Goldman Sachs, the $3.5 trillion banking giant, has filed to launch an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that uses covered calls to generate income from Bitcoin. The April 14 filing for the Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF marks a strategic pivot for the investment bank, which previously had a hostile relationship with the flagship digital […]
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Is Coinbase too big to fail? It has to be now ETFs rely on it daily Wall Street spent two years selling investors on a clean vision of Bitcoin: a regulated exchange-traded fund, cleared and settled through the same institutional machinery that handles equities and bonds, scrubbed of the Wild West baggage that haunted crypto's […]
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Benchmark’s base case notes that even 0.01% of NYSE’s roughly $44 trillion market could exceed Securitize’s $4 billion asset base.
On April 8, Morgan Stanley’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund began trading on the NYSE Arca under the ticker MSBT, logging 1.6 million shares and roughly $34 million in volume on its highly anticipated first day. The MSBT fund purchased 430 Bitcoin on day one, following $30.6 million in net inflows. Speaking on this performance, Bloomberg […]
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While BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF currently reigns as the liquidity king of crypto, Morgan Stanley’s MSBT will leverage a market-low 0.14% fee and $7 trillion wealth management engine to possibly challenge that dominance.
While BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF currently reigns as the liquidity king of crypto, Morgan Stanley’s MSBT will leverage a market-low 0.14% fee and $7 trillion wealth management engine to possibly challenge that dominance.
For years, many have viewed XRP through the lens of price speculation, hoping it would remain cheap long enough to accumulate massive holdings. However, David Schwartz is pushing back on that narrative, making it clear that XRP was never designed to stay cheap. Instead, its value is deeply tied to its role as a high-efficiency bridge asset for global payments, where utility drives long-term pricing. David Schwartz Challenges The Cheap XRP Narrative In a recent X post, Diana revealed that the Ripple ex-CTO David Joelkatz Schwartz has revisited one of his most widely discussed statements from 2017, that XRP “can’t be dirt cheap,” and clarified that the community has long misunderstood it. Many interpreted the comment through the lens of investor gains, but Schwartz now emphasized that this was from a payments perspective. Related Reading: XRP Analyst Shares What To Expect Once Ripple Taps This $12.5 Trillion Industry He explained that the statement was rooted in XRP’s role as a payment tool, not from a holder’s perspective. At the same time, he referred specifically to the mechanics of using XRP to move value across borders. From a payments standpoint, the dollar value of a transaction remains constant regardless of the XRP price. However, if XRP is priced too low, significantly more tokens are required to process the same transactions. This creates more friction, slippage, and inefficiency for large flows. In contrast, a higher XRP price can make large-scale payment use efficient, not because holders need a pump, but because the system works better with fewer tokens. REAL Token Powers The Next Phase Of XRP Ledger Growth Momentum around XRP continues to build as major players double down on its long-term prospects. An influencer and ambassador known as Ledger Man on X has noted that Yoshitaka Kitao, the CEO of Japan’s SBI Holdings, has reportedly expressed strong confidence in XRP’s future, even suggesting that the asset could become very expensive as adoption grows. Related Reading: XRP Ledger Linked To SWIFT In New Wave Of Backend Integration Speculation This outlook comes as SBI deepens its collaboration with Ripple, exploring new initiatives including RLUSD integration and blockchain-based bond solutions. Meanwhile, attention is turning to the expanding ecosystem around the XRP Ledger. In less than 10 days, RealFi is expected to unveil a major partnership, an announcement aimed at expanding XRPL globally. Powered by the REAL Token, the initiative is designed to introduce payment rewards across multiple industries, signaling a broader push to bring real-world utility to blockchain technology. Ledger Man emphasized that these developments highlight a growing convergence, and RealFi is rapidly gaining momentum. The conversation around tokenization is gaining urgency at the highest levels of finance. According to Amelie’s post, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink had recently argued that the industry may be underestimating how rapidly every financial asset could become tokenized. This broader vision appears to align with the developments on the XRP Ledger. On April 17th, a major global partnership is expected to launch on the XRPL, with REAL Token built on XRPL, it’s positioned to help power the ecosystem. Featured image from Vectorstock, chart from Tradingview.com
Wall Street spent years talking about tokenization, but never seemed to move beyond vague plans and pilot projects. This week, however, we've seen a culmination of various efforts and incentives that showed it's finally taking things seriously. BMO said it plans to launch tokenized cash capabilities with CME Group and Google Cloud for real-time payments […]
