Between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2026, the number of different tokens traded by institutional clients increased by 24%, compared with 76% among retail investors, according to Wintermute’s data.
Institutional investors are becoming a much larger part of crypto trading, and their growing influence is changing where liquidity sits, which assets attract capital and how traders gain exposure.
Liquidity Is Getting More Concentrated
Professional investors tend to concentrate on tokens with better liquidity and more established markets, while retail traders have historically distributed their activity over a much wider range of assets.
Altcoin options volume on Wintermute’s OTC desk also increased more than threefold between the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026, although the activity remained concentrated in a smaller group of tokens.
This means that the capital from this group is now being focused around digital assets with the market depth and infrastructure needed to support large trades.
Institutions Are Trading Differently
Professional investors are also turning to derivatives, structured products and exchange-traded products more instead of relying only on spot purchases. That gives them more ways to hedge positions, manage risk and express a view on an asset without necessarily buying the underlying token.
The growing use of derivatives also changes how price discovery works. A market where investors can express bullish or bearish positions through options and futures has a different liquidity profile from one dominated by spot buying.
Wintermute’s data suggests this institutionalisation is contributing to lower volatility as well. Bitcoin’s realised volatility declined from 70% in earlier market cycles to around 45% in 2026, while the current downturn has been more gradual than the sharp downturns seen during previous crypto bear markets.
The Impact on Global Markets
Policy is also evolving alongside these market changes, with the US Senate now scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act on September 15 after lawmakers left for the August recess without advancing the bill.
The bill would establish a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets, which in turn would give financial institutions more certainty when participating through regulated exchanges, custodians and other means.
Europe is already further along this path through the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which has established a common regulatory framework for crypto-asset markets across the region.
MiCA is also showing how regulation can change the makeup of liquidity without necessarily reducing overall activity. A July Research into the laws found that several exchanges reduced USDT trading for European users while USDC gained share, particularly on venues more exposed to the new rules. But aggregate trading volumes did not change dramatically; instead, liquidity shifted between assets and venues.
MiCA has already reduced the number of regulated digital assets available to users in Europe and as institutional investors continue to favour established liquid assets, their preferences could further concentrate liquidity among the remaining that are eligible under the region’s regulatory framework.
In Africa, stablecoins are already used as an important settlement layer across the region, particularly in Nigeria, where the IMF estimates that they accounted for more than 65% of crypto inflows in 2024 alone.
With USDT and USDC already widely used by African businesses and retail traders for making cross-border transactions and investments, changes in global liquidity around these assets could influence which are the easiest to access and transact with.
Deeper Liquidity in the major stablecoins could strengthen their role as settlement assets across the region, especially as institutional demand goes toward cryptocurrencies with established markets and stronger liquidity.
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