Ethereum is Matt Hougan’s top contrarian bet for 2025 as Chief Investment Officer, Bitwise Asset Management. Hougan’s optimism about the long-term potential of Ethereum is evident in the interview with Aaron Arnold, founder of Altcoin Daily, as the crypto market tracks Bitcoin and newer blockchains like Solana and Aptos.
Ethereum’s challenges, including high fees, Layer-2 competition and some have deemed it outdated technology, were acknowledged by Hougan. Ethereum is the ‘middle child of crypto,’ he said, adding an asset that many ‘love to hate.’ However, Hougan argued that despite these criticisms, Ethereum has a crucial role in first bases such as stable coins, decentralized finance (DeFi) and foncierung.
Ethereum Supports Critical Apps
Hougan added that ETH supports some of the ‘most critical’ apps in crypto. “ETH is what you’ll select if you’re a big traditional financial player and want to build on top of a public blockchain.”
ETH underperformance, according to him, has resulted from ongoing upgrades that have been like ‘a teenage adjustment.’ ‘I remain confident that when we get these upgrades near ready,’ Hougan said, ‘Ethereum will be stronger than ever to take advantage of its position in the crypto ecosystem.’
However, he remained hopeful that ETH will hit new all time highs, with its growth engine currently leaning much more on external factors such as pro stablecoin legislations, and increased development of decentralized application (dApps). “ETH is more dependent on the success than Bitcoin is,” he said, “because of regulatory clarity and the growth of the ecosystem.”
Hougan thinks investors should ignore short term concerns about fees as they should put the long term issues with the ETH ecosystem development. Although he is bullish on both Bitcoin and ETH , he said both the value and sentiment will sort themselves out as the ecosystem grows and pointed to ETH in particular since it is currently undervalued.