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The Ethereum Foundation brought together some of the world’s most influential financial players in New York City for an exclusive, invitation-only institutional forum on how traditional finance is engaging with ETH. This gathering signals a growing focus on bridging the gap between decentralized technologies and traditional finance, as major players increasingly explore blockchain integration. Institutional Participation Signals Growing Confidence In Ethereum The Ethereum Foundation hosted a high-level invite-only institutional forum in New York City, drawing participation from hundreds of banks, asset managers, and infrastructure providers representing a combined $250 trillion in assets under management (AUM). An investor known as Milk Road on X revealed that major players, including BlackRock, Western Union, Robinhood, Moody’s, Baillie Gifford, and Securitize, took part in panels as builders, actively working on solutions within the ETH ecosystem. Related Reading: Ethereum Foundation Launches Bold New Push To Accelerate DeFi Growth Before now, institutional adoption used to be a bumper sticker, a story investors told themselves to feel better about the asset they already held. This move is different because the firms managing a combined $250 trillion in assets sat in rooms and talked about what they’re actually building on ETH. In addition, the ETH Foundation used the event to unveil its post-quantum security strategy and launch a dedicated resource hub. Addressing such forward-looking challenges in a room filled with major financial institutions sends a signal. Milk Road noted that the ETH Foundation is positioning its infrastructure to evolve over decades, not just short-term market cycles. For those who have questioned whether major institutions would move beyond experimentation, the developments in New York offered a compelling counterpoint. Bitmine Launches Staking Model, ETH Network Activity Surges Tom Lee, alongside Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), has officially launched MAVAN, the made-in-America Validator Network. According to Tom Lee Tracker, MAVAN is set to become the largest Ethereum staking platform globally, with approximately 3,142,643 ETH already staked, valued at around $6.8 billion based on an estimated price of $2,148 per ETH. Related Reading: Ethereum Sees Increased Whale Activity Following Optimistic Remarks From Tom Lee The scale of growth is accelerating, with over 101,776 ETH, worth around $219 million, staked in the past week alone. At full deployment, the network is projected to generate nearly $300 million in annualized staking rewards. Beyond ETH, MAVAN is also expected to expand into additional proof-of-stake chains and broader blockchain infrastructure. Activity on the Ethereum network is surging, with daily transactions rising at an explosive pace. Crypto investor known as CW on X has stated that despite the price weakness, the network activity still remains at an all-time high level. Such a growth is not a signal of a bear market, as the price has dropped, but some investors are working very hard under the surface. Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com
BlackRock's BUIDL is the largest tokenized fund with about $1.7 billion worth of Treasuries, overnight repos, and cash under management.
Morgan Stanley’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) appears close to launch, giving Wall Street one of its clearest signs yet that a major US bank is ready to put its own name directly on a BTC product. On March 25, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) posted a listing notice for the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin […]
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Ripple is being viewed as a key player in the evolving push toward tokenized financial markets, as the New York Stock Exchange advances its plans to bring traditional assets onto blockchain rails. This development signals a broader shift on Wall Street, where traditional infrastructure is beginning to intersect with blockchain-driven innovation, settlement layer, and transition from legacy systems to faster and more transparent digital infrastructure. How Ripple Is Positioned At The Core Of Financial Transformation Wall Street has just surrendered to Ripple, as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) takes a decisive step to launch the tokenized securities era. Crypto analyst Pumpius has revealed on X that the exchange overseeing $30 trillion in market capitalization has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Securitize. Related Reading: Ripple Pushes XRP Global With Multi-Continent Expansion Drive They named it the first official transfer agent allowed to mint blockchain native securities on its upcoming NYSE digital trading platform. However, this infrastructure is being built for all activity to move on-chain. The shift will be bullish for XRP and Ripple because, for years, the firm has long focused on tokenizing real-world assets and building institutional-grade blockchain rails. Within that framework, XRP was built as the neutral bridge asset for value transfer in a tokenized world, facilitating fast, low-cost, and regulatory-friendly transactions that are already battle-tested by banks. While narrative was