- Bitcoin’s value increased by more than 400% between 2020 and 2024
- Solana has increased in value by almost 4,500% in four years from $1.49 to approximately $166
- According to Matt Hougan, this trajectory of positivity will continue beyond the 2024 US elections
The CIO of Bitwise has said that while Washington can change the trajectory of the crypto market by speeding up or slowing things down, it cannot stop it.
In his last client memoWriting about crypto in an election year, Matt Hougan claimed that crypto has already won regardless of who becomes the next President of the United States.
When comparing the state of the crypto market from November 2020 to November 2024, Hougan wondered whether things have gotten better or worse since the last time Americans went to the polls.
Despite several lawsuits from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – most notably against Binance, Coinbase, Cumberland DRW, Kraken and Ripple – the crypto industry has made significant progress.
A difference of four years
Looking between the two US elections, Hougan points out that Bitcoin was trading at $13,677 in November 2020. Fast forward to November 2024 and Bitcoin is valued at around $69,492, indicating a change of 408%.
Ethereum has also seen a positive increase from a modest $388 in 2020 to the current $2,492 in the run-up to the 2024 US elections. However, it is Solana that has seen a major price increase of almost 11,000%, from $1.49 in 2020 to approximately $166 in 2024.
In terms of assets under management (AUM), Hougan shows that stablecoin AUM increased from $3.87 billion in November 2020 to $177.83 billion in November 2024, representing a change of almost 4,500%.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) also saw a healthy boost, from $9.57 billion in 2020 to $139.3 billion in 2024.
“In crypto, we focus so much on moment-to-moment price movements that we often lose sight of long-term trends,” Hougan wrote. “The presidential election provides a great opportunity to take a step back and see how far we’ve come.”
What now?
So much has happened in the crypto market over the past four years, but will it continue as the market moves beyond the 2024 US elections?
According to Hougan, the answer is yes. Regardless of who becomes the next POTUS, Hougan said, among other things, that the influx of spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will continue, stablecoins will continue to grow, Wall Street will continue to embrace tokenization and real-world assets, blockchains will continue to grow . become faster and cheaper, and real-world applications such as Polymarket will become widely accepted.
“What happens in Tuesday’s election matters, especially in the short term,” Hougan said. “But the way I see it, in the long run, Tuesday will prove to be something between a speed bump and a gust of wind. Neither will stop this train.”
