ETF.com President and Bitwise Researcher Matt Hougan: 95 Percent of Cryptos Will Die

Matt Hougan, Global Head of Research at Bitwise Asset Management and president at ETF.com, expressed his idea that most cryptocurrencies will die in an interview with Bloomberg published on Feb. 5.

During the interview, Hougan declared that he thinks that “there are 2,000 cryptocurrencies out there, 95 percent of them are useless and will die a painful death” and concluded:

“The sooner that happens, the better.”

According to Hougan, there is a lot of what he defines as bubble-related bad activity in the crypto industry that is currently “getting cleared up.” He also said that he expects important things will come from what will be left, “just like from the dotcom ashes emerged Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc.”

Hougan also pointed out that he’s “way more bullish on crypto assets” than on blockchain. To explain, he compared the current state of blockchain to the internet’s nascency:

“If you remember the early days of the internet [...] everyone was really excited about corporate intranets. [...] People thought corporate intranets were the thing. The analogy between an open internet which people are like no one will trust that…”

According to him, it “is the same between private blockchains and public blockchains” since public chains are accessible by anyone and need a crypto asset and, according to him, “open accessible technologies tend to win.”

However, he still thinks that private blockchains have their role and are important since they could permit faster and cheaper settlements and data management. For instance, Hougan explained that private blockchains could be a solution to mortgage management.

When his interviewer changed the subject to initial coin offerings (ICOs), Hougan declared that a lot of ICOs were scams and commented that “[people] are going to jail and I think they should.” Still, he highlighted that it “doesn’t mean that there aren’t legitimate things.”

Hougan also stated his hope that his firm can “launch an [Exchange Traded Fund] ETF that gives that exposure [to crypto] to everyone and makes it safe cheap and easy to gain exposure to in the market.”

In January, Bitwise had filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a physically held Bitcoin (BTC) ETF.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), along with investment firm VanEck and financial services company SolidX, has now re-applied with the SEC for a rule change to list a Bitcoin ETF.

Also, in mid-January Ed Tilly, CEO, president and chairman at CBOE, declared that there is a need for Bitcoin exchange-traded notes in order for Wall Street institutional investors to join the crypto space.