10 Crypto Predictions for 2026: $1M BTC, Wall Street Onchain & ETF Takeover | Matt Hougan & Ryan Rasmussen from Bitwise

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Technology, Tech News, News

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bitwise’s Matt Hougan and Ryan Rasmussen return with 10 big predictions for 2026. From the case for $1M BTC (and why the classic four-year cycle may be dead) to a world where ETFs soak up more than 100% of new BTC/ETH/SOL supply. We get into Bitcoin volatility vs. mega-cap tech, crypto equities vs. tech equities, and why Polymarket could smash past its 2024 election-era highs. Plus: stablecoins as an “escape valve” that emerging economies may blame for currency stress, on-chain also known as “ETFs 2.0,” and how the Clarity Act could be the starter’s gun for ETH and SOL to run. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | CONTINUOUS CLEARING AUCTIONS https://bankless.cc/uniswap-cca 🛞MANTLE | GLOBAL HACKATHON 2025 https://bankless.cc/mantle-hackathon 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Last Year Predictions 13:12 1. Bitcoin Breaks 4-Year Cycle 16:19 2. BTC Less Volatile Than NVDA 22:09 3. ETFs Purchasing New Supply of Crypto 30:02 4. Crypto Equities Outperforming Equities 37:23 5. Prediction Markets All-Time Highs 42:50 6. Stablecons Destabilizing Currencies 48:16 7. Onchain Vaults Doubling in AUM 52:56 8. Clarity Act Triggering ETH & Sol All-Time Highs 56:40 9. Ivy League Endowments Investing in Crypto 58:49 10. 100+ Crypto ETPs Launching 1:01:14 Bitwise Announcement 1:04:08 Bonus. Bitcoin Equity Correlation Falling 1:07:29 Progress in 2025 1:10:48 Cross-Generational Wealth Transfer? 1:13:02 Closing Thoughts & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Matt Hougan https://x.com/Matt_Hougan Ryan Rasmussen https://x.com/RasterlyRock Bitwise https://bitwiseinvestments.com/ ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think crypto-Twitter has sort of lost its ambition totally.
0:04.8	The chairman of the SEC, the most important financial regulator in the U.S. and the world,
0:10.2	said all U.S. stocks would be on chain in a couple of years.
0:14.7	Whoa.
0:15.1	The tokenized stock market today is $680 million.
0:19.7	U.S. stocks are $68 trillion. I'll save you the math. That's
0:23.2	100,000 X bigger. What are we even talking about? I think we've lost sight of how big a deal
0:29.1	crypto really is. Because we've made this regulatory progress, it's entering this period,
0:33.4	but we can move the full financial economy on chain. It won't happen overnight, but the chairman of the SEC is telling you it's going to happen
0:40.5	in the next couple of years, right?
0:42.5	We're not really bullish enough, I think is my take.
0:49.0	Bankless station, we've got end of the year predictions going into 2026.
0:53.7	What's going to happen in
0:54.6	26 and the two best predictors we could get on the show today. We've got Matt Hogan
1:00.3	and Ryan Rasmussen, both from Bitwise. Guys, how you doing? Doing great. Thanks for having
1:05.7	us on. Excited to be here. Is this the third year that we've done this? Yeah. It's around three? I think so. I think so. It's a traditional. If you guys remember 2025 last year's predictions, do you guys know how you ranked? How did your predictions hold up? Ryan said you guys were the best, so I would like to actually audit that. Wait, which Ryan said that? I say that. My, Ryan. My co-hosts. You have to differentiate during this episode, David. Uh-huh. Okay. We didn't do terrible, but we didn't do as great as one would have hoped. 2025 was just a weird year for crypto. So we got a number of these correct that we're super excited about. I think we're ambitious around some that were
1:44.9	directionally accurate. Perhaps we set the bar too high. So I would grade us decently well,
1:50.8	all things considered. Matt, what would you say? I think with one glaring exception,
1:54.4	which was Ryan's prediction about meme coins, we had all the information right. And then some of the price returns didn't line up with the
2:03.2	fundamentals of the space. I think the story of crypto writ large was the story of our prediction.
2:08.0	So I'd give us like a gentleman C for our efforts.
2:11.2	A gentleman C, okay. So I actually, I ran this through Jet GPT, all right? And you're 20.
	...

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