’t be retail traders catching the wave. The smart money’s already building arks.

Hougan’s wake-up call followed SEC Chair Paul S. Atkins’ July 31 speech at the America First Policy Institute, which lays out “Project Crypto,” a multi-pronged plan to bring tokenization, on-chain market structure, and even DeFi into the U.S. regulatory perimeter. “The most bullish document I’ve read on crypto wasn’t written by some yahoo on Twitter. It was written by the chairman of the SEC,” Hougan wrote, adding: “I can’t imagine reading the speech and not wanting to allocate a significant portion of your capital to crypto, or, if you work in finance, a significant portion of your career.” 

What changed—and when

The pivot has been fast and visible. Gary Gensler’s departure on Jan. 20 was followed by Atkins’ Senate confirmation on Apr. 9 and swearing-in on Apr. 21, formalizing a leadership reset that the WHITE House signaled would be friendlier to digital assets. 

Since then, the SEC has moved beyond “regulation by enforcement.” The agency has voluntarily dismissed or stayed a string of crypto cases (including against Binance and Coinbase), reorganized its crypto unit, and launched an official “Project Crypto” initiative to draft clear rules—on custody, token distributions, staking, exchange registration, and tokenized securities. 

Inside Atkins’ roadmap

Atkins’ AFPI remarks are unusually explicit on four fronts:

• Tokenization at scale. The SEC wants Americans included in tokenized distributions and will use exemptive and interpretive tools while formal rules are finalized. Expect pathways for stocks, bonds, fund shares, and dollars to live on public chains.

• Custody modernization and self-custody. Atkins calls the right to self-custody “a core American value,” while directing staff to update rules so registered firms can safely hold crypto.

• “Reg Super-App.” He explicitly invites horizontally integrated broker-dealers to offer securities, crypto asset securities, and non-securities side-by-side under one roof—staking and lending included. That’s a direct green light to Coinbase/Robinhood-style “super apps.”

• DeFi in the perimeter. The speech sketches guardrails that protect pure code publishers and set workable rules for intermediaries operating on-chain systems (AMMs, etc.), including potential Reg NMS tweaks to enable on-chain trading.

Hougan’s takeaway: “There’s a lot to unpack in the speech for investors; you could build an entire venture capital firm around the chairman’s vision, creating companies to capitalize on each opportunity he lays out.” He also argues that if “substantially all assets are going to MOVE onto public blockchains,” investors should want exposure to the chains that will host them. And he goes further on the platform race: “I’ll go out on a limb here: One of these companies could become the largest financial services company in the world, maybe even becoming the first financial services company worth more than $1 trillion. Atkins just gave them a roadmap.”

It’s not priced in, remarked Houghan Via X

Is it priced in?

Probably not fully. Bitcoin broke records around key political and regulatory milestones—setting a new ATH near Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, then pushing to fresh highs through May–July as policy momentum built and Congress debated crypto bills.

Bitcoin is back above $118,000, source: bitcoin Liquid Index

Yet Hougan admits even he initially underestimated the speed and scope: “I’m realizing I have to think bigger — and move to a faster timeline. If it wasn’t priced in for me, I’m going to guess it wasn’t priced in for others.” 

Why this could be structurally different

• Policy coordination: The SEC’s “Project Crypto” and the CFTC’s move to allow listed spot crypto trading on CFTC-registered exchanges suggest a coordinated federal framework rather than fragmented state-by-state workarounds.

• Wall Street pressure: TradFi incumbents are now lobbying for unified rules on tokenized assets instead of trying to stop them, a sign the fight has shifted from “if” to “how.”  

• Enforcement reset: Dismissing non-fraud “registration” cases while concentrating on actual scams removes a chilling effect without giving fraud a free pass. That rebalances risk for builders and allocators.  

Where the puck may go next

• Base layers & L2s: If “substantially all assets” migrate on-chain, throughput platforms (ETH/L2s, high-performance L1s, and credible BTC L2s) become macro-beta. Atkins even cites compliance-friendly token standards (e.g., ERC-3643) as building blocks.  

• Broker-dealer “super apps”: Coinbase, Robinhood and peers are now implicitly competing to become the Western super-app—an idea Atkins name-checks directly. If one crosses the trillion-dollar mark, it will be because the rulebook let them collapse custody, brokerage, payments, and tokenization into a single UX.  

• DeFi with clarity: Formal lanes for AMMs and on-chain venues could pull liquidity and developers back onshore. As Hougan puts it: “With greater clarity, could these numbers rise by 10x? 50x? 100x? As traditional and crypto markets merge, the opportunity is huge.”

The SEC’s own documents—not “CT Twitter”—now sketch a permissive architecture for on-chain finance. If the market is still anchoring to last cycle’s enforcement posture, Hougan’s “not priced in” thesis has room to run—especially if the rulemakings that follow this speech stick the landing.

Let’s not forget Hougan and his team at Bitwise are on record with a Bitcoin price prediction of $200,000 for this year. There are only 5 months left, so expect fireworks. If you don’t own Bitcoin, now might be the right time to buy Bitcoin on a pure risk vs reward basis.