Bitwise CIO: Three Opportunities I See from the SEC's "Crypto Agenda"
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Bitwise CIO: Three Opportunities I See from the SEC's "Crypto Agenda"
Everything will revolve around public blockchains such as Ethereum.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise
Translation: Luffy, Foresight News
Last week, SEC Chair Paul Atkins delivered a speech titled American Leadership in the Digital Finance Revolution at the America First Policy Institute.
You should read it right now. Seriously, don’t hesitate—this speech is essentially an investment roadmap for the next five years.
In his remarks, Atkins outlined a vision for the future of financial markets. Spoiler alert: it all revolves around public blockchains like Ethereum. He argued:
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All assets (stocks, bonds, dollars, etc.) will eventually migrate onto public blockchains;
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Decentralized finance (DeFi) will play a significant role in the future;
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Crypto assets and blockchain technology can enable exciting new business models;
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The main obstacle to this “revolution” has been a hostile regulatory environment—one that has now undergone a 180-degree shift.
This is the most comprehensive vision I’ve ever read on how cryptocurrency could reshape financial markets.
After reading this speech, it’s hard not to want to allocate substantial capital to crypto. If you work in finance, you might even consider shifting your entire career focus here. The SEC chair has distilled nearly all the key arguments crypto advocates have made over the past decade into one speech—and detailed exactly how the SEC plans to make them a reality.
“This is a generational opportunity,” he wrote in the speech. A few years ago, I’m not even sure compliance would have let me say that.
What This Means for Investors
For investors, there’s a wealth of insight in this speech. You could build an entire venture capital firm around Atkins’ vision, launching companies to capture each opportunity he identifies. But in my view, three investment opportunities stand out.
Opportunity One: Ethereum (and Other Layer 1 Blockchains)
The most obvious opportunity is investing in Ethereum and other Layer 1 blockchains that support stablecoins and asset tokenization.
“Today, I am announcing ‘Project Crypto,’” Atkins said, “a commission-wide initiative to modernize securities regulations so U.S. financial markets can move on-chain.”
The implication is clear: if nearly all assets will eventually migrate to blockchains, you’ll want exposure to those foundational networks.
Which blockchains should you consider? A prudent strategy might be to buy a basket of leading assets: Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, XRP, Avalanche, Aptos, Sui, NEAR, and others.
I know some readers will say: Ethereum is clearly the dominant chain for tokenization and stablecoins. I agree! It’s ahead. But recall the early 2000s during the rise of electronic trading—the last major upgrade to the financial system—when early market leaders included Island ECN and Instinet.
Have you heard those names recently? Neither have I. Meanwhile, Nasdaq’s stock has risen 2275% since its July 2002 IPO.
Rather than trying to pick individual winners, an index-like approach—buying a diversified basket—could position you to benefit from whatever emerges as the top platforms.
Opportunity Two: “Super Apps” Like Coinbase and Robinhood
One of the most prescriptive sections of the speech is titled “Enabling Super Apps: Horizontal Integration of Products and Services.” Here, Atkins envisions a future where a single application provides users with full-stack financial services.
“Broker-dealers with alternative trading systems should be able to offer trading in non-security crypto assets, crypto asset securities, traditional securities, and services like crypto staking and lending—all without needing licenses from more than 50 states or multiple federal regulators,” Atkins said.
Reading this, it’s hard not to think of Coinbase and Robinhood—both pursuing the super app model from different starting points. Coinbase began in crypto and is expanding into traditional assets, while Robinhood started with traditional assets and is rapidly moving into crypto.
I’ll go out on a limb: one of these companies may become the largest financial services company in the world—and possibly the first financial services firm to reach a $1 trillion market cap. Atkins has just handed them the blueprint.
Opportunity Three: DeFi Applications
A third major opportunity highlighted in Atkins’ speech is decentralized finance (DeFi).
DeFi applications have long existed in a regulatory gray zone—neither explicitly permitted nor clearly prohibited by existing rules. This uncertainty has constrained their growth: while widely used by crypto enthusiasts, DeFi has seen almost no adoption from mainstream investors or institutions.
In the section titled “Unlocking American Market Potential: Vast and Mature On-Chain Software Systems,” Atkins explains why regulators have struggled to understand DeFi:
“Decentralized finance software systems—like automated market makers—enable automated, disintermediated financial market activity. Federal securities laws have always assumed the existence of intermediaries that need regulation, but that doesn’t mean we must artificially introduce intermediaries when markets can function without them.”
In other words: DeFi isn’t just a technological revolution—it’s a philosophical one. And the SEC chair gets it.
Despite regulatory ambiguity, DeFi usage is already substantial. Uniswap, the largest spot trading app, processed $88 billion in trading volume in June—a record high. DeFi lending protocols like Aave have reached all-time highs in total value locked, hitting $56 billion. Derivatives platforms like Hyperliquid are also scaling significantly.
If regulation becomes clearer, could these numbers grow 10x? 50x? 100x? As traditional and crypto markets converge, the opportunities in DeFi will be enormous.
Critics point out that most DeFi tokens lack clear economic ties to their underlying protocols. For example, Uniswap’s UNI token is a “governance token”—meaning holders can vote on protocol changes but don’t directly earn revenue from transaction fees collected by the platform.
I suspect this is a legacy of the prior hostile regulatory environment. Under the SEC’s new vision, assets like UNI could develop more direct economic links to their protocols, unlocking massive value.
The Key Question: Is It Already Priced In?
The most obvious question about Atkins’ vision is: has this already been priced into the market? If investors had already anticipated the SEC shifting from crypto antagonist to catalyst, then assets like Ethereum, Solana, and Uniswap should already reflect this optimism.
Possibly. But here’s my final thought: this speech caught me completely off guard.
For eight years, I’ve researched and written about cryptocurrency. I’ve long been bullish on crypto’s future and have predicted that all assets will eventually move onto blockchains. Yet after reading this speech, I realized my vision was too narrow—and that I need to move faster.
If I didn’t see it coming, I suspect most others didn’t either.
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