#机构投资者动向 Seeing the reports from Bitfinex and Cantor Fitzgerald, what comes to mind is a clear timeline—this is actually a replay of the story we've been experiencing over the past decade, just with different protagonists.

Remember the 2017 bull market? Back then, institutional entry was still a novelty, and retail investors were discussing "Wall Street is coming" on CoinHu and forums. Then the winter of 2018 arrived, and a large number of retail investors were wiped out. Moving into 2020-2021, institutions truly entered, but this time it's different—they're not short-term speculators but are positioning for a new asset class.

The current situation is quite interesting. On one side, Bitfinex predicts ETF asset management will double to $400 billion by 2026, and on the other side, Cantor Fitzgerald is shouting "cryptocurrency winter." But the key point is, these two voices are not actually contradictory. Knoblauch said the most important thing—"Today, the market landscape is shaped by institutional participants, not retail traders." What does this mean? The volatility of prices will decrease, but the stability of underlying capital will strengthen. The era of retail investors experiencing "getting rich overnight or losing everything" is gradually being replaced by rational decision-making driven by institutionalization.

I've seen too many failed projects due to lack of institutional support, and I've also seen a few projects that survived the winter thanks to institutional capital and eventually grew. History tells us that long-term winners are often not those who catch the highest peaks, but those who stay committed while institutional capital continues to flow in. Real progress in DeFi, asset tokenization, and infrastructure—these are what institutions value—and their value realization often requires cycles much faster than retail investors can perceive.