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analysis. As 2026 begins, the top crypto exchanges are setting a strong tone 
for the year ahead, continuing to raise […]

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Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, said he 
thinks Solana could plausibly become a trillion-dollar asset within five 
years—an outcome that would roughly translate into a ~$1,600 SOL price on a 
simple market-cap-per-token basis, depending on circulating supply. Hougan 
made the remarks on the Jan. 29 episode of When Shift Happens, framing his 
Solana view through what he called a “two ways to win” setup: growth in the 
addressable market (stablecoins and tokenized assets), plus an increasing 
share captured by Solana versus competing networks. Why Solana Could Hit 
$1,600+ Within 5 Years Hougan argued that the “infrastructure market” for 
stablecoins and tokenization is expanding quickly enough that large, liquid 
L1s should be valued less like niche crypto experiments and more like enabling 
rails for traditional finance. “The US Secretary of Treasury expects the 
stablecoin market to 12x over the next four years,” he said, adding that Larry 
Fink has described a future where “every asset, every fund, ETF, stock, bond, 
real estate will be tokenized.” From there, his Solana thesis leaned heavily 
on relative positioning. Ethereum remains the incumbent in stablecoins and 
tokenization, Hougan said, but Solana is “a legit competitor with an 
interesting technological differentiation,” and crucially “it’s 
extraordinarily easy to use and the community has a ship first attitude.” 
Related Reading: Solana Scores Major Institutional Adoption As WisdomTree Goes 
On-Chain That usability point, in his view, is underpriced by investors who 
focus on benchmark-style comparisons. “I think ease of use is a killer app 
that’s underrated by investors,” Hougan said. “Investors like to talk about 
throughput and they like to talk… TPS… who cares about this? …For an end user 
who’s trading, who’s on-ramping, ease of use is the killer app. And Solana is 
just easy to use, just dead easy to use.” Hougan also acknowledged a common 
investor blind spot: token supply dynamics can separate price action from 
market cap growth. He noted that Solana’s market value can rise meaningfully 
even if the token price revisits prior highs, and suggested staking yield 
partially offsets dilution, citing “roughly like 7% a year.” Another thread in 
the discussion was how regulation shaped institutional behavior. Hougan said 
Solana’s footprint in stablecoins and tokenization was constrained during the 
prior US regulatory environment, arguing that institutions “couldn’t build on 
Solana” if they believed it sat “outside of the regulatory perimeter.” With 
that cloud lifting, he said, mandates are starting to broaden. He also 
described why the ETF wrapper matters more for a smaller asset. “You put a 
little bit of inflows into an ETF package and they’re chasing a relatively 
small supply of Solana,” Hougan said. “It’s one of the best setups for an 
asset that I’ve ever seen because you have this small constrained size, you 
have significant institutional demand, you have stablecoins and tokenization… 
you put all that together and it seems like a winner.” Still, he avoided hard 
price targets and instead stayed in market-cap terms. “In 5 years I think it 
could be a trillion dollar asset. I think that’s relatively easy to imagine,” 
he said. “It’s hard to give a precise target because it depends on the pace of 
growth on stablecoins and tokenization. It depends on whether Congress passes 
the Clarity Act. It depends on the sort of crypto market cycles.” E156: 
@Matt_Hougan from @BitwiseInvest – $6.5M Bitcoin and the strongest Solana 
setup ever? This might be the most bullish yet rational episode we’ve done on 
the future of crypto: why debasement, institutional flows &amp; tokenization are 
just getting started. Timestamps: 0:00… pic.twitter.com/WMqvKL7pCj — MR SHIFT 
🦁 (@KevinWSHPod) January 29, 2026 On simple market-cap math, a $1 trillion 
Solana valuation implies a four-figure token price depending on supply. The 
relationship is straightforward: token price equals market cap divided by 
supply. Using Solana’s circulating supply of roughly 566 million SOL, a $1 
trillion market cap works out to about $1,766 per SOL ($1,000,000,000,000 ÷ 
566,000,000). Related Reading: Solana Pauses After 20% Drop — This Key Level 
Could Decide What’s Next If you instead use a fully diluted-style denominator 
closer to 619 million SOL, the same $1 trillion market cap implies roughly 
$1,615 per SOL ($1,000,000,000,000 ÷ 619,000,000). In other words, Hougan’s 
“trillion-dollar asset” framing maps to something like the mid-$1,000s per 
token on today’s supply assumptions, with the exact number moving as supply 
changes. Notably, Hougan’s Solana call sat alongside a broader macro narrative 
he returned to repeatedly: monetary debasement pushing investors toward scarce 
and non-sovereign stores of value. On Bitcoin, he argued the “two ways to win” 
are the store-of-value market expanding and Bitcoin taking share from gold, an 
arc he said could drive multi-million-dollar BTC over decades if the last 
10–15 years of adoption trends persist. For Solana, the equivalent is less 
about being “digital gold” and more about becoming a primary venue for 
stablecoin flows and tokenized securities. If those rails scale and if Solana 
continues gaining share as a high-velocity, institution-friendly network, 
Hougan’s trillion-dollar scenario implies the market is still pricing the 
opportunity too conservatively. At press time, SOL traded at $115.40. Featured 
image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Solana Could Reach $1,600+ Within Five Years, Bitwise CIO Says

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Sats Terminal is the first native Bitcoin super app, bringing together Bitcoin 
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