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As Bitcoin continued its 10% slide from all-time highs down to $96,000 this week, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan joined the chorus of veteran crypto analysts unfettered by the volatility.

In a candid interview with Coinage , Hougan contextualized the pullback within the broader bull market, emphasizing that the underlying drivers for crypto remain intact.

“This is a sharp pullback... but if you step back, $96,000 is still a pretty good place to be,” Hougan noted. He contrasted today’s market environment with previous cycles, highlighting how institutional interest from Wall Street and firms like BlackRock has fortified Bitcoin's standing. “A few years ago, if we had a big market pullback like this, you'd start to see the news stories about, 'Is this the end? Is crypto going to zero? Is it all over?' I think those have been well and fully put to bed."

Ethereum, which saw its price slip by over 12% this week, remains a key focus. Hougan described the decline as "more of a buying opportunity" than a cause for concern. “Underneath the surface, we’ve still turned the page on ETF flows into ETH... we’re still seeing ETH take market share on the stablecoin side.” He reiterated Bitwise’s year-end price target of $7,000 for Ethereum in 2025, supported by growing adoption across DeFi, tokenization, and AI-powered applications.

Hougan attributed the market sell-off primarily to unwinding leveraged positions rather than a breakdown in fundamentals. More than $1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours, according to Coinglass data . “If you want to point the finger... it is the levered positions that have built up in the crypto market... It’s a cleansing of leverage in the system.” Grayscale's Managing Director of Research Zach Pandl echoed a similar sentiment in a separate Coinage interview, saying the longer-term trend remained intact .

Hougan closed with a message for investors navigating the current volatility: “This is a hiccup and not a reversal in trend... if you underwrote crypto a few days ago when it was Bitcoin $108,000 and ETH $4,000, and you said, 'I'm just going to wait for a small pullback to get in.' Uh, ... this is the pullback, maybe it is time to act on that."

With strong ETF inflows, institutional backing, and a favorable regulatory horizon, Hougan believes the bull market is far from over: “Crypto has its own momentum... none of that is reversed.”