Three Crypto Investing Mistakes Could Be Hiding a Much Bigger Opportunity

Bitwise CIO warned that crypto investors may be focusing too narrowly on today's market while missing where the industry could go next.

Crypto investors may be underestimating where the industry is heading, according to Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan, who has pointed to three mistakes he sees in the market right now.

In a recent post, Hougan said that investors are using today’s market size, established brands, and current activity to judge crypto’s future. Those are normally reasonable approaches, but the space is evolving so quickly that these assumptions are becoming outdated.

Investors Missing the Bigger Market

His first point is that investors are underestimating what crypto applications could eventually be used for. Uniswap, for example, was built as a platform for trading cryptocurrencies, but Hougan said it should not necessarily be valued only against the roughly $2 trillion market. As stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets move onto blockchains, the addressable market for platforms such as Uniswap could become much larger.

The stock and bond markets are worth about $150 trillion and $350 trillion, respectively. Tapping these spaces could create an opportunity roughly 100x larger than crypto alone. Hougan said the same applies to applications such as Hyperliquid, Aave and Chainlink, which investors often view simply as crypto platforms.