Bitcoin ETFs have just crossed $150 billion in AUM. BlackRock alone holds nearly $100 billion, the largest Bitcoin position in the world. Everyone sees the numbers. Few ask what they really mean. For a decade, "institutional adoption" in crypto meant investing through crypto-native infrastructure - exchanges, custodians, and on-chain protocols. And yes, it did scale: liquidity deepened, custody matured, large players entered. But not fast enough - and not under the level of reliability, regulation, and integration that major financial institutions require. The rails worked for traders and crypto funds. They didn’t yet work for banks, pension funds, or insurers managing trillions. Then came the ETFs. And in just a few months, they achieved what years of crypto infrastructure couldn’t: they made Bitcoin institutionally investable - seamlessly, compliantly, and within familiar frameworks. But here’s the key insight: The success of Bitcoin ETFs doesn’t mean crypto is institution-ready. It means institutions still don’t trust the crypto infrastructure enough to use it directly. They’re comfortable with the asset, but not with the rails. They buy through BlackRock, not through DeFi - and that says everything. The contrast couldn’t be clearer: - Bitcoin ETFs: over $150 billion AUM, massive inflows, global liquidity. - Tokenized money market funds: only a few billion in total AUM - even @BlackRock, @Spiko_finance, and @FTI_US's tokenized funds are still relatively small. - Stablecoins: issued by @circle and other regulated players, are growing fast but still only $80B, signaling strong interest but also that adoption is in early stages. Same idea - tokenizing traditional financial exposure - but a completely different scale. This shows the gap between demand and infrastructure maturity. Yet, it also highlights what’s coming next. As actors become more professional and regulation gets clearer, both tokenized money market funds and stablecoins are likely to experience the same acceleration that ETFs just did. Institutions want simplicity, compliance, and reliability - the exact reasons why Bitcoin ETFs exploded. Once those same conditions exist on-chain, the growth curve will look very similar. Institutions will want more than passive exposure - they’ll look for yield-bearing strategies, tokenized collateral, and on-chain products that meet their standards. The winners will be the builders who create the institutional layer of crypto - regulated, transparent, and interoperable with TradFi. At @TheBigWhale_, we’re following this evolution closely - through our dashboards, research reports, and market calls, helping investors understand where institutional adoption is truly accelerating. Our next Market Call is on November 12 with @Andre_Dragosch (@Bitwise_Europe) & @BukovskiBuko3 (@TheBigWhale_) We’ll dive deