Two Big Forces Are Shaping Crypto Right Now, Says Bitwise CIO

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says crypto’s near-term trajectory is being pulled by two very different macro forces: a breakout in gold that signals a deeper institutional trust problem, and a suddenly uncertain path for the Clarity Act that could determine whether the current pro-crypto regulatory posture becomes durable US law.

In a Jan. 26 memo titled “Gold Rising, Clarity in Suspense,” Hougan framed the moment as a split-screen. On one side is a traditional store of value repricing violently higher. On the other is a legislative process that—if it stalls—could shift crypto from expectation-driven markets to an adoption-driven proving ground.

Hougan called gold’s move “staggering.” After rising 65% in 2025, gold is up another 16% in 2026 and is now trading above $5,000, he wrote, adding that it’s “pretty wild” to consider that gold “has gained half of its value (in dollar terms) in the last 20 months.”

That second point is the hinge to crypto. Hougan argued that the last few years have accelerated a global shift in how institutions think about sovereign risk and custody, tracing the inflection to 2022 when the US seized Russian treasury assets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Central banks, he said, “doubled their annual purchases of gold” after that event, effectively deciding that some reserves need to sit outside any single power’s reach.

He pointed to recent examples as evidence the trend is widening: German economists publicly urging the government to withdraw gold stored at the New York Federal Reserve and bring it back to Germany, and a warning from a Norwegian government panel that its sovereign wealth fund may be “subject to increased taxation, regulatory intervention and even confiscation” in today’s geopolitical climate. “There is a global breakdown in trust among institutions, and it is accelerating,” Hougan wrote.

Crypto’s pitch, in this framing, is straightforward: systems designed to minimize reliance on centralized intermediaries. “To own bitcoin or other crypto assets, you don’t have to trust anyone,” he wrote, adding that “no single person can change the rules for how platforms like Ethereum and Solana operate.” The industry’s usual vocabulary—self-custody, censorship resistance, trustless—can sound abstract, Hougan acknowledged, but he argued it starts to look more concrete in a world that is increasingly skeptical about who ultimately controls assets and rules.

If Clarity fails, Hougan expects a multi-year reset in how markets price the sector. “If the bill fails, I believe crypto will enter a ‘show me’ period,” he wrote. “That means it will have three years to make crypto indispensable to the everyday lives of regular Americans and the traditional financial industry. If it succeeds, regulations will take care of themselves. If it fails, there could be real challenges.”

He compared the dynamic to technologies that forced legal accommodation by becoming unavoidable, citing Uber and Airbnb operating “on the edge of regulations” until usage made the old framework untenable. In crypto’s case, the proof would be unmistakable penetration into mainstream rails—Hougan’s examples were Americans “using stablecoins and trading tokenized stocks.” If that happens, he argued, supportive legislation becomes politically resilient regardless of who holds power. If it doesn’t, a shift in Washington could become “a huge setback.”

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.94 trillion.