Foreign media reports that Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, believes that the next driving force behind the crypto market's rise may no longer be the high-volatility speculative trading of the past, but rather the accelerated integration of traditional finance and on-chain finance. His core judgment is that stablecoins, asset tokenization, 24/7 trading, instant settlement, and institutional DeFi are bringing real-world financial activities onto the blockchain.
Two main storylines were put on the table.
Hougan summarized this round of changes into two paths.
One path is the "Hyperliquid path," where the native crypto protocol first generates stable revenue, then flows that revenue back into the token system, driving demand for the token. The other path is the "Robinhood path," where traditional financial companies move beyond pilot phases and directly use blockchain infrastructure to provide real financial services.
The article states that what these two paths have in common is that on-chain businesses are beginning to correspond to more specific revenue, transaction volume, and user activity, rather than relying solely on market sentiment expansion.
Protocol revenue is starting to impact token demand.
In Hougan's view, there has long been a problem in the crypto industry: many applications have accumulated transaction fees and transaction volume, but this business growth does not naturally translate into demand for tokens.
He cited Hyperliquid as an example, noting that the protocol's cumulative revenue surpassed $1 billion in June, and at the current pace, its revenue for the year is expected to reach approximately $800 million, with 99% of that revenue used to buy back HYPE tokens on the open market. Following this logic, the link between protocol revenue and token demand is becoming more direct.
He also mentioned that projects such as Uniswap, Aave, Morpho, and Pump.fun are moving in a similar direction, making on-chain activity more closely linked to token value capture.
Traditional financial companies are starting to use on-chain infrastructure directly.
Another, more attention-grabbing path is that traditional financial institutions and established platforms are beginning to use blockchain as formal business infrastructure, rather than as a proof-of-concept tool.
The article mentions that Robinhood Chain launched on July 1st and has already exceeded $3 billion in transaction volume. Hougan believes that such cases demonstrate that traditional financial companies are using on-chain networks for real-world service delivery.
He also cited several institutional moves, including Citadel's entry into Crypto.com, Morgan Stanley's integration of its crypto trading capabilities into E*TRADE, and the DTCC's push into tokenization. He viewed these developments as signals that Wall Street was "already there."
Institutional statements reinforce market narrative
This commentary points out that the market has previously discussed the possibility of institutions entering the crypto market and the emergence of high-yield protocols as a new main theme. However, this statement coming from Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer signifies that this narrative is being more formally incorporated into the institutional framework.
According to this view, even if the next round of market activity starts slower and is less volatile, it may still be larger in scale than before, because it will be supported not only by sentiment and leverage, but also by more specific financial activities such as on-chain payments, clearing, trading and asset issuance.
The article's core conclusion is that the market narrative may be shifting from "whether institutions will come" to "institutions have already started using blockchain and may become an important driver of the next cycle."
