#机构采用 Seeing the reports from Bitfinex and Cantor Fitzgerald, what flashes through my mind is the scene after the 2017 bull run. Back then, institutions were still on the sidelines, retail investors were frantically chasing highs, and it ended in a complete mess. Today’s situation is completely reversed.

Bitfinex predicts that the ETF market size will double to $400 billion by 2026, reflecting that institutional participants have already become the dominant force in the market. What’s more interesting about Cantor Fitzgerald is—they forecast a potential new winter but also emphasize that institutional adoption is still growing. This is almost unprecedented in history.

I have experienced several cycles in 2014, 2018, and 2022, each with very clear characteristics: price crashes accompanied by systemic liquidations, with retail investors facing massive liquidations. But this time, the landscape has changed. Institutional investors won’t panic and flee at short-term fluctuations; they look at five- or ten-year cycles. Token prices may continue to be under pressure, but DeFi, asset tokenization, and infrastructure—these underlying applications—are continuously advancing. These phenomena were completely unseen in previous cycles.

In other words, we might be going through a differentiated cycle—price cycles and application cycles beginning to decouple. This may not be a bad thing for long-term participants; rather, it’s a process of淘汰投机者, consolidating institutional positions. Just need to adjust your mindset and stop interpreting today’s market with retail cycle thinking.