speculating, Ripple was positioning XRP as the liquidity engine that allows tokenized securities to move across borders and chains without friction. Furthermore, Pumpius argues that adding the NYSE and Securitize will result in the expansion of tokenized equities. Meanwhile, major players such as BlackRock, JPMorgan, and SWIFT continue to explore tokenization and blockchain settlement, and the entire $100 trillion real-world assets market needs a global settlement layer. Here, XRP sits between this shift with On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), RLUSD, and partnerships that have reached the world’s biggest financial institutions. Pumpius emphasized that XRP might be the bridge they will use when the first tokenized Apple or BlackRock ETF settles on-chain and needs instant global rails. Ripple Custody Bridges Traditional Finance And Blockchain The February 2026 report reveals how institutions are actively leveraging Ripple Custody. An analyst known as SMQKE on X noted that Ripple Custody supported DZ Bank in launching a digital custody service for crypto securities in under 10 months, through the deployment of a robust digital asset infrastructure. Related Reading: Ripple’s New Whitepaper Shows What’s Coming For XRP Meanwhile, at the core of these solutions are XRP and Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD. With these capabilities, financial institutions across over 20 jurisdictions have been able to develop, expand, and scale digital asset business models with confidence. Meanwhile, Ripple Custody is now used across these jurisdictions, and XRP and RLUSD are allowed to support the entire lifecycle of a tokenized asset. Featured image from Freepik, chart from Tradingview.com
BlackRock's Chief Executive Larry Fink told shareholders this year that digital assets, alongside private markets, insurance, and active ETFs, could each become $500 million revenue generators for the firm within five years. According to him: “Private markets to insurance, private markets to wealth, digital assets, and active ETFs, we think these can all be $500 […]
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In his 2026 annual shareholder letter, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink laid out an ambitious outlook for the firm’s presence in digital assets, forecasting that BlackRock’s crypto business — and the broader market — could be generating roughly $500 million in annual revenue within the next five years. Tokenization Will ‘Update The Plumbing’ Of Finance As reported by Forbes, BlackRock has positioned itself as a market leader in Bitcoin (BTC), handling about 800,000 BTC worth approximately $55 billion for its clients through its iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF). Beyond Bitcoin exposure, BlackRock has expanded into tokenized funds: its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, known as BUIDL, became the world’s largest tokenized fund last year after surpassing $2 billion in assets under management (AuM). Related Reading: Circle (CRCL) Crashes Below $100 After Senate Revises Crypto Bill To Ban Stablecoin Rewards Fink singled out tokenized products and stablecoin operations as major pillars of the firm’s strategy, disclosing that BlackRock manages $65 billion of stablecoin reserves and nearly $80 billion of digital-asset exchange-traded products (ETPs). Those figures, the executive said, reflect how BlackRock has moved quickly to establish institutional-quality offerings in the digital markets. Additionally, the CEO argued that tokenization has the potential to “update the plumbing of the financial system,” broadening access to investments in the same way the internet expanded commerce in the 1990s. BlackRock CEO Warns US Risks Losing Crypto Lead Citing research from Juniper, Fink noted that about half the world’s population already carries a digital wallet on their phone, and suggested that those same wallets could one day be used to invest in diversified portfolios as easily as sending a payment. Fink painted tokenization as a generational opportunity and warned of strategic risk if the US falls behind. Last year, he urged faster adoption of digitization and tokenization, arguing that other nations could overtake the US if it lags. Related Reading: Bitcoin Expert Predicts ‘Golden Entry Window’ For Next Bull Market In October 2026 At the same time, the BlackRock CEO pushed back on skeptics like Warren Buffett who dub Bitcoin “worthless,” characterizing the asset instead as one that people hold for reasons tied to insecurity. “You own bitcoin because you’re frightened of your physical security. You own it because you’re frightened of your financial security,” he wrote in its shareholders letter, adding that a longer-term rationale for holding Bitcoin is protection against the debasement of financial assets driven by fiscal deficits. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $69,420, down 2% over the last 24 hours and down 7% over the last seven days, amid a broader market sell-off on Tuesday. This follows last week’s rejection at the $76,000 resistance level, which the cryptocurrency failed to surpass. Featured image from the Wall Street Journal, chart from TradingView.com
The asset management giant's Robbie Mitchnic said clients are focused on bitcoin, ether and only a few other tokens, and aren't looking for broad exposure. Rather, they see opportunity for crypto in artificial intelligence.
