Bitwise: A weekend attack accelerates the entire financial world's on-chain migration

Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise

Translation: Luffy, Foresight News

I’ve always believed that the shift of the financial industry onto the blockchain is inevitable.

Blockchain enables assets to be traded 24/7 year-round, with instant settlement, at a much lower cost than traditional systems. It makes traditional stock exchanges and T+1 settlement seem incredibly outdated.

But I’ve always wondered: when exactly will this transformation happen? And what event will drive the entire system to change fundamentally?

After all, most people don’t even feel the delays in the current system. When my uncle buys stocks through his Charles Schwab account, he doesn’t care about waiting a day for settlement, nor does he care about the complex processes involving mysterious institutions like NSCC, DTCC, Cede & Co. He buys, the stocks appear in his account—simple, straightforward, no fuss.

So I once thought that crypto-driven markets would first grow on the fringes. Over the next 5 to 10 years, they would mainly serve native crypto users and those who can’t seamlessly integrate into traditional finance, like global retail investors wanting to trade US stocks. Eventually, these systems would become good enough to gradually take over the existing infrastructure, with institutions like the NYSE shifting from floor trading to electronic and tokenized markets, just as they transitioned from open outcry to electronic trading.

This would be a classic tech story: disrupt the edges first, then take over the core. I thought this would take 5 to 10 years.

But this weekend proved I was wrong. I am now convinced that all of this is happening faster than anyone expected.

What happened this weekend

At 2:30 AM Eastern Time on Sunday, February 28, Trump announced an attack on Iran. This timing was extremely unusual for global financial markets, as almost all markets were closed.

• U.S. stock markets closed
• U.S. futures markets closed
• Major forex markets closed
• European markets closed
• Asian markets closed

Basically, the only markets still trading were in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar (which trade Sunday through Thursday), but these markets are small and have limited coverage, with little participation from Western investors.

In the past, if a major geopolitical shock occurred on a Sunday morning, investors would have to wait until Sunday evening at 6:00 PM when U.S. futures opened to see how markets would react. But this weekend showed us: they now have another option—turning to 24/7, global trading infrastructure powered by crypto.

And this weekend, they really did.

All day Sunday, on-chain finance became the center of global finance. Especially decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, which became the focus. It offers perpetual contracts for crypto assets and real-world assets like oil.

Hyperliquid’s trading volume surged so much that Bloomberg, when reporting on the impact of the airstrike on oil, directly cited Hyperliquid’s oil contract prices as the most relevant reference. This is no coincidence—the native token HYPE surged about 30% over the weekend. To me, it looks more like investors are pre-paying for its future.

But Hyperliquid wasn’t the only one. Tether’s gold token XAUT saw 24-hour trading volume spike over $300 million. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket hit new trading volume highs. Crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum also became focal points.

In my memory, this is the first time that the crypto market has truly become a “market” in the real sense.

Why this matters

If you’re a hedge fund, a bank, or any investor wanting to stay competitive, you have no choice now: you must open a stablecoin wallet, learn to trade on Hyperliquid, understand XAUT, and research tokenized stocks.

Because even if you don’t do it, others will.

This trend will accelerate. The biggest barrier to participating in on-chain markets is getting used to wallets, stablecoins, Hyperliquid, Uniswap, and similar tools. Once you get started, all the new capabilities of DeFi and on-chain finance are within reach. Engagement leads to exploration, and exploration leads to trading.

Of course, some will say: “Traditional markets can do this too! Nasdaq is rolling out 24/5, 24-hour trading!” We don’t offer 24/7 trading because no one needs it!

Fine, say whatever you want. Back in the day, BTV also dismissed Netflix, and Microsoft dismissed the iPhone.

The shift to on-chain finance is inevitable. And after this weekend, I am convinced: its arrival will be sooner than any of us imagined.