The market would have already discounted many regulatory issues already resolved.
For Hougan, institutional adoption supports a sustained rise in the price of bitcoin.
Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at capital management company Bitwise, says that although he remains optimistic about bitcoin (BTC) by 2026, explosive rises could be behind us.
According to the executive, increasing market maturity and institutional adoption of the asset will reduce bitcoin volatilitymarking a change in the dynamics of its price movements.
In this regard, he said: “I believe that the four-year cycle is being replaced by a ’10-year constant advance’. By this I mean that there are massive new forces in the world.”
In that sense, he explained: “[estas fuerzas] They began to arrive with the launch of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January 2024. They accelerated with regulatory progress in January of this year. We have the growth of stablecoins and tokenization. “I think those forces are bigger and stronger than what historically caused the four-year cycle.”
As CriptoNoticias has reported, halving and four-year cycles are historic BTC catalysts.
However, Hougan suggests that bitcoin is entering a more mature stage of consolidation, in which these drivers lose prominence in the face of stronger structural factors, such as institutional adoption, advanced regulation and the expansion of financial ecosystems based on digital assets.
This could translate into more sustained and less volatile growth, changing the way investors perceive and They are related to the currency created by Satoshi Nakamoto.
Hougan further elaborated on this point by stating that BTC volatility has decreased: “We are seeing lower volatility; BTC is now less volatile than Nvidia over the last year, which is a notable development. I think this distribution from retailers to institutions is happening: Harvard is buying and the retailer is selling.”
The following graph shows the evolution of the price of BTC and the Nvidia stock price (blue line) in the last 12 months:
From Bitwise’s perspective, he added that institutional adoption is just beginning to pick up pace. “I don’t think the crypto world is used to how slow those institutions move. As two examples: we just had the ‘big four’ banks (Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo and UBS) approving BTC products, even though ETFs launched quite a while ago. We’re just opening the doors,” pointed out in dialogue with the CNBC television network.
Finally, Hougan highlighted the impact of the regulatory environment on the perception of BTC: “I think there was a unique effect of the Trump administration on BTC. The effect was simple: if you asked institutional investors in previous years why they did not invest in BTC, the main reason was not volatility or valuation, but regulatory concerns.”
Furthermore, he assured: “With the new administration and the new regulatory environment, the panorama has been cleared, making BTC a safe asset for institutions to invest in. The regulatory area is now clear, and the greatest effect will be cascading on other digital assets.”