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Fink's comments come as Congress and regulators explore how tokenization — using blockchain technology — could improve markets.
In his annual letter, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink argues that digital wallets and tokenized assets could modernize markets and expand investor access.
Fresh ETF inflows, digital asset treasury buying and a shift away from bitcoin to altcoins are helping lift the second-largest cryptocurrency.
The institutional access to Ethereum continues to expand as traditional finance deepens its involvement in digital asset markets. A new development drawing attention is the launch of BlackRock’s ETHB, which introduces another potential channel for capital to flow into the ETH ecosystem. This product provides investors with regulated exposure to ETH through familiar market infrastructure. BlackRock has opened a new potential inflow channel for Ethereum with the launch of its staked ETH Trust, ETHB, which has begun trading. Analyst Milk Road has revealed on X that this ETHB is not just another ETH ETF, but one that actually pays investors while holding it. The development follows the rapid growth of BlackRock’s earlier crypto funds. The firm’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF has grown to roughly $55 billion in assets, while its first ETH ETF product, iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA), reached about $6.5 billion in assets shortly after launch. Both funds are ranked among the fastest-growing ETF launches in history, and ETHB is attempting to achieve what neither product couldn’t by combining ETH price exposure with staking rewards, which is the closest thing crypto has to a dividend. How The New Product Provides Exposure To Ethereum Staking For many investors, direct staking can be complicated, and participating typically requires 32 ETH, a technical setup, and acceptance of certain lock-up risks. ETHB aims to simplify that process by packaging staking within a regulated investment product that can be purchased through a standard brokerage account. The fund also introduces a relatively low management fee set at 0.12% on the first $2.5 billion in assets. Related Reading: Ethereum Staking Reaches Historic Levels, Price Hovers Near $2K Milk Road explains that if this move is successful, ETH could increasingly be treated as a yield-generating digital asset within a 401(k). Retirement accounts and pension funds can now gain access to staking rewards without directly interacting with wallets. For many, ETH is a technology bet and a narrative that takes a real hit, but it is now an income-generating digital asset. Thus, the first wave of spot ETH ETFs launched without staking functionality was rejected by the regulators. Now, they’ve accepted it because the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) effectively says that staking rewards are not securities, at least when wrapped inside a BlockRock product. Related Reading: Ethereum Breakout Alert: Corrective Channel Flip Sparks Impulsive Wave With BlackRock already managing tens of billions of dollars in BTC and ETH, ETHB presents a third channel for investor flow. Milk Road believes that if the product follows the same trajectory, it could become a significant new driver of institutional demand for ETH. Ethereum Sees Another Wave Of Aggressive Long Position Accumulation An analyst known as CW highlighted that Ethereum has continued to experience strong net buying pressure in long positions, following a surge that first appeared the previous day. The buying pattern closely mirrors the wave that occurred earlier, where large-scale purchases were executed within a short timeframe. Currently, the market appears to be taking a brief pause after the surge in long positions. Featured image from Freepik, chart from Tradingview.com
Circle’s USYC tokenized U.S. Treasury fund has grown to $2.2 billion, surpassing BlackRock’s BUIDL fund as investors increasingly seek onchain yield and collateral.
