• Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said the next crypto market bull cycle will be slower than previous ones.
• According to him, investors are increasingly interested in tokenization and AI rather than crypto assets.
• At the same time, he maintained his forecast that Bitcoin's price will rise to more than $1 million over the next decade.

The Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Bitwise, Matt Hougan, believes the next growth cycle of the cryptocurrency market will differ from previous ones. In his view, the recovery will be slower and less volatile due to a shift in investor priorities. He said this in a comment to CoinDesk.

According to Hougan, institutional market participants and wealth management advisors are increasingly focusing on areas such as the tokenization of real-world assets and artificial intelligence, while interest in cryptocurrencies themselves has temporarily declined.

"We lost investors' attention because of other hot trends. I think the future bull market will be slower and less volatile than the previous ones," he said.

Despite this, Hougan stressed that interest in Bitcoin among American registered investment advisors (RIAs) remains at a record high.

Bitcoin above $1 million in the long term

Hougan confirmed his long-term forecast for the leading cryptocurrency.

By his estimates, over the next ten years the price of Bitcoin could exceed $1 million. At the same time, he acknowledged that it is currently difficult to determine whether the market has already formed a local bottom.

According to Hougan, there is currently no certainty about whether the market has already formed a bottom and when that may have happened, so final conclusions can only be drawn after the end of the current four-year cycle.

In the view of the Bitwise CIO, during a bear market investors prefer areas that have a more obvious practical application.

In particular, he drew attention to the rapid growth of the stablecoin market, whose capitalization has already exceeded $322 billion. 

Hougan also noted that the tokenization of real-world assets is perceived by traditional investors as a more understandable segment than cryptocurrencies.

"During bear markets, when uncertainty prevails, it is easier for people to turn to something more tangible. Stablecoins and tokenization look more understandable and connected to the real world for most people than Bitcoin," he said.

As a reminder, earlier Bitwise experts spoke about Bitcoin being undervalued and improving sentiment.

Source: Incrypted