I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the retail side of the crypto market.
We’ve seen big narratives come and go — from DeFi Summer to NFTs to memecoin mania. Institutions are slowly creeping in, ETFs are live, and the infrastructure is more mature than ever. But here’s the real question:
Is retail still here? And if not… what will bring them back?
First, w cant category the NFT, and Meme coin mania narrative as big when they are actually a hype narrative where the project team hype the market and sell off at high price.
The first and the last time we see big narrative in the crypto market is when Bitcoin was presented.
Having said that, the retail investors are still here fulfilling their intention but the major player of this current market are the institutional investors that's why it seems like the retailer investors are not in the market. Besides, retailer seem to be buying BTC ETF, and I hope they stop doing that for the purpose of BTC decentralization.
On-chain activity outside of memecoins feels muted
Pre-sale hype is still alive, but less widespread than before
That's because the concept of memecoin is playing ground, and modern stealing ecosystem from the get-go.
The widespread are less because nobody want to miss out the Bitcoin opportunity now that institution are interested in it.
Many casual investors I know are “waiting it out” or moved on to AI and stocks
Meanwhile, mainstream media coverage of crypto is quieter than in past bull runs
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No, do the calculation. Yes, they moving to AI but crypto (Bitcoin) is not exclude and there no media coverage that happen now with Bitcoin news. Besides, the mainstream media now use Bitcoin news to get more views and attention.
What kind of catalyst (BTC ETF growth, new use cases, big airdrops, etc.) would reignite widespread retail participation?
I will say we should be prepare for the disadvantage that comes with the BTC ETF.