Reason to belief
Strict editorial coverage that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality
Created by business consultants and meticulously reviewed
The highest requirements in reporting and publishing
Strict editorial coverage that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality
Morbi pretium leo et nisl aliquam mollis. Quisque arcu lorem, ultricies quis pellentesque nec, ullamcorper eu odio.
In its newest investor memo, titled “The Great Derisking of Bitcoin,” Bitwise Asset Management has taken a daring stance on the way forward for the world’s authentic cryptocurrency. Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan delivered an in depth evaluation in a dispatch dated March 25, 2025, stating, “Now is the best time in history to purchase bitcoin (on a risk-adjusted basis).” The memo, which incorporates reflections on Bitcoin’s early days and an evaluation of its largest milestones, affords perception into why Bitwise believes the main digital asset’s threat profile has shifted dramatically in recent times.
Best Time To Buy Bitcoin
In his opening remarks, Hougan recounts his introduction to Bitcoin again in February 2011, when he was working as a part of a monetary analytics workforce at ETF.com. During a routine market evaluate assembly, one among Hougan’s younger analysts introduced up the truth that Bitcoin had simply crossed $1—a landmark occasion that triggered a dialogue about its underlying expertise and potential use instances. “If I had invested $1,000 in bitcoin after that meeting, it would be worth $88 million today,” Hougan laments in hindsight.
This anecdote, nevertheless, will not be merely a narrative of missed alternative. Hougan underscores the dangers that had been pervasive on the time, emphasizing how the concept of transferring $1,000 to a “random PayPal address” by a nascent crypto trade was a nerve-racking and largely untested proposition. Moreover, custody, regulatory readability, and authorities oversight had been just about nonexistent, successfully turning any cryptocurrency publicity right into a high-risk, high-reward gamble. “Throw in custody, regulatory, technological, and governmental risks … and putting $1,000 on bitcoin in 2011 was a massive gamble,” he explains.
Related Reading
Central to Hougan’s thesis is that Bitcoin has, through the years, methodically overcome almost each existential risk that when loomed. He notes that early makes an attempt to create digital money—such because the National Security Agency’s 1997 paper titled “How To Make A Mint: The Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash”—by no means totally took off, making it removed from assured that Bitcoin itself would succeed.
From there, enhancements in buying and selling venues and custodial options step by step decreased the boundaries to entry. When Coinbase launched in late 2011, it marked a pivotal second by providing a extra user-friendly and reliable on-ramp for retail and institutional traders alike. Major custodial suppliers, together with Fidelity, would later prolong their operational and model energy to crypto, additional mitigating considerations over safety and storage.
Simultaneously, the once-pervasive fears of regulatory clampdowns started to wane. In 2024, the introduction of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US eliminated one other main roadblock. Hougan observes that broader acceptance in conventional monetary markets made it simpler for establishments to justify including digital property to their portfolios with out worrying about opaque regulatory regimes or inadequate market surveillance.
“When bitcoin first launched, there was no guarantee it would even work. […] The incredible thing about bitcoin is it has slowly but surely knocked down each and every one of these existential risks over time,” writes Hougan, underscoring his view that Bitcoin’s evolutionary path has been one among measured resilience.
Bitcoin Last Threat Is Removed
One key query, nevertheless, continued to shadow Bitcoin’s rise: What if a serious authorities decides to ban or severely prohibit the cryptocurrency? Hougan factors to a historic parallel: the US authorities’s gold confiscation order in 1933, enacted below President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The measure aimed to consolidate gold holdings to strengthen authorities reserves, fueling a standard concern amongst Bitcoin traders {that a} comparable ban might stifle the cryptocurrency’s progress or outright render it unlawful.
“The US famously confiscated private gold holdings in 1933 to boost public coffers. Why would it allow bitcoin to grow large enough to threaten the US dollar?” Hougan acknowledges.
This worst-case state of affairs, he provides, was typically tempered by reminding people who if Bitcoin did turn into vital sufficient to rival the greenback, “you’ll probably have done pretty well on your investment.” Still, uncertainty remained—till what Hougan views as a decisive occasion occurred earlier this month.
President Trump’s executive order establishing a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, signed in early March, appears to have addressed that lingering concern, Hougan says. By making a direct funding in Bitcoin, the US authorities successfully nullified the prospect of an outright ban, transitioning as an alternative to a coverage of strategic alignment. “And just like that, the last existential risk facing bitcoin disappeared before my eyes,” Hougan remarks.
Related Reading
Critics have questioned why the US would endorse what could possibly be construed as a competitor to the greenback’s standing as the worldwide reserve forex. Quoting Cliff Asness, founding father of AQR Capital, Hougan factors to the quick question: “(I)f crypto is a viable long-term competitor to the US dollar, why on earth would we be promoting this direct competitor to our being the world’s reserve currency?”
In Hougan’s evaluation, the US authorities is positioning Bitcoin as a hedge moderately than relinquishing financial dominance. If the greenback’s primacy does come below risk, Bitcoin presents a extra controllable or, no less than, extra clear different than a overseas forex such because the Chinese yuan. “The best-case scenario for the US is that the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. But if we get to the point where that’s at risk, we’re better off moving to bitcoin than something like the Chinese yuan,” he provides.
Shifting Institutional Allocations
On the institutional entrance, Bitwise has already noticed a noticeable shift in how traders allocate to crypto. As not too long ago as two years in the past, holding 1% in Bitcoin or different digital property was thought of comparatively aggressive for a diversified portfolio. This allocation was meant to seize speculative features whereas limiting publicity to what nonetheless felt like a nascent, unpredictable market.
Today, nevertheless, with a brand new stage of government-endorsed legitimacy and extra regulated pathways to take a position, the agency is seeing extra shoppers undertake allocations nearing 3%. Hougan notes that this pattern displays a profound change in notion: Bitcoin is not only a gamble; it’s a credible different asset. “As more of the world wakes up to the massive derisking we’ve seen in bitcoin, I think you’ll see this number rise to 5% and beyond,” he forecasts.
At press time, BTC traded at $87,865.

Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com