Matt Hougan: Crypto Is The Biggest Contrarian Bet In Markets Right Now

**Matt Hougan** (0:00)
We're trying to do two things. We're trying to reinvent gold and reinvent finance, Bitcoin and everything else. If you take out Bitcoin and you take out stable coins, what is the market cap of what we're trying to reinvent finance with?

**LGDU Set** (0:13)
What's up, everybody? It's LGDU Set here and welcome to The Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that desperately wants to stand out in his friend group, even if it's going to take a total opposite take to get there. Today is June 9th, 2026, recording on June 8th. Listen, we've all been the odd person out at a time in our lives. It's totally normal to have an opinion that's different than everyone else around you, but it's on another level to actually voice it out loud. Our guest today, one of our faves on the show, believes that opinion is actually crypto right now as the most contrarian bet in finance. And it might just be the perfect time to add more. Matt Hougan from Bitwise is back on the show. Also, as you know, the market is going completely insane and our analysts were busy last week. They made over 20 trades. A lot of them coming on Friday right at the deadline. Some are buying the blood. Others are waiting to see how that dip plays out. You can see what they sold and what they bought for just a dollar in Milk Road Pro. You get seven days in there and you can cancel anytime. Today's episode is brought to you by Cape, the privacy first mobile carrier. Matt, what's up, man? It's a one-on-one showdown today.

**Matt Hougan** (1:13)
I love it. This is the best. I can't wait. We don't need Ryan around here. We're good.

**LGDU Set** (1:18)
We don't need him. How would he possibly answer what happened since we last had you guys on the show, which was like 10 days ago. We're talking about hyperliquid. Oh, it's beautiful. Lots of things are green. Since then, I think crypto, Bitcoin went from 76 to 59, Matt, in a short amount of time. When these things happen, it feels extraordinary how quickly it can shoot down. Matt, listen, we haven't chatted since then.
Did you log off and touch grass this weekend after the downturn Friday?

**Matt Hougan** (1:52)
Oh, I definitely did. I got out for a nice couple of hard runs, tried to get away from the screens.
Yeah, it was a brutal pulldown. The other thing that happened was that sentiment fell faster than the price. Actually, crypto reached pretty close to peak despair on Thursday or Friday. Sailor was selling, it was over, people were rage quitting. I had to remind people that not only two weeks ago, we were talking about hyperliquid, two months ago, we were talking about how Bitcoin was responding so well to the crisis in Iran. You know, sentiment can change so wildly over here. It is important actually to step away a little bit and get some perspective.

**LGDU Set** (2:32)
Do you fancy yourself an analyst and or a content creator in this space? Well, we want you. Specifically, if you live and breathe tech equities, Milk Road could be the home for you. We're hiring for two positions right now, analyst and content creator. So check out the careers page below. Do we hang on too much to like these narratives that are like false, not false? Like things like, oh, well, you know, sailors sold 32 Bitcoin out of his however many thousands and has since bought way more. But is that like, you know, do we overreact to that kind of stuff and just try and attribute it too much to price action?

**Matt Hougan** (3:08)
Well, we definitely try to make too many monotonic explanations for what happened. This happened because of X. It's always a series of things.
I thought a lot about the strategy reaction, and I think it's almost their fault. The thing about strategy is it talks in infinities, right? So Bitcoin is going to a billion, or we're going to issue a trillion dollars of this new debt instrument or whatever. It's never in modulation. In reality, behind the scenes, what they're doing is quite nuanced. They have like eight tools they can push. They can issue equity, they can issue bonds, they can do converts, they can do preferred, they can do perpetual prefers, they can buy Bitcoin, they can sell Bitcoin. They could theoretically do option overlay strategies or lend Bitcoin. They have like this array of levers. Actually, if you look at what they're doing, they're doing it very carefully. It's just they talk in infinities. If you talk in infinities and then you sell 32 Bitcoin, people are like, well, they sold 32 They're obviously going to sell the other 831,000, which is just not the way it works. All of us, at some point, have sold crypto for tax loss harvesting, to cover a short-term cost, whatever, and all of us will buy more crypto in the future. They're no different. But I do think because they talk in infinities, people take every step to infinity.