Bitwise CIO says GENIUS Act helped unlock crypto fundraising as tokenization now eyes Clarity Act boost

Three corporate-backed blockchains built for stablecoins and tokenization have raised over a billion dollars in combined funding in recent months, and Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan argues the pattern is no coincidence, but rather carries three clear signals about where crypto is heading.

The chains include Circle’s Arc, which closed a $222 million token presale at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation backed by BlackRock, Apollo, and Intercontinental Exchange, The Block previously reported.

There’s also Canton Network, which was reportedly raising $300 million at a $2 billion valuation in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to Hougan’s memo; and Stripe’s Tempo blockchain, which raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation late last year and has since added partnerships with Visa, DoorDash, and others.

Three signals

Arc, Canton, and Tempo each prioritize native transaction privacy in ways Ethereum and Solana historically have not, and Hougan argues that the gap is deliberate. For businesses broadcasting trade flows before execution, or workers whose payroll is visible on a public block explorer, blockchain transparency becomes a liability rather than a feature. Hougan said institutional demand for confidentiality is shaping these chains from the ground up.

The second signal is regulatory, Hougan argued.

All three fundraises occurred after Congress passed the GENIUS Act — the stablecoin-focused legislation signed into law by President Trump in July 2025 — which Hougan suggested may have helped catalyze the raises by reducing regulatory uncertainty.

Pre-GENIUS, institutions were reluctant to commit capital to businesses built on an uncertain legal footing. However, post-GENIUS, the raises came quickly and at scale, he noted. The Clarity Act, crypto’s broader market-structure legislation, is the next variable.

Hougan was measured on specifics as the bill’s final text is not yet complete, but said tokenization efforts and regulated financial infrastructure stand to benefit most. He added that a supportive outcome for DeFi and novel token designs is possible but unconfirmed. “Clarity bears watching,” he wrote.

The third observation cuts to competitive dynamics.

Canton’s backers include Goldman Sachs, Citadel, DTCC, BNY Mellon, S&P Global, Nasdaq, and Virtu. Tempo was incubated by Stripe and Paradigm with design input from Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Shopify, Visa, and OpenAI. Arc is developed by Circle, a publicly listed company and issuer of the second-largest stablecoin, USDC.

The institutional firepower across all three is a meaningful departure from the origins of the dominant public chains, especially considering that Ethereum launched from a Bitcoin forum, and Solana from a late-night engineering breakthrough.

Hougan was careful not to declare a winner.

“My money is mostly on the crypto natives,” he wrote, framing the new entrants not as threats to Ethereum and Solana but as catalysts that will raise the competitive standard across the entire space. Ultimately, this should draw more capital into new products and blockchain startups, Hougan posited.

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