Bitwise CIO Names His ‘Mount Rushmore’ Of Crypto, Says These 4 Coins Are Driving Bull Market

Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, has maintained his "Mount Rushmore" of crypto assets, which he says remains unchanged: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Chainlink. According to the TradingView report, Hougan described the basket as essential exposure for investors seeking to capture crypto's two largest macro themes, currency debasement and tokenization. "It's hard to argue with those four assets not being part of your exposure," he said.

Hougan said the basket is not fixed. He identified Hyperliquid as "making its case to be chiseled into the Mount Rushmore," while Zcash is advocating for privacy-focused assets to earn a place and Venice is pressing the case for real-world AI applications. He said he is bullish on several of these downstream DeFi assets but still regards the original four as the core, broad-based holdings.

Asked about Chainlink specifically, despite steady positive developments in on-chain data and real-world asset integration, Hougan acknowledged that the token itself remains "questionable." His broader thesis is that current tokenomics represent the weakest version of themselves for nearly every crypto asset, and that easing regulatory pressure will drive progressive improvement across the sector. He said he already sees this reflected in Chainlink's price and believes the underlying protocol business is strong enough to support the token while its economics catch up. He compared his current view to his long-held view of Uniswap before that project's tokenomics improved.

Hougan also flagged growing interest in pairing tokens with real-world assets, such as companies distributing rewards through tokenized stocks or fund companies marketing through tokenized funds. He said the current economics of some of these paired-asset structures look unusual and likely temporary, but the underlying concept of attaching a token to a real asset retains significant unexplored potential.