Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan now believes the shift to “on-chain finance” will happen much faster than he previously anticipated. This reassessment was triggered by a surge in weekend trading of tokenized real-world assets like crude oil and gold on crypto platforms such as Hyperliquid during geopolitical tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran.
Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer of Bitwise, has significantly revised his timeline for the adoption of on-chain finance. He stated this shift will occur “much sooner” than the five to 10 years he originally forecasted.
Hougan’s revised outlook followed significant trading activity on crypto perpetual futures platforms during a weekend of geopolitical events. “For most of Sunday, onchain finance was the center of the financial world,” he said in a post titled “The weekend that changed finance.”
Much of this weekend activity centered on the platform Hyperliquid. The protocol processed over $11.5 billion in trading volume across Saturday and Sunday according to defillama.com.
Hougan noted that Bloomberg cited a Hyperliquid crude oil contract as the relevant price following news of the attacks. He argued blockchain’s constant operation makes traditional market hours and settlement seem outdated.
Other tokenized assets also saw heightened interest. Tether Gold (XAUt) recorded a 24-hour trading volume spike surpassing $300 million.
Traditional financial institutions are also moving toward similar infrastructure. The New York Stock Exchange and its parent, Intercontinental Exchange, announced plans in January for a 24/7 blockchain-based trading and settlement platform.
No specific launch timeline or technical details for that platform were shared. For now, Hougan said institutions seeking to “trade competitively” must engage with existing crypto platforms.
