Author: Matt Hougan , Chief Investment Officer, Bitwise
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
I have always believed that the shift of the financial industry to the blockchain is inevitable.
Blockchain enables assets to be traded 24/7, 365 days a year, with instant settlement at a cost far lower than traditional systems. It renders traditional stock exchanges and T+1 settlements incredibly outdated.
But I've always been curious: when exactly will this transformation happen? And what event will drive a complete change in the entire system?
After all, most people don't even notice the delays in the existing system. When my uncle bought stocks in his Charles Schwab account, he didn't care about waiting a day for settlement, nor did he care about the complicated processes involving mysterious institutions like NSCC, DTCC, and Cede & Co. He bought them, and the stocks appeared in his account—simple, direct, and without any complications.
Therefore, I once thought that the crypto-driven market would first grow on the fringes. In the next 5 to 10 years, they would mainly serve native crypto users and those who cannot perfectly integrate into the traditional financial system, such as global retail investors who want to trade US stocks. Eventually, these systems will become good enough to gradually take over the existing system, and institutions like the NYSE will gradually shift to the tokenized market, just as they did when they moved from on-exchange trading to electronic trading.
This will be a classic tech story: disrupt the periphery first, then take over the core. I thought it would take 5 to 10 years.
But this weekend proved me wrong. Now I'm convinced that all of this is happening faster than anyone expected.
What happened this weekend?
At 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, February 28, Trump announced an attack on Iran. This timing was very significant for global financial markets, as almost all markets were closed.
- US stock market closed.
- US futures markets are closed.
- Major foreign exchange markets closed
- European markets are closed.
- Asian markets are closed.
Basically, at this time, only the stock markets of Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar were still trading (they trade from Sunday to Thursday), but these markets were limited in size and coverage, with little participation from Western investors and few assets covered.
In the past, if a major geopolitical shock occurred on Sunday morning, investors would only know how the market would react when US futures opened at 6:00 PM on Sunday. But this weekend tells us that they now have another option: turn to the 24/7, globally accessible crypto infrastructure.
And this weekend, they actually did it.
On Sunday, on-chain finance became the core of global finance. In particular, the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, which offers perpetual contract trading for crypto assets as well as real-world assets such as crude oil, was in the spotlight.
Hyperliquid's trading volume surged so much that Bloomberg, in its report on the impact of the airstrikes on crude oil, directly cited the price of crude oil contracts on Hyperliquid, as it is the most relevant price reference. This is no coincidence; Hyperliquid's native token, HYPE, rose by about 30% over the weekend. In my opinion, this is more like investors paying for its future in advance.
But it wasn't just Hyperliquid. Tether's gold token XAUT saw its 24-hour trading volume surge to over $300 million. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket also set new trading volume records. Crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum also became the focus.
To my knowledge, this is the first time that the cryptocurrency market has truly become a "market".
Why this is important
If you are a hedge fund, a bank, or any investor looking to stay competitive, you have no choice now: you must open a stablecoin wallet, learn to trade on Hyperliquid, understand XAUT, and research tokenized stocks.
Because even if you don't do it, someone else will.
This trend will accelerate. The biggest barrier to entry for participating in on-chain markets is getting used to tools like wallets, stablecoins, Hyperliquid, and Uniswap. Once you get the hang of them, all the new capabilities of DeFi and on-chain finance are within reach. Exposure leads to exploration, and exploration leads to trading.
Of course, some will say: traditional markets can do that too! Nasdaq is offering 23 hours a day, 5 days a week! We don't offer 24/7 trading because nobody needs it!
Okay, say whatever you want. That's how BesTV described Netflix back in the day, and that's how Microsoft described the iPhone.
The shift to on-chain finance is inevitable. And after this weekend, I'm convinced it will arrive sooner than any of us imagine.
