Many people in the crypto world have had a subtle feeling over the past two years: prices are rising, but something seems off.

There’s no longer the nationwide FOMO, WeChat group spam, and the frenzy of altcoins soaring one after another like in the past; nor is there the thrill of "one candlestick changes your life." You’ll notice that prices are being pushed up gradually, with shallow pullbacks but over a long period, emotions can’t build up, yet chips are quietly shifting behind the scenes.

If you still use old thinking to understand this round of market, it will feel very awkward. But the facts are clear—the current crypto market is no longer a game dominated by retail investors.

**The pricing power of crypto assets is undergoing a dramatic change**

The fundamental change in this round of market is essentially: crypto assets have shifted from marginal speculative instruments to macro liquidity-sensitive assets. The pricing power is quietly moving from retail sentiment to institutional allocation.

What does this mean? The market is no longer dominated by retail sentiment; it depends more on the macro asset allocation logic of institutions. The driving force behind price movements has shifted from emotional fluctuations to liquidity conditions, from individual judgments to macro cycles. Those "something feels off" signs you see are the most direct manifestation of this transformation.