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has expanded its digital assets offering and debuted its staked Ethereum (ETH) Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) on Nasdaq. Amid the news, the King of Altcoins is attempting to break out of its local range to challenge its bearish outlook. Related Reading: BNB Chain Dominates 40% Of Global Stablecoin Transactions With Small-Value Transfers BlackRock Debuts Staked Ethereum ETF On Thursday, BlackRock introduced the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB) on Nasdaq to “provide investors with exposure to spot ether while potentially generating income by staking a portion of its ether holdings.” The ETH-based fund expands the asset management giant’s digital asset suite, which includes the largest Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs) of their kind, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) and the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA). As reported by NewsBTC, BlackRock submitted an S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its ETHB fund in December. The registration statement revealed that the fund sought to stake 70% to 90% of its Ethereum holdings and distribute staking rewards to stakeholders at least quarterly. The fund is set to share 82% of staking rewards with investors, while the remaining 18% will be split among the trust, custodians, and its staking service providers. BlackRock chose Coinbase Custody Trust as the custodian for the Trust’s ETH holdings, while Anchorage Digital Bank will serve as an available alternative custodian for the Trust’s ether holdings. Meanwhile, the Bank of New York Mellon is the Trust’s cash holdings custodian and administrator, according to the fund’s prospectus. In the official statement, Jessica Tan, Head of Americas for Global Product Solutions at BlackRock, affirmed that “Investors are increasingly allocating to digital assets as part of their strategic portfolio construction, and ETHB provides access to income and exposure to the asset in a convenient, transparent way.” “We continue to innovate to meet client demand and expand access, while providing the transparency and risk management clients expect from BlackRock,” she continued. ETH Price Holds Amid Breakdown Fears Following the news, ETH’s price broke above the $2,090 level to reach a one-week high of $2,095 before retracing. Analyst Ted Pillows noted that despite market volatility, the cryptocurrency has held the $2,000 psychological barrier throughout the past three days. “The macro uncertainty is still there, but Ethereum’s overall strength is good,” he said, adding that the King of Altcoins needs to reclaim the crucial $2,150 area for a rally. He forecasted that Ethereum could see a “10%-15% quick rally” once this level is reclaimed. Meanwhile, Rekt Capital underscored a critical level on ETH’s weekly and monthly charts. As previously reported, ETH is currently testing its multi-year uptrend, a structural support that has held since mid-2022. Last month, Ethereum marginally closed below its multi-year support, opening the possibility for this level to become resistance on March’s monthly close. On the weekly timeframe, ETH has recorded four consecutive closes below the trendline, suggesting the market is likely beginning to treat this key level as resistance instead of support. “Structurally, this behaviour resembles the early stage of a breakdown process, where price initially loses support, rallies back into it and begins treating the level as resistance,” the analyst explained, but emphasized that the breakdown is not confirmed yet. Related Reading: Hyperliquid Rockets as Oil Touches $100: Arthur Hayes Reveals Why Therefore, Ethereum could invalidate the bearish scenario if the price closes the week above the multi-year uptrend and successfully tests it as support. “A successful reclaim could then open the door toward the green resistance region above, which has historically acted as a major pivot in Ethereum’s broader trend,” he concluded. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
The BlackRock’s iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB) lets investors earn staking rewards alongside spot ETH exposure.
As the financial industry accelerates its push toward tokenising real-world assets, attention is increasingly turning to the infrastructure that could support this transformation. Advocates argue that XRP and the XRP Ledger may already have the tools that are needed for this shift and have supported asset issuance and tokenized value transfers long before the concept became a mainstream focus in global finance. How The XRP Ledger Handles Asset Issuance At Scale The current developments around XRP are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore as the broader financial world begins focusing on tokenisation. According to a post on X by crypto analyst XFinanceBull, the former Ripple executive Ashish Birla has recently highlighted a crucial detail that many investors may overlook: the XRP Ledger was already capable of tokenizing assets such as gold more than a decade ago. Related Reading: Ripple Exec Clears The Air On Blocked XRP Transactions – When Does It Happen? Meanwhile, the infrastructure was built long before the current wave of institutional interest in tokenised finance. Currently, major financial firms such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are actively entering the tokenisation race. As regulatory clarity gradually evolves, institutional capital is flowing into the digital asset infrastructure, and the market is finally focusing on the same challenge the XRP Ledger was designed to address. If tokenised real-world assets moving on-chain eventually reach trillions of dollars in scale, the network that provides the rails that settle value could become extremely important. Xfinancebull argues that the technology cycles tend to follow a predictable path, in which infrastructure is built first, and then price follows adoption. The Math Behind XRP Ledger’s Massive Throughput Potential The question of whether the XRP Ledger can handle real global-scale transaction volume is best answered with simple math. Crypto investor Grape explained that the network closes roughly every 3 to 5 seconds and can sustain about 1,500 transactions per second under normal conditions, which translates to roughly 129 million transactions per day without reaching its limits. Related Reading: XRP’s Real Value Will Arrive When Infrastructure Is Ready — Here’s Why Grape pointed out a major stress test conducted in 2021 involving Ripple and Pyypl pushing the public XRPL beyond 50,000 transactions per second while still maintaining a settlement time of 3 to 4 seconds, which amounts to approximately 4.3 billion per day. When compared to other payment and blockchain systems, the numbers are notable. Visa averages around 1,700 transactions per second, with a peak capacity of 65,000, while Ethereum processes roughly 15 to 30 transactions per second, and Bitcoin averages 7 transactions per second. Ripple CTO David Schwartz noted that the upper limits of the network are still unknown. Despite that capacity, the XRPL network is currently processing only about 1 million transactions per day, which represents less than 1% of its tested capacity. In this view, the limiting factor for XRPL is not infrastructure, but the level of real-world adoption. Featured image from Peakpx, chart from Tradingview.com
The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
U.S. BTC ETFs added $458 million, suggesting institutional buyers are absorbing the weekend shock that briefly sent BTC to $63,000.
