Investors are better off buying ETFs than buying shares in a firm that’s simply putting a crypto asset on its balance sheet, argues Bitwise’s Matt Hougan.

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says digital asset treasuries need to start taking the hard path if they want to stand out from the crowd; otherwise, investors are better off investing in crypto exchange-traded funds instead.

One of the best ways to discern whether a digital asset treasury (DAT) is worth looking at is to ask the question, “Are they doing something hard?” Hougan argued in an X post on Wednesday.

“Buying a crypto asset and putting it on a balance sheet today isn’t hard. It was hard at one point, but it’s not hard now. If that’s all a DAT is doing, you are better off owning an ETF. This is true even if the DAT is staking, as ETFs now stake,” he said.