Original Article Title: Project Crypto: Three Investments Poised To Benefit From the SEC‘s Shocking New Vision

Original Article Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise

Original Article Translation: Luffy, Foresight News

Last week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins delivered a speech titled “America's Leadership in the Digital Financial Revolution” at the American Priorities Policy Institute.

You should read it now. Seriously, don't hesitate, this speech can be considered a roadmap for the next five years of investment.

In the speech, Atkins outlined the vision for the future financial markets. Spoiler alert, everything will revolve around public blockchains like Ethereum. He proposed:

· All assets (stocks, bonds, dollars, etc.) will eventually migrate to public blockchains;

· Decentralized Finance (DeFi) will play a key role in the future;

· Crypto assets and blockchain can give rise to exciting new business models;

· The main barrier to this “revolution” was a hostile regulatory environment, which has now made a 180-degree turn.

This is the most comprehensive picture I have read of how cryptocurrency is reshaping the financial market.

After reading this speech, it's hard not to want to allocate a significant amount of funds to the crypto space. If you work in the financial industry, you might even consider shifting the focus of your career here. The SEC Chairman condensed all the essential points proposed by cryptocurrency supporters over the past decade into this speech, and elaborated on how the SEC will drive these ideas forward.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he wrote in the speech. A few years ago, I wasn't even sure if the compliance department would allow me to say such things.

What It Means for Investors

For investors, there is so much content in this speech worth exploring. You could start a venture capital firm around Atkins' vision and build corresponding enterprises for each opportunity he presents. But in my opinion, three investment opportunities stand out.

Opportunity One: Ethereum (and other Layer 1 Blockchains)

The most obvious opportunity is to invest in Ethereum and other Layer 1 blockchains that support stablecoins and asset tokenization.

“Today, I am announcing the launch of ‘Project Crypto,’” Atkins said, “a full-committee initiative aimed at updating securities regulations to allow the U.S. financial markets to migrate to the blockchain.”

It's easy to see: if almost all assets will migrate to a public blockchain, you would certainly want to have exposure to these blockchains.

Which blockchains are worth paying attention to? The best strategy may be to buy a basket of mainstream assets: Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, XRP, Avalanche, Aptos, Sui, NEAR, and so on.

I know some readers will say: Ethereum is clearly the leading chain in the tokenization and stablecoin space. I agree! It is in the lead. But looking back at the rise of digital trading in the early 21st century— the last major upgrade of the financial system, early market leaders were companies like Island ECN and Instinet.

Have you heard of these names recently? I haven't either. But Nasdaq's stock price has risen 2275% since its listing in July 2002.

Instead of trying to pick individual targets, it's better to take an index approach, buy a basket of assets to cover future top projects.

Opportunity Two: Coinbase, Robinhood, and Other “Super Apps”

The most instructive part of the speech is the section titled “Driving Super Apps: Horizontal Integration of Product Services.” Atkins outlined a future where a single app could offer customers a full range of financial services.

Atkins stated, “Broker-dealers with alternative trading systems should be able to offer non-security crypto assets, crypto asset securities, traditional securities trading, as well as crypto asset staking, lending, etc., without needing licenses from 50-plus states or multiple federal licenses.”

Reading this section, it's hard not to think of Coinbase and Robinhood, both pursuing the super app concept, just starting from different points: Coinbase starting from the crypto space and expanding towards traditional assets, while Robinhood started with traditional assets and is quickly moving towards the crypto space.

I daringly predict: one of these companies may become the largest global financial services company and may even be the first financial services company to surpass a $1 trillion market cap. Atkins just laid out the roadmap for them.

Opportunity Three: DeFi Applications

The third highlighted opportunity in Atkins's speech was Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

DeFi applications have always existed in a regulatory gray area, neither explicitly allowed nor clearly prohibited by existing regulations. This has limited their growth: while DeFi applications are widely used by crypto enthusiasts, mainstream investors and institutions have rarely ventured into this space.

In a section titled "Unlocking America's Market Potential: Robust and Sophisticated On-Chain Software Systems," Atkins explained why regulatory agencies struggle to grasp DeFi:

"Decentralized financial software systems (such as automated market makers) facilitate automated, non-intermediated financial market activities. The federal securities laws have long assumed the existence of regulated intermediaries, but that does not mean that, in a market that can function without intermediaries, we should insist on introducing them."

In other words, DeFi is not just a technological revolution but also an ideological revolution. And the SEC chairman understands this.

Despite the lack of regulatory clarity, the usage of DeFi applications has been quite substantial. The largest DEX application, Uniswap, hit a trading volume of $88 billion in June, reaching a historical high; the total value locked in DeFi lending protocols like Aave also hit record levels, reaching $56 billion; derivative platforms like Hyperliquid are similarly massive in scale.

If regulatory clarity improves, could these numbers grow tenfold? Fiftyfold? Or one hundredfold? As the traditional and crypto markets merge, the opportunities in the DeFi space will be vast.

Critics point out that most DeFi tokens lack a clear economic link to the underlying protocols. For example, Uniswap's UNI token is a "governance token": meaning holders can vote on the protocol's development direction but cannot benefit from transaction fees collected by the platform.

I speculate that this is a legacy issue from a previously hostile regulatory environment. Under the SEC's new vision, assets like UNI may establish a more direct economic connection with underlying protocols, unlocking immense value.

Key Question: Has it already been priced in?

Regarding Atkins's vision, the most obvious question is: has this already been priced into the market? If the market has long anticipated the SEC's shift from a crypto adversary to a "catalyst," then assets like Ethereum, Solana, Uniswap should already reflect this.

Perhaps. But what I want to say finally is: This speech caught me off guard.

For the past eight years, I have been researching and writing about cryptocurrency, having a long-term bullish view on the future of cryptocurrency, and have even said that all assets will eventually migrate to the blockchain. However, after reading this speech, I realized that my perspective was not broad enough, and that I need to accelerate my pace of action.

If even I didn't anticipate it, I think others are the same.

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