Bitwise’s Hougan Sees “Crypto Spring” After 46.4% Q3 Gain, Bitget’s Lee Urges Caution

Bitwise’s Quarterly Review

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan believes the third quarter opened a “crypto spring”, while Bitget chief analyst Ryan Lee counters that more indicators are needed before a cycle bottom can be confirmed. The two forecasts sit over the same numbers, laid out in the firm’s quarterly market review published on Thursday, October 8. Bitwise’s large-cap crypto index rose 46.4% during the quarter, and $6 billion of inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETF products put the year’s net flows back in positive territory. Hougan describes Q3 as possibly one of the strongest quarters crypto has ever recorded, and he argues the sharp price rebound and expanding onchain markets point to a new phase, not a one-quarter relief rally.

The rebound was not confined to prices. The value of tokenized equities, conventional shares issued as onchain tokens, climbed 65.5% to nearly $3.2 billion, while open interest on decentralized perpetual futures, leveraged contracts without expiry dates, set a record near $26 billion, with an increasing slice of that exposure now referencing foreign exchange, stocks, commodities and pre-IPO shares. Both figures come from the review’s own quarterly tables. In the review, Hougan wrote that chart after chart shows the same shape, each one turning sharply upwards at its most recent edge, the pattern he would expect at the start of a spring for the asset class.

His contrast with the summer is blunt: three months earlier, prices, onchain activity and ETF flows were all falling. Not every forecaster reads the turn as settled. Analysts have spent the weeks since debating whether the market slump is finally over. In September, CryptoQuant judged that technical and onchain readings had confirmed a fresh bull market for Bitcoin. Lee holds the narrower position that further indicators are still required to call the cycle bottom, leaving Hougan’s reliance on ETF demand and onchain usage as the deciding evidence in dispute.

Bitcoin Up 42.3%, Miners Down

Bitcoin (BTC) gained 42.3% during Q3, while Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) returned 69.1% and 59.2% respectively on the review’s numbers. All ten constituents of Bitwise’s large-cap crypto index closed the quarter with double-digit gains, and that breadth matters for the spring thesis: ten of ten, not a handful of leaders. Altcoins led the table: Chainlink (LINK) climbed 97.6%, the strongest performer of the ten.

The rally stopped at listed equities. Shares of Bitcoin mining firms Riot Platforms and Hut 8 fell 26.4% and 25.4% respectively over the same three months, and Galaxy Digital dropped 16.8%. The divergence sits inside the same dataset that carries the bullish call. Corporate treasuries were similarly split. The count of public companies holding Bitcoin dropped almost 6% to 173, though their combined holdings grew 0.5%. The roster of firms holding Ether thinned from 40 to 35, even as their combined holdings increased in absolute terms. Treasury interest, in other words, concentrated even as the roster shrank. The quarterly surge also left the year’s damage intact. Bitwise’s large-cap index remained down 6.2% for the year through September despite its 46.4% quarterly run, a figure that explains why Hougan frames Q3 as a turn rather than a completed recovery.

Looking forward, the review names tokenization and perpetual futures as Q4 catalysts. Bitwise expects the SEC’s innovation exemption, a regulatory path that lets compliant tokenized products reach market faster, to pull billions more of tokenized assets onto blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana and NEAR, and it states that Q4 should move tokenization “from pilots to production”. On the derivatives side, more than $6 trillion had been traded year-to-date across venues including Hyperliquid and Lighter, up 42% from the same period a year earlier. With regulatory support expected this quarter, the firm projects the perps market to speed up once US investors arrive.

Where Hougan and Lee Split

The split between Hougan and Lee comes down to a single assumption: whether flows and onchain usage can certify a bottom on their own, before price action settles the question. Bitwise’s case leans on ETF demand and record perp open interest; Lee wants more indicators before calling the turn. That condition is what a reader can actually watch. Flows have kept the bullish side supplied so far: our report on Tuesday’s session recorded Fidelity’s Bitcoin fund taking 94% of $109.8 million in daily ETF inflows, and our Bitcoin technical analysis tracks the levels where that demand gets tested. If inflows stall, Lee’s caution becomes the base case; if they persist through Q4, Hougan’s spring has its confirmation.