"Everyone Who Owns Bitcoin Needs To Hear This" - Matt Hougan 2026 New Crypto Update

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]And so what we think happened here, the reason we think geopolitical [music] crisis plays into Bitcoin and in fact drove its outperformance is that the global monetary order got more volatile and therefore this out-of-the-oney call option became more valuable. So you're not just talking about digital gold, you were talking about Bitcoin as a currency. That's two bets in one.

[00:00:20]They're both bets that can lead to [music] million dollar plus outcomes.

[00:00:25]So, it made me think that our our price target, which is 1.3 million [music] by 2035, is too low. Maybe it should be 2.3 million. Uh, I think this this idea of an a-olitical currency is coming [music] into the money and the volatility is increasing as the world gets more chaotic. And I think that just plays right into Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the foundation of an entirely new global financial system rather than merely a hedge against inflation or a type of digital gold, what if rather than posing a threat to cryptocurrency, the unpredictability we witness in traditional markets and geopolitics serves as a catalyst that makes Bitcoin stronger than it has ever been? Matt Hugan, a leading cryptocurrency strategist, is currently making that [music] claim. And if his prediction comes to pass, we might be seeing the beginning of a much bigger financial revolution rather than just Bitcoin hitting $100,000 or even seven figures.

[00:01:13]Please remember to like this video, subscribe to our channel, and enable post notifications if you have a strong interest in learning about the future of finance and [music] the function of digital assets like Bitcoin. This will ensure that you never miss anything.

[00:01:25]Thank you and enjoy the video. But what is your what is your current feeling about the market now that we've had another kind of geopolitical flip-flop over the weekend, but things look kind of strong. Matt, let's start with you.

[00:01:36]>> Oh, I'm still feeling relatively optimistic about the market. The market was way off sides. The negative funding rates, uh, you know, really heavy put skew and it was caught off sides and we rallied up. We're holding very strong here. I think if we can hold in the mid70s, I will be pretty excited about where we go later in the half. So, [music] uh, I'm optimistic. We're post tax day.

[00:01:58]Remember, that was my turning point.

[00:02:00]And, and I think it's looking I think it's looking okay. Yeah. You know, at Bitwise, we've always described Bitcoin as a store of value with an outofthe-oney call option on being a currency or a tool for international settlement. In other words, when you invest in Bitcoin, you make a bet on it being digital gold. And as we've talked about LG, we think that's a very good bet. We think Bitcoin could easily get to a million dollars a coin just by making modest progress on being digital gold. But you get this outofthe- money call option on it becoming a tool for international currency settlement maybe between countries that don't like one [music] another. We've never really talked to institutions about that because that's such a faroff idea, right? No one's really doing it. [music] Uh it's a theoretical concept. So we focus people on this idea of digital gold, but you still do have this international call this call option.

[00:02:48][music] The reason we wrote the piece is because what happened in in the Iran conflict is that that call option both came [music] closer into the money because Iran talked about tolling ships paying with Bitcoin. That's like the first example of this happening. [music] But then also importantly, the global monetary order just got more volatile.

[00:03:11]Right? We're talking about a country that's situated [music] between the US and China. It has complicated relationships with all different kinds of adversarial countries. Maybe you don't want a political currency or currency rail like the dollar system or the yuan system. It shook that [music] up. And one of the things you know about options is if the underlying market gets more volatile, the option gets more valuable. And so what we think happened here, the reason we think geopolitical crisis plays into Bitcoin and in fact drove its outperformance is that the global monetary order got more volatile [music] and therefore this out-of-the-oney call option became more valuable. So you're not just talking about digital gold, you were talking about Bitcoin as a currency. [music] That's two bets in one. They're both bets that can lead to million dollar plus outcomes. So, it made me think that our our price target, which is 1.3 million by 2035, is too low. Maybe it should be 2.3 million. Uh, I think this this idea of an apolitical currency is coming into the money [music] and the volatility is increasing as the world gets more chaotic and I think that just plays right into Bitcoin.

[00:04:17]>> Does that rely though would that would that rely on more geopolitical conflict?

[00:04:21]Well, it would rely on the world becoming less hedged [music] to individual political currency rails, right? So, I think these things [music] break and actually are never put back together. So, like the US seized Russia's treasury assets. I don't think you band-aid that over and all of a sudden countries are like, "Okay, I'm okay with you having my wealth on your balance sheet." I don't think that genie goes back in the bottle. [music] So, does it need more geopolitical conflict?

[00:04:49]I'm not sure. It needs more growth of non-dollar economies [music] and uh I think the passage of time but certainly I think geopolitical conflict will accelerate this. So yeah I you know in the end I think it's a little bit of a hedge against this geopolitical conflict. I think the point Ryan is making is a great one which is it's actually not a binary outcome. It's not like will China settle transactions with Russia in Bitcoin. [music] >> That doesn't have to happen before the market recognizes that. It's it's has the probability of that [music] increased from something like 1% to 10%.

[00:05:24]I would argue that that definitely has happened. It's now been raised as an idea by Iran in difficult geopolitical system situations where you're pegged between the US and China. You default to this apolitical asset. The probability of that happening again in the future has gone up. And I think that's why you're seeing the value of Bitcoin going up. Again, it doesn't have to get all the way there. It just has to increase in probability. And I think that objectively has happened. I think it should be driving institutional interest. I don't hear many people besides us talking about it at the institutional level. This is a this is a theory that Bitcoin has had for a long time at the retail level, but I don't hear it much at the institutional level.