Bitcoin price opened US trading session strongly with a 3% surge above $68,000, according to CryptoSlate's data. This marked a significant difference to its first response, which looked nothing like a clean safe-haven trade following the latest Middle East tensions. When headlines hit over the weekend about US strikes on Iran, the flagship digital asset […]
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Even as crypto sentiment remains weak, JPMorgan analysts see the possible mid-year approval of U.S. market structure legislation as a positive catalyst.
Institutional capital has transformed the cryptocurrency market dynamics, changing who participates and how digital assets are traded. The arrival of spot exchange-traded funds, corporate treasury allocations, and access through major brokerage platforms has pulled Bitcoin and Ethereum deeper into traditional finance. Vanguard, for instance, reversed its long-held anti-crypto stance just a few months ago, allowing trading in funds that hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana. However, talking about bad timing, these cryptocurrencies have struggled in the months following that policy change. Challenging Months For Institutional Investors The entrance of major asset managers such as BlackRock and Fidelity Investments was a structural turning point for Bitcoin. The January 2024 launch of Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States opened the door for pension funds, registered investment advisors, and other conservative capital pools to gain exposure without directly holding Bitcoin. These ETFs have accumulated billions of dollars in inflows, with custodians now holding a meaningful share of Bitcoin’s circulating supply. Related Reading: Here’s All You Need To Know About The Bitcoin Price This Week However, the past few months have been really challenging for investors. Notably, the last month of inflows into Spot Bitcoin ETFs was in October 2025, when it was pushing to new all-time highs above $126,000. Since then, it has been months of net outflows, and this has weighed down on Bitcoin’s price action. Same goes for Spot Ethereum ETFs, which recorded consecutive months of outflows since November 2025. Vanguard clients are likely among those feeling the impact most directly. In December 2025, US-based investment management company Vanguard reversed its anti-crypto stance and started allowing trading of ETFs and mutual funds that hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana. The availability of these crypto products on a major mainstream brokerage like Vanguard was a milestone for crypto investing. Vanguard manages over $12 trillion in assets and serves tens of millions of investors. Unsurprisingly, the price action of Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies initially reacted positively to the Vanguard news. However, the timing coincided with a downturn across the entire crypto market, which has been having a red 2026 so far. Since Vanguard’s rollout, Bitcoin’s price has fallen by about 30%, while Ethereum, Solana, and XRP have fallen by about 40% in the same period. Is Institutional Involvement A Threat Or A Sign Of Maturity? It is clear that institutional entry has not erased the volatile nature of crypto markets. Bitcoin and Ethereum are still subject to swings in investor risk appetite, although this is now at a larger scale. Therefore, the question of whether institutions are killing Bitcoin and Ethereum is based on perspective. Related Reading: Why Investors Are Not Buying Bitcoin And Ethereum Despite ‘Low’ Prices The presence of regulated ETFs means that downturns are now absorbed by a wider set of market participants. Companies like BitMine and Strategy are still in the business of huge purchases. New investor bases like this can help sustain prices over time. However, one thing is clear: cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana are no longer fringe assets operating outside the traditional investment system; they now sit within it. This integration will even become more clear once the CLARITY Act is passed in the US. Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com