Matt Hougan, chief investment officer (CI0) of crypto index fund manager Bitwise, said a multi-year bull run is about to begin, driven by a long-awaited wave of institutional interest.

Matt Hougan told Bloomberg that cryptocurrency prices have been incredibly resilient in the face of increasing regulatory scrutiny, and that BlackRock's iShares' recent filing for iShares Bitcoin Trust could be the icing on the cake for a new bull run. (Crypto) prices have actually been rising since the FTX collapse in November.

Now the world's largest asset management company BlackRock has taken a stand on this issue, saying that Bitcoin is important and that it is an asset that institutional investors want to own in the next five to ten years. I think we have entered a new era of cryptocurrency. I call it the "mainstream era of cryptocurrency."

I think we have entered a multi-year bull market that has just begun. He also predicted that in addition to asset prices, a new chapter of growth will emerge. Crypto stocks are now about to boom and predicted that a large number of new crypto companies will go public.

“As Bitcoin and other crypto assets continue to rise, companies interested in the crypto space and crypto infrastructure companies will see stronger results. As a result, I expect the IPO pipeline to open up. More broadly, crypto stocks have actually outperformed crypto asset prices. Our crypto stock index is up over 100% this year, so we will definitely see more new listings. We are going to see this industry grow rapidly, and I think it is a very exciting time for cryptocurrency.”

As previously reported, Bitwise Asset Management submitted a new application to the U.S. SEC on June 16, requesting to amend the rules to accommodate its planned Bitwise Bitcoin ETP Trust.