TechFlow News, February 18: According to The Block, Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, stated in a client memo issued on Tuesday that decentralized finance (DeFi) is poised to lead the cryptocurrency market out of its current bear market. He noted that leading DeFi protocols already possess genuine users and sustainable revenue streams. Citing data, he pointed out that Uniswap’s decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume has consistently surpassed that of Coinbase’s centralized exchange, and Aave’s annual revenue has exceeded $100 million.
On the tokenomics front, Hougan highlighted a recent governance proposal by Aave Labs, which aims to route all revenue generated by Aave-branded products into a DAO treasury controlled by token holders, while also restructuring incentive mechanisms between developers and the community. He believes that if such mechanisms are widely adopted, they could help resolve the long-standing disconnect between protocol value and token value. He also noted that BlackRock’s investment in Uniswap tokens and Apollo’s investment in Morpho—a competitor to Aave—signal accelerating institutional capital inflows into the DeFi sector.
Meanwhile, Michael Saylor, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Strategy, likewise characterized the current cryptocurrency market as being in a bear market cycle but assessed this correction as milder and shorter in duration than previous ones. He posted on X: “Spring is coming, and Bitcoin is winning.”
