Bitwise CIO: US election will be a speed bump or a tailwind for crypto.
Between 2020 and 2024, the price of Bitcoin increased by more than 400%, Solana increased by about 4,500%, from $ 1.49 to $ 166 in four years. This trend of positivity will continue beyond the 2024 US elections, according to Matt Hougan.
Bitwise's CIO says that while Washington can change the direction of the crypto market by speeding things up or slowing it down, it cannot stop it.
In his latest client note, Matt Hugan writes about crypto in an election year, arguing that crypto has already won regardless of who becomes the next president of the United States.
Comparing the state of the crypto market from November 2020 to November 2024, Hugan asks if things are better or worse since Americans last went to the polls.
Despite numerous lawsuits from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – notably against Binance, Coinbase, Cumberland DRW, Kraken and Ripple – the crypto industry has made significant progress.
Four years apart
Looking between the two US elections, Hugan pointed out that Bitcoin was trading at $13,677 in November 2020. Fast forward to November 2024 and Bitcoin is valued at around $69,492, representing a 408% change.
Ethereum was launched in 2015. From a humble $388 in 2020 to the current $2,492, it has seen a positive increase in the 2024 US election. However, Solana has seen a price increase of nearly 11,000% from $1.49 in 2020 to around $166 in 2024.
Turning to assets under management (AUM), Hougan shows stablecoin AUM from $3.87 billion in November 2020 to $177.83 billion in November 2024, which represents a change of 4,500%.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Total Value Locked (TVL) has shown healthy growth, jumping from $9.57 billion in 2020 to $139.3 billion in 2024.
“We focus so much on the moment-to-moment price movements in crypto that we often miss the long-term trends,” Hugan wrote. “The presidential election provides a great opportunity to step back and see how far we've come.”
What next?
A lot has happened in the crypto market in four years, but will the market continue beyond the 2024 US election?
In Hugan's view, the answer is yes. Regardless of who will be the next POTUS, Hougan said – among other things – there will continue to be crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) inflows, stablecoins will continue to grow, Wall Street will continue to embrace tokenization and real world assets, blockchains will continue. Get it fast and cheap, and you'll get mainstream adoption for real-world applications like Polymarket.
“What happens in Tuesday's election matters, especially in the short term,” Hugan said. But the way I see it, Tuesday will be something between a flurry and a breeze in the long run. Neither will stop this train.
