- Bitwise said the time has come to move beyond Bitcoin-focused investing and broaden exposure to a wider range of digital assets.
- Hougan said Bitcoin could capture 25% of the gold store-of-value market by 2035, potentially lifting its price to $1.3 million.
- Hougan said adding 2.5% to 5% in digital assets to a traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio increased long-term returns while keeping the rise in risk limited.
Forecast Trend Report by Period
Digital Asset Investment Insight Forum 2026
Matthew Hougan, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer
Bitwise said investors should move beyond a Bitcoin-only approach and broaden exposure across digital assets. The launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds has pushed the market into a new phase of growth, creating investment opportunities across the wider digital-asset ecosystem, the firm said.
Matthew Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer, spoke on July 2 at the Digital Asset Investment Insight Forum 2026, or DAIF 2026, at the Conrad Seoul in Yeouido. His presentation focused on digital-asset investment strategies after the advent of spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Over the next few years, the market will shift from one centered on Bitcoin and Ethereum to one that discusses a much wider range of assets, he said. As that happens, identifying which assets are worth owning will become increasingly important.
Hougan compared the shift to the rise of the internet industry. Investors who got in early on the internet had opportunities not just in Google, but also in Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce and Nvidia. Blockchain is also a general-purpose technology, he said, and it will give rise to a broad range of applications and investment opportunities.
He described Bitcoin as the core asset of the digital-asset market and as “digital gold” that lets investors store wealth without relying on banks or governments. By 2035, Bitcoin could account for 25% of the gold store-of-value market, which would put its price at as much as $1.3 million, he said.
But Bitcoin alone does not explain the full blockchain industry, Hougan said. Ethereum helps move assets including dollars, stocks and bonds on-chain, while Solana competes in the same market with faster transaction speeds. Chainlink connects real-world data to blockchains, and Uniswap is key infrastructure for digital-asset trading. Blockchain is a single technology, he added, but the services built on top of it are highly diverse.
Hougan also proposed investing in the broader market rather than trying to pick individual tokens. More than 17,000 digital assets now exist globally, and new projects appear every day. Instead of trying to identify winners one by one, investors can adopt a strategy that captures the growth of the market as a whole, he said, citing Bitwise 10, the firm’s flagship index product, as an example.
He also made the case for allocating part of a portfolio to digital assets. Adding 2.5% to 5% in digital assets to a traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio increased long-term returns while keeping the rise in risk limited, he said. That was true not only over the past decade but across every rolling three-year analysis, improving both absolute returns and risk-adjusted returns.
Closing the presentation, Hougan said the digital-asset industry is just entering a new stage of expansion. Just as the internet spawned industries such as search, e-commerce and artificial intelligence, blockchain will create thousands of new use cases, he said. Investors should now look beyond Bitcoin and focus on the growth of the entire digital-asset ecosystem.
Lee Young-min, Bloomingbit reporter/Kim Su-hyeon, reporter