Whale Garrett Jin: The rise in institutional participation has not ended the crypto bull market, but rather marks a structural shift from speculation to allocation.

PANews, January 21 – The suspected "1011 Insider Whale" Garrett Jin posted on X, stating that some media outlets have seriously misinterpreted Wintermute's views. The increase in institutional participation has not ended the crypto bull market; rather, it marks a new phase where the market is shifting from speculation-driven to allocation-driven. The expansion of institutional funds (especially ETF assets under management) typically pushes up asset prices and reduces volatility, which is a fundamental market principle. Historical data shows that whether in China's A-shares or the US stock market, after large-scale institutional entry, the market structure becomes more stable and trend-oriented. Currently, Bitcoin and Ethereum are experiencing the same path: large-scale purchases by ETFs and digital asset treasuries are driving prices up while volatility drops significantly. This is precisely the transformation from a "speculation regime" to an "allocation regime."

The core view of Wintermute's original report is: as institutional participation deepens, top crypto assets led by BTC and ETH are shifting from speculative tools to allocatable assets. Key observations include: institutional trading volume has far surpassed that of retail investors; meme coin trading and capital inflows have plummeted; institutional inflows are expected to accelerate in the second half of 2025; last October's market crash further consolidated the dominance of mainstream assets and widened their structural gap with meme coins; after the crash, retail funds also flowed back into BTC and ETH as defensive allocations. Garrett summarizes that this is not the end of the bull market, but rather the end of the "retail-driven, high-volatility, meme-dominated" phase for mainstream crypto assets. The market is undergoing a regime shift: from speculation to allocation, from retail sentiment-driven to institutional position-driven, and from extreme volatility to institutional-grade volatility. Misinterpreting this maturation process as the "end of the bull market" is a misunderstanding of market development principles.