Author: Centreless

In 2025, the cryptocurrency market will reach a structural turning point: institutional investors will become the absolute main force, while retail investors will noticeably cool down. Aishwary Gupta, the global head of payments and physical assets at Polygon Labs, recently pointed out in an interview that institutional funds now account for about 95% of the overall inflow into cryptocurrencies, with the retail proportion only remaining at 5%-6%, marking a significant change in market dominance.

He explained that the shift towards institutions is not driven by sentiment but is a natural result of mature infrastructure. Asset management giants like BlackRock, Apollo, and Hamilton Lane are allocating 1%-2% of their investment portfolios to digital assets, accelerating their layout through ETFs and on-chain tokenized products. Gupta cited Polygon's collaborative cases, including JPMorgan testing DeFi trading under the supervision of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Ondo's tokenized treasury project, and AMINA Bank's regulated staking, all of which demonstrate that public chains can meet the compliance and auditing needs of traditional finance.

The two main driving forces for institutional entry are yield demand and operational efficiency. The first phase focuses on obtaining stable returns through tokenized treasury bonds and bank-grade staking; the second phase is driven by efficiency improvements brought by blockchain, such as faster settlement speeds, shared liquidity, and programmable assets, prompting large financial institutions to experiment with on-chain fund structures and settlement models.

In contrast, the exit of retail investors mainly stems from losses and a loss of trust caused by the previous meme coin cycle. However, Gupta emphasized that this is not a permanent loss; as more regulated and transparently risky products emerge, retail investors will gradually return.

Addressing concerns that institutional entry may weaken the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies, Gupta believes that as long as the infrastructure remains open, institutional participation will not centralize blockchain but will instead enhance its legitimacy. He pointed out that the future financial network will be a fusion system where various assets like DeFi, NFTs, treasury bonds, and ETFs coexist on the same public chain.

Regarding whether institutional dominance will stifle innovation, he acknowledged that some experiments may be limited in a more compliance-focused environment, but in the long run, this will help the industry build a more robust and scalable path for innovation, rather than relying on a "breaking the rules" approach to rapid trial and error.

Looking ahead, he stated that institutional liquidity will continue to enhance market stability, and with reduced speculative activities, volatility will decrease. RWA tokenization and institutional-grade staking networks will develop rapidly. Interoperability will also become key, as institutions need infrastructure that allows for seamless asset transfers across chains and aggregation layers.

Gupta emphasized that institutional entry is not a "takeover" of crypto by traditional finance, but rather a process of jointly building new financial infrastructure. Cryptocurrencies are gradually evolving from speculative assets to core underlying technologies of the global financial system.

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