Bitwise Says GENIUS Act Unlocked Crypto Funding, Eyes Clarity Act as Next Catalyst

Bitwise said passage of the US stablecoin bill known as the GENIUS Act has accelerated fundraising across the cryptocurrency industry, and that the next catalyst could be the crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act.

In an investor memo dated May 12, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan wrote that it was no coincidence that three Web3 projects — Circle's Arc, Canton and Stripe's Tempo — raised more than $1 billion combined in recent months.

He highlighted that the projects are focused on stablecoins, tokenized securities and infrastructure for asset tokenization. All three launched major fundraising efforts after the GENIUS Act passed in July last year.

Hougan pointed to three shifts. The first was privacy, a core feature emphasized by Arc, Canton and Tempo. That marks a different direction from the openness long championed by Ethereum and Solana. If corporate transaction records and other money flows are exposed on public blockchains, he wrote, transparency can become a burden rather than a benefit.

The second was regulation. Hougan said the GENIUS Act reduced the regulatory uncertainty that had kept institutional capital on the sidelines. When the legal foundation was unclear, institutions struggled to commit capital to related businesses. After the bill's passage, large fundraising rounds gathered speed.

He identified the Clarity Act as the next key variable. While declining to offer a detailed assessment because the final version of the bill has not been settled, Hougan wrote that the Clarity Act is worth watching.

Competition is another major change, according to Hougan. Canton investors include Goldman Sachs, Citadel, DTCC, S&P Global and Nasdaq. Tempo has received design input from Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Visa and OpenAI. Earlier public blockchains grew out of developer communities and technical experimentation, but newer platforms are drawing support from traditional finance and Big Tech.