Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise Asset Management, has presented a bullish long-term case for Solana (SOL), suggesting the blockchain could plausibly become a trillion-dollar asset within five years. This valuation, based on simple market-cap-per-token math, would translate to a SOL price in the mid-$1,600 range, depending on the circulating supply at the time.
Hougan outlined his thesis during a January 29 podcast appearance, framing it as a "two ways to win" scenario for Solana. The first path involves the overall growth of the addressable market, specifically in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). He cited the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury's expectation for the stablecoin market to grow 12-fold in the next four years and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's vision of a future where "every asset, every fund, ETF, stock, bond, real estate will be tokenized."
The second path is Solana capturing an increasing market share versus competing networks, primarily Ethereum. Hougan acknowledged Ethereum's incumbent status but positioned Solana as "a legit competitor with an interesting technological differentiation." He emphasized that Solana's key advantage is its ease of use and a community with a "ship first" attitude, a factor he believes is underrated by investors focused on technical benchmarks like transactions per second (TPS).
Hougan also addressed tokenomics, noting that Solana's market value can rise significantly even if the token price only revisits prior highs, and suggested that the network's staking yield—roughly 7% annually—partially offsets supply dilution.
A significant part of his argument hinges on a changing regulatory landscape. Hougan stated that Solana's growth in stablecoins and tokenization was previously constrained because institutions "couldn't build on Solana" if they believed it was "outside of the regulatory perimeter." With that cloud lifting, institutional mandates are broadening. He highlighted the potent combination of a relatively small asset supply, significant institutional demand—evidenced by continued inflows into Solana ETFs—and the expanding use cases in stablecoins and tokenization.
Supporting this institutional interest, data from SoSoValue shows Solana ETFs raised nearly $9 million in the week leading up to the report, bringing total assets under management in these funds to $1 billion. On-chain data also indicates a 64% increase in Solana's transaction volume, rising from 466 million to 765 million between late December and late January.
Despite the bullish long-term outlook, SOL's price action at the time was bearish, having dropped below the key $120 support level. Hougan avoided giving a precise price target, stating the outcome depends on the pace of growth in stablecoins and tokenization, regulatory developments like the passage of a Clarity Act, and broader crypto market cycles. At the time of the report, SOL was trading at $115.40.
