Bitwise’s Matt Hougan Makes Big Prediction on Bitcoin’s Next Bear Market

Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan has told Cryptonews he believes Bitcoin will surge “dramatically higher” in 2025 — and the era of the four-year cycle may be over.

Speaking to us at the Digital Assets Forum in London, he conceded that leverage is beginning to build up in the markets, but changing regulatory attitudes in Washington mean huge Wall Street firms are now jumping in.

“Those people control trillions of dollars of assets. So just when this four-year cycle would naturally crest, I think it’s going to run into — and get run over by — this wave of institutional capital moving into this space. I think 2026 will be volatile… but I think it’ll be up, and I think it will continue from there.”

Bitcoin has cemented a consistent track record of delivering three years of healthy returns, followed by a dramatic reversal in the fourth. But Hougan believes the next pullback will be “shorter and shallower” than the 70% or 80% drops of the past.

“You’ll remember in the past winters that crypto went into an existential crisis — with fears the industry is ending or going to zero. It’s no longer going to zero. No one believes that — and that means value buyers will come in. So I would expect we’ll see a 30%, 35% pullback.”

BTC’s most recent halving means just 450 new coins a day are entering circulation, but exchange-traded funds are snapping up this cryptocurrency at a much faster pace. Hougan added:

“I think 2025 flows will be bigger than 2024. I think 2026 will be bigger than 2025. I think 2027 will be bigger than 2026. We have already seen an impact. ETFs pushed us from $20,000, to $40,000, to $70,000, to $100,000. I think it’s going to push us even higher beyond that.”

Bitwise bills itself as the world’s largest crypto index fund manager — and offers ETFs tracking the spot price of Bitcoin and Ether. It recently launched a fund that combines both digital assets in one product.

Data from SoSoValue suggests that the total net assets in BTC ETFs currently stands at $116 billion, while just $10 billion is tied up in ETH ETFs. So: does Hougan think the institutional interest is there for funds tracking smaller cryptocurrencies?

“I think eventually there will be. But if you look at Ether, it had a challenging year from a crypto-native perspective in 2024. There weren’t a lot of retail buyers of ETH, because everyone was chasing the Bitcoin trend or maybe they were looking beyond ETH to Solana. I think you’re going to see those flows into Ether pick up in 2025. Institutions are very keen on the growth of stablecoins, on the growth of tokenization, on the growth of agentic AI. Those are all themes that play directly into Ethereum’s story. As people understand that, you’re going to see $10+ billion flow into those ETFs this year. It was not an amazing start, but I think they’re building momentum.”

Cryptonews also asked Hougan about Bitwise’s recent filing for a Dogecoin ETF — and whether a joke cryptocurrency like this has any appeal for an institutional investor. While he stressed he couldn’t speak about this filing specifically, his answer was illuminating nonetheless.

“I don’t think most investors should own Dogecoin. I don’t think most institutions want to own Dogecoin — it isn’t Bitcoin. It’s not a globally, systemically important money … it’s a cute coin with a dog as a logo. But the reality is there are many people who want to own it. There’a a community that fervently believes in it. It’s been around for 12 years, it was here before Mt. Gox collapsed … and for those people who want to own it, it would be great if they could access a low-cost, secure ETF that practises best institutional custody.”

He went on to shrug off recent criticism from Bryan Armour of Morningstar, who was quoted by the Financial Times as saying that meme coin ETFs are a “type of speculative instrument that might make more sense in a casino than in a stock market.” Hougan said:

“That sounds like what they said about Bitcoin five years ago, and now BlackRock’s CEO says it could go to $700,000. People are always skeptical of early stage disruptive technologies.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Hougan said that it “isn’t his base case” for Donald Trump to buy 1 million BTC over five years for a strategic reserve, as envisioned by Senator Cynthia Lummis.

“ The U.S. owns a great deal of gold. It could sell some of that gold and diversify into Bitcoin. As a U.S. citizen, I would like to see it do that. Will it happen? I’m not sure. Could it happen? Absolutely. And that means that other countries are going to consider that. You already saw the Czech National Bank governor talking about it. We’ve had conversations with sovereigns. People are definitely thinking about it.”

The SEC recently rescinded SAB 121, a controversial rule that made it prohibitively difficult for banks to take custody of digital assets. Does Hougan think that this could result in traditional finance firms stealing market share from the crypto-native brands who have been here all along?

“ I don’t think it’s a threat. I think it legitimizes the space and grows the pie. If you look at my own space in ETFs — BlackRock entered, attracted a huge number of assets, and Bitwise’s assets under management have gone from $1 billion to $12 billion … we’re so early in the growth of crypto that the most important thing is not market share, it’s growing the market.”

Looking ahead, Hougan believes the biggest threat and opportunity for Bitcoin in 2025 centers on regulatory clarity.

“ Anyone who assumes that the government will necessarily get it right hasn’t been watching the world for the last 5,000 years. Governments are messy, they’re run by people, they have multiple interests. And so we have to watch very carefully what the policies we get out of this shift are.”