Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan says tokenization — the practice of representing traditional assets such as stocks, funds and other securities as blockchain-based tokens — is entering a longer phase of financial adoption, comparing its early trajectory to NVIDIA's rise during the initial stages of the artificial-intelligence boom.

His remarks came on September 17, the same day the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened a regulated pathway for tokenized stocks and S&P Global agreed to acquire smart-contract firm OpenZeppelin. Taken together, the developments show how blockchain infrastructure is moving deeper into traditional markets while DeFi and onchain assets gain institutional attention.

Hougan: The World Is Moving Onchain

Tokenization has moved closer to the center of U.S. financial-market development, giving Hougan a fresh reason to compare the sector with the early stages of the AI boom. In a post on X, he argued that the world is moving onchain and described tokenization as a multi-year transformation rather than a short-lived market theme.

His comparison centers on timing. ChatGPT launched in November 2022, when NVIDIA — the chipmaker whose hardware underpins much of modern AI computing — traded around $16. About a year later, the chipmaker had reached $46, a 176% increase that made the scale of the AI opportunity more visible. Hougan noted that NVIDIA now trades around $219 and used that progression to argue that recognizing a major shift does not mean the opportunity has already passed.

Tokenization is a mega trend. Just today, the SEC created a pathway for tokenized stocks to trade in the US, S&P acquired @OpenZeppelin, and DeFi assets are ripping. If you had doubts before, today should put them to rest. The world is moving onchain. The thing about…

— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) September 17, 2026

Tokenization Gains a U.S. Regulatory Path

For tokenization, Hougan pointed to the day's developments as evidence that adoption is moving beyond experimentation. The SEC's latest action provides a regulated path for certain venues to trade tokenized U.S. stocks on blockchain-based infrastructure. The framework covers tokenized NMS stocks — shares traded under the U.S. National Market System — that preserve shareholder rights such as dividends and voting, while synthetic products that only track stock prices remain outside the exemption. Issuers also receive a 30-day period to object to third-party tokenization.

The temporary exemption lasts up to five years and applies under specific conditions, including limits around participating venues, securities and trading activity. agency said the framework is intended to facilitate innovation while it considers broader policy, creating a clearer lane for companies developing blockchain-based equity infrastructure. Because the exemption is temporary and the broader policy review is ongoing, the framework effectively creates a supervised testing window for tokenized equities while longer-term rules are weighed.

The regulatory move arrived alongside S&P Global's agreement to acquire OpenZeppelin, adding another institutional signal. S&P Global is the index provider behind the S&P 500, one of the most widely tracked equity benchmarks in the world. OpenZeppelin's smart-contract technology supports major stablecoins, tokenized funds and DeFi applications. The company says its contracts have facilitated more than $37 trillion in transferred value and that it has completed more than 900 security engagements. Smart contracts of this kind are the mechanism that lets tokenized assets carry features such as dividends and voting onchain, placing the firm inside the infrastructure layer that tokenized securities depend on.

NVIDIA Parallel Highlights Tokenization's Early Stage

Hougan's analogy rests on the idea that technology megatrends can continue expanding after investors first recognize them. He argues that tokenization has already attracted attention, but its broader financial impact may still be developing as regulated trading, security standards and institutional infrastructure converge. The NVIDIA figures he cites reinforce that framing: the largest share of the chipmaker's rise came after ChatGPT turned AI into a mainstream topic, not before.

The comparison does not establish that tokenization will follow NVIDIA's price path. Instead, it highlights Hougan's view that blockchain-based financial rails can become a long-duration market transition. As traditional financial firms add tokenized products and established infrastructure providers enter the sector, the onchain model is gaining more connections to conventional capital markets. The near-term markers to watch are procedural: how issuers use the 30-day objection window, which venues participate under the exemption's conditions, and how the SEC's broader policy review develops.

Source: CryptoNewsNet, reporting via Crypto-Economy