Feeling pretty concerned about the future trends of crypto (especially the big players like $ETH and $BTC), not even mentioning external factors for now. Both $BTC and $ETH, the assets that represent the faith in crypto, seem to be showing a strong trend of de-retailization after 2024 and 2025. It’s possible the entire industry is undergoing a de-retailization movement. Traditional hedge funds are using BTC ETFs to build spot long positions while simultaneously shorting on CME to play basis arbitrage and drain volatility. At the same time, this permanently raises the bottom price of $BTC, making it hard for retail investors to ever see super low prices for Bitcoin again. Ethereum’s mainnet now leans more towards serving B2B clients like L2 sequencers, compliant RWA issuers, and large staking pools. Retail investors are finding it increasingly difficult to locate on-chain assets that can be held long-term with compounding effects. HYPE didn’t achieve this, Kaito didn’t achieve this, and virtual came close but not quite.