Cryptocurrency investors are being criticised for viewing the market’s real growth potential, competitive dynamics and future increases in trading volumes too conservatively. In particular, asset tokenisation and the emergence of AI agents could significantly change the size of the existing crypto market and how it is traded.

On Aug. 20 local time, blockchain media outlet Coinpost reported that Matt Hougan (매트 호건), chief investment officer at Bitwise, laid out three common misconceptions among investors about the cryptocurrency market in a regular memo.

The biggest misconception, Hougan said, is limiting the potential market for cryptocurrency platforms to the size of the current crypto market. Major projects such as Uniswap, Hyperliquid, Aave and Chainlink are not remaining platforms that merely trade and support cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or ether. If traditional assets such as stocks, bonds and real estate are tokenised on blockchains, the market size of these platforms themselves could expand significantly, he explained.

Hougan said valuing platforms based only on the roughly $2 trillion cryptocurrency market today could cause investors to miss their growth potential. He argued that if asset tokenisation takes off in earnest, Uniswap’s potential business opportunity could grow by about 100 times from current levels.

He compared it to Amazon. Assessing crypto platforms only by the assets they currently handle is similar to viewing Amazon as a company that sells only books. Hougan said the broad range of assets that can be tokenised is already widely known in the market, but such possibilities are not being sufficiently reflected in platforms’ corporate value or token value.

The second misconception is the view that when large traditional financial firms enter the crypto market, they will easily overwhelm existing crypto companies. Hougan explained that while traditional financial firms have strengths in capital, brands and existing customer bases, crypto-native companies are also maintaining competitiveness based on fast product development and industry-specific experience.

He cited the stablecoin market as a representative example. PayPal, a global payments company, has started its own stablecoin business, but Tether and Circle still account for most market share, while PayPal’s share is about 1%, he said. Hougan also cited crypto companies’ existing users and established trust as competitive strengths.

He said this does not mean traditional financial firms always lag behind. BlackRock, for example, is showing strong competitiveness by managing the largest product in the spot bitcoin ETF market. Ultimately, he said the competitive landscape ahead may be one in which winners vary by product and area, rather than one side of traditional finance firms or crypto companies taking the entire market.

The third misconception is underestimating the pace at which blockchain trading activity will increase. Hougan said there are limits to valuing blockchain infrastructure based only on current transaction counts or payment volumes. If traditional financial assets such as stocks are tokenised, trading markets could effectively operate 24 hours a day. With trading possible for much longer than the existing market’s trading hours, trading activity itself could naturally increase, he explained.

He forecast that the increase could be even greater if AI agents directly participate in trading. Hougan said that combining extended trading hours with AI agents’ market participation could easily increase the number of stock trades by 10 times. He further argued that a future in which trading volume expands by 50 to 100 times is also possible. He added that payment demand could also rise as AI agents participate in payments.

The core of Hougan’s argument is that there is a gap between the pace of change in the crypto market and investors’ perceptions. The market currently tends to value projects centred on the size of crypto assets themselves, but actual growth areas could expand into stocks, bonds and real estate.

At the same time, the entry of traditional financial firms does not necessarily mean weakened competitiveness for crypto-native companies. Crypto companies with fast development speeds and existing user bases may continue to hold an advantage in certain areas. If AI agents also participate in trading and payments, transaction activity on blockchain networks could increase to a degree that is difficult to compare with today, it said.

Ultimately, the three misconceptions Hougan pointed to all indicate the same direction. The future should not be assessed based only on today’s cryptocurrency market. If asset tokenisation and AI agents spread in earnest, the crypto market could expand beyond a simple digital-asset trading market into an infrastructure market connecting traditional finance, real assets and payments. How quickly investors reflect such changes in valuations is expected to be a key variable for the market ahead.