Crypto market seeing ‘classic, risk-off’ response: Bitwise CIO

Reacting to cryptocurrencies joining the market selloff, with bitcoin hovering just below $30,000 Thursday morning, Bitwise Asset Management chief investment officer Matt Hougan argued the volatility is a "classic, risk-off" macro response to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler predicting the crypto market turmoil isn't quite over yet.

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MATT HOUGAN: What's behind this selling is macro news. This market is selling off alongside high volatility tech stocks, the Nasdaq, etc. It's all driven because Chairman Powell at the Fed is intent on pushing us into a recession, if that's what's needed to contain inflation. That's causing all risk assets to selloff and that's what we see in crypto.

Bitcoin is holding up the best. Etherium, the second-largest asset, is selling off more and altcoins are selling off even more. So this is a classic, risk-off response. I do think you're seeing regulators push for more investor protections. That's a story we've seen before. That's a story we saw in 2018. The last time there was a big crypto bear market, we saw a crackdown on the ICO market from regulators.

So we have seen this story before. What comes out of this is a stronger crypto industry in the end, but I do think there could be continued volatility in this space until we get past this macro-driven environment.

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