Bitwise CIO sees the birth of a new asset class

Wall Street is gearing up for a new wave of exchange-traded cryptocurrency funds: ethereum

Spot ether ETFs could hit the market as soon as this week, pending approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and Matthew Hougan of Bitwise Asset Management plans to get in on the action.

“What you’re seeing is this kind of birth of a new asset class,” the company’s chief investment officer told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Monday.

Hougan’s company applies for spot ether ETFs.

“If you want to invest in the growth of tokenization, ethereum is a game of picks and shovels,” Hougan said. “It supports it all. I think this will appeal to a lot of people.”

He thinks cryptocurrency ETFs are generally a multi-year story. Hougan is referring to the first spot bitcoin ETFs launched in January. He sees their success as a good indicator for the future.

“Are [bitcoin] “It’s becoming a mainstream story,” he noted. “That will be a story that will take several years.”

Spot bitcoin ETFs have attracted approximately $15 billion since their launch and currently have two of the largest ETF inflows this year, according to FactSet.

Hougan views bitcoin’s recent success as unprecedented and views it as a bullish indicator for spot ether ETFs.

“If we get five, ten or fifteen billion dollars in the first two years of these ethereum ETFs, that’s a huge success,” Hougan said.