The year 2025 seems to mark a turning point for the cryptocurrency market, particularly due to the massive influx of institutional investors and more experienced behavior. The result: traditional cycles have been disrupted and individual investors are turning to stocks.
Institutional investors “are here to stay”
The cryptocurrency market is evolving in line with its most popular sectors, but also with its ever-increasing adoption. Within this reality, 2025 clearly stands out as the year of the massive and confirmed arrival of traditional finance and its institutional players.
This observation was made by analysts at market maker Wintermute in an annual report entitled “How crypto broke out of the traditional four-year cycle in 2025.” Indeed, the pattern associated with Bitcoin halvings no longer seems to hold up in the face of “more experienced and disciplined players.”
Trading has shifted from a purely volume-driven activity to a more mature and thoughtful trading environment. Trading volumes have continued to grow, but execution has become more intentional, with the over-the-counter (OTC) market increasingly favored for its size, discretion, and control.
Wintermute
This data allows Wintermute analysts to assert that “institutional investors are here to stay,” with a 23% increase in their involvement in the cryptocurrency market between 2024 and 2025, compared to only 5% for retail investors.
Capital has entered the crypto market, but where is it going?
There have been “visible structural changes” in OTC activity, one of the direct consequences of which is a concentration of liquidity towards Bitcoin and Ethereum “and a few selected large caps,” largely supported by the ETF market and the rise of Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs).
Although there has been some consolidation towards large-cap tokens by funds and individuals this year, trading volume growth has been driven by ETFs and DATs, which have expanded their mandates beyond major assets.
Wintermute
This concentration was clearly unfavorable to the altcoin market, as the altseason-style “broad rotation” that typically characterizes bull markets simply “never happened.” The result was much shorter speculative rallies—averaging around 20 days, compared to nearly 60 days in 2024—and rapidly exhausted narratives.
It’s hard not to mention memecoins, with “a peak in the first quarter from which they never recovered, unable to regain support levels as trading activity fragmented and declined.” But we can also mention perpetual DEXs or AI-related tokens, whose hype faded just as quickly.
Investors turning to stocks
In this rapidly changing environment, a real shift seems to be taking place. While traditional finance is making a strong entry into the cryptocurrency market, retail investors seem to be turning to traditional stocks.
This shift mainly concerns “AI, robotics, and quantum themes in the stock markets, which have captured the attention that was previously focused on crypto.”
At the same time, the crash on October 10—and its $20 billion in liquidations—triggered “a return of retail investors (via broker flows) to major assets for the first time since the end of 2023.”
According to Wintermute analysts, three key factors could change the current dynamic:
- Institutional exposure extending beyond ETFs and DATs;
- A rise in BTC and ETH leading to a redistribution towards altcoins;
- A return of attention from retail investors in the stock market to crypto.
In any case, the conclusion seems clear: the cryptocurrency market is entering a new institutional era, the dynamics and prospects of which remain to be defined.
