Bitwise CIO: Advisors Ditched $BTC for Stablecoin Group Chats 🫥

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said financial advisors remain engaged with crypto but have shifted attention away from $BTC toward stablecoins and tokenization, after meeting with more than 40 advisors in a single day of sales calls. Hougan documented the conversations in a memo dated June 10, describing Monday as his busiest day since joining Bitwise eight years ago with eight advisory teams on the calendar. Selling advisors on $BTC at prices near $60,000 proved difficult even though Hougan said he views those levels as attractive for long-term investors, with discussions repeatedly returning to payments, capital markets, and tokenized assets.

Hougan attributed the rotation to two developments: a fading fiat-debasement trade, with gold trading roughly 20% below its all-time high, and constant public commentary on stablecoins from SEC Chair Paul Atkins and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. "If you think financial advisors are the marginal net buyer of crypto in the next cycle, the first place money would flow might be into stablecoin- and tokenization-linked investments," Hougan wrote in the memo. He said the inflows would likely benefit tokenization rails $ETH and $SOL, as well as stablecoin-linked equities Circle ($CRCL) and Coinbase ($COIN), echoing the spot ETF progression that helped crypto recover from its 2022 collapse.

Analytic firm Artemis provided corroborating data, reporting that stablecoin mentions in SEC filings and investor presentations peaked in Q1 2026 at roughly 1,000 references, the highest level on record. The timeline tracks regulatory milestones including the 2025 GENIUS Act, which created a federal category for payment stablecoins, and February 19 SEC staff guidance permitting broker-dealers to apply a 2% capital haircut to payment stablecoins by treating them as near-cash. A separate Fireblocks report based on a March 2025 survey of 295 finance executives found 49% of institutions already use stablecoins for payments.

Hougan framed the setup as a potential early-cycle signal, drawing a parallel to prior periods when advisor interest preceded broader allocations. Artemis's disclosure data suggests corporate communications have already absorbed the narrative, raising the question of whether stablecoins and tokenization represent the next adoption phase or have reached peak attention. Tokenized real-world assets continued to expand through last year's downturn, indicating that on-chain activity has moved beyond pitch decks.