Bitwise CIO: GENIUS Act Spurred $1B+ for Corporate Chains

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, wrote that the GENIUS Act helped unlock more than $1 billion in investment for three corporate-backed blockchains: Arc, Canton and Tempo.

Hougan listed recent financings for each network. Circle’s Arc held a $222 million token presale at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation with backing from BlackRock, Apollo and Intercontinental Exchange. Canton Network was reported to be raising about $300 million at a $2 billion valuation in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Stripe’s Tempo raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation late last year and has added partners including Visa and DoorDash. Taken together, those transactions exceed $1 billion.

Hougan tied the timing of the fundraises to the passage of the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin-focused law signed in July 2025. He wrote that the law reduced regulatory uncertainty that had kept many institutional investors on the sidelines and that larger commitments followed once the legal framework became clearer.

He also noted a shared technical feature across the three chains: native transaction privacy. Hougan explained businesses may need confidentiality for on-chain activity to avoid exposing trade flows, payroll or other sensitive information on a public ledger. The three networks, he said, are being built with privacy features intended for commercial use cases.

The projects have drawn institutional partners and strategic backers that differ from earlier public blockchains. Canton’s backers include Goldman Sachs, Citadel, DTCC, BNY Mellon, S&P Global, Nasdaq and Virtu. Tempo was incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, with input from companies such as Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Shopify, Visa and OpenAI. Arc is developed by Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin.

On pending policy, Hougan pointed to the Clarity Act, broader market-structure legislation that remains unfinished. He wrote, “Clarity bears watching,” and said a supportive final text could help tokenization efforts and regulated crypto infrastructure, while effects on decentralized finance and novel token models remain unclear.

Hougan added that he expects native crypto platforms to remain competitive. “My money is mostly on the crypto natives,” he wrote, describing the new corporate chains as competitors that may raise standards across the industry.

Background: the GENIUS Act addresses rules for stablecoin issuers and related infrastructure. Tokenization refers to representing real-world assets or rights as digital tokens on a blockchain, a process proponents say can speed settlement and widen access but that raises questions about custody, compliance and market structure.