Wall Street Advances on Cryptocurrencies, but Changes the Market: Which Assets Concentrate Institutional Interest

Institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies is advancing at an accelerated pace, but the phenomenon is not causing the widespread boom that the market has awaited for years. While Wall Street, major banks, and funds incorporate blockchain and digital assets into their operations, retail liquidity is losing strength, forcing the main platforms in the sector to rethink their businesses.

This trend is generating a transformation of the ecosystem: less speculation on a wide variety of tokens and greater concentration of capital in bitcoin, stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets (RWA), and a small group of cryptocurrencies with specific applications.

One of the companies seeking to adapt to the new scenario is Bitget. Gracy Chen, CEO of the sixth largest exchange platform by trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap, explained that institutional clients increasingly demand the ability to trade stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies from a single place, in addition to using stocks as collateral.

However, behind the diversification also lies a concern for the traditional business of crypto platforms. "It has been almost a year since liquidity has not recovered, and I don't see it doing so," Chen stated. Therefore, she explained that the company no longer intends to compete solely against other crypto platforms but also against financial firms that offer multiple asset classes.

The paradox is that the change occurs at one of the moments of greatest institutional acceptance of digital assets. Banks are incorporating financial assets into blockchains, institutional desks are gaining prominence, and the regulatory landscape has become more favorable.

At the same time, the traditional cryptocurrency market is facing difficulties. Three platforms, including BitMEX, closed during the northern summer, and the liquidity of altcoins fell sharply. For Chen, the situation begins to show similarities to 2022, a year marked by a series of crises and the collapse of FTX.

"In 2026, it really feels like we are in 2022," said the executive, who warned that "the worst of 2026 may not have arrived yet."

The scenario begins to cast doubt on one of the main expectations associated with the institutionalization of the market: that the entry of Wall Street would necessarily provoke a widespread increase in money and liquidity available for all cryptocurrencies.

On the contrary, major financial players seem to be building a different market, more concentrated on certain assets and oriented towards payments, guarantees, and the tokenization of real-world assets, instead of the widespread speculation that characterized previous cycles.

One of the segments that could capture a significant part of that growth is tokenized stocks, that is, digital representations of traditional financial assets that can be traded using blockchain infrastructure.

Data from Wintermute allows us to gauge the institutional advance. Institutional counterparts represented 72% of its over-the-counter trading volume during the first half of 2026, the highest participation recorded to date.

However, there is a significant difference between the behavior of large players and that of individual investors. The number of tokens traded by institutional clients increased by only 24% between the first half of 2024 and the same period in 2026, while among retail clients, the increase reached 76%.

"Institutions are much more selective," explained Jasper De Maere, OTC trader at Wintermute. He noted that large players tend to focus on a small group of cryptocurrencies that they believe can provide exposure to specific technological innovations.

Therefore, the greater institutional presence will not necessarily benefit the entire crypto universe uniformly. "It will not be a rising tide that lifts all boats, as we saw in previous cycles. A few cryptocurrencies will perform exceptionally, and then there will be a large group of laggards," De Maere predicted.

Institutionalization is also changing another of the historical characteristics of the market: high volatility. According to data from Glassnode, the annualized volatility of bitcoin over one year fell to 42% at the beginning of August, compared to 48% recorded a year earlier and 69% in 2022.

Stabilization may be attractive to institutional investors, but it reduces one of the incentives that historically led retail investors to cryptocurrencies: the possibility of obtaining large returns in very short periods. Some of those investors have begun to shift towards markets with more pronounced movements and new speculative narratives, including those related to artificial intelligence and prediction markets. Institutions, on the other hand, show a more disciplined management of capital and remain exposed for shorter periods to certain market narratives.