[00:06:02]I think I'm going to start talking about it more as I travel around. I don't know if Ryan disagrees with me, but I think it's it's a narrative that still has to penetrate the institutional [music] lens. Hugan argues that we might potentially witness a new type of ICO boom, which may come as a surprise. It's more structured and mature than the disorganized version we witnessed years ago. [music] The industry at the time was rife with lacks regulations, inadequate technology, and frequently plain fraud. The [music] environment is drastically different now with stronger infrastructure, more transparent regulations, and emerging real world use cases. This implies that we may start to see projects that genuinely create value in instead of tokens driven by hype.

[00:06:39]This gap in the market is among his most significant points. On the surface, sentiment has been negative, activity has slowed, prices have decreased, and crypto data has been bad. However, the fundamentals are truly becoming better behind that. Regulations are becoming more transparent. Big institutions are joining the market, and innovation is advancing more quickly than before.

[00:06:57]Please take a moment to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and enable post notifications for future Bitcoin, macroeconomic, and digital asset content before we go any further. Now, let's get into his powerful predictions >> and where people may be electing tokens to kind of help their their ideas get off the ground.

[00:07:12]>> It it it's three things, just to be clear. It's regulatory compliance.

[00:07:15][music] It's highly performant blockchains, and it's vastly more capable AI.

[00:07:19]>> It's when those three things come together that I think it can be really exciting. Uh, and we have all those three now.

[00:07:25]>> Tell me how you really feel.

[00:07:26]>> Yeah. So, my experience of these reports is Ryan and the team puts them together and then when they're nearly ready, they ship them to me to review. [music] And usually when I go through the data, there are some things that are up, some things that are down. Some assets that went up, some assets that went down. Q1 was just brutal across the board. Every major crypto asset down double digits.

[00:07:45]Most major crypto stocks down double digits. Almost every onchain metric that you looked at down significantly. The [music] only sort of silverish lining was some positive news on stable coins.

[00:07:56]But in how many years have we been doing this quarterly report, Ryan? Three or four years. three or four years of reviewing this, this was the most down only data report we've ever produced.

[00:08:05]Wow.

[00:08:06]>> The flip side of it, LG, is that the news was so good, right? [music] Market down, Morgan Stanley launching a Bitcoin ETF, market down, Goldman Sachs launching a Bitcoin ETF, the SEC unveiling a token framework. I mean, it was just relentless good news. And really, what it really hammered home to me is like, look, this data is backward-looking. Backward-looking really was bad. [music] The question is all the news flow is forwardlooking.

[00:08:30]Will it drag up the data into Q1? I think that's what people are Q2. That's what people are betting on and that's why the markets have rallied the last few weeks. I I always thought that the ideas that we experimented with in 2018, in 2020 and 2021 were good ideas just at the [music] wrong time. I thought the idea of solving the cold start problem through crypto incentives was a good idea [music] but handicapped. I thought uh many of the D5 projects were really great ideas but handicapped by the lack of highly performant blockchains and having been around through like the internet boom you know that [music] it takes regulation and technology and the right market conditions in order to have these two things. So I've always I I've sort of had this thesis that everything we've tried in crypto will work. It just wasn't working at the specific time. So I I do think that this is an eventuality and I think it's going to uh catch many people off guard.

[00:09:23]>> Yeah. I mean I think I think what Matt said is right. Normally you look at this and you see a broad range of data. You see either uh price and fundamentals are showing one thing uh and news is like kind of mirroring it a little bit but here's just like this huge divergence which you don't normally see this large of a divergence and uh and really across the board with the exception of stable coins and tokenization uh and some poly market data which is is makes sense was going up uh the market was just down bad. I think one thing in particular though that that stuck out to me is that we are uh you know the starting point at the beginning of the year was was relatively high compared to where we finished the quarter. But since the end of Q1, things have felt remarkably good for crypto. And if you were to to midpoint Q1 with the Iran conflict, things have felt, you know, pretty great for crypto uh gi given that you know we're up and have outperformed major asset classes since the start of the conflict. So I think the striking point in the beginning point of this quarter was unique in that it uh it it high and low a lot of like drastic moves and metrics but I think long-term some of these metrics that we've been looking at quarter over quarter year over year are up so significantly versus where they were but you get this quarter to quarter volatility which can uh especially in a bare market can feel particularly bleak.

[00:10:38]In conclusion, even though the short-term data appears weak, Matt Hooan is essentially stating that cryptocurrency is currently at a very significant turning point. He explains that robust regulatory compliance, high performance blockchains, and sophisticated artificial intelligence are the three main factors that will determine this field's destiny. Each of these is already in place separately.

[00:10:58]But when they begin to collaborate, the entire cryptocurrency sector may see a significant increase in strength.

[00:11:03]Additionally, he highlights a crucial aspect of how we interpret the market.

[00:11:06]The majority of the data that is currently available is backward-looking, which means that it represents past events. Additionally, the data for the most recent quarter appeared to be really poor overall with prices declining, activity declining, and about every metric declining. However, there was also a lot of excellent news coming from the industry. New innovation was picking up speed, authorities were getting closer to clear frameworks, and large organizations like major banks were introducing Bitcoin products. As a result, there is a significant disconnect between previous events and potential future developments.

[00:11:36]Additionally, Hugan thinks that markets are beginning to prioritize the future above the past. He cites instances from past cycles where cryptocurrency concepts like DeFi and incentive based networks failed because the timing, technology, and regulations weren't ready rather than because they were flawed concepts. The missing pieces are now beginning to fit together. Remember to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and enable notifications if you thought his viewpoint was helpful so you don't miss any updates. We'd love to know what you think about the future of cryptocurrency markets, so please share your ideas in the comments section. We appreciate your time and hope to see you in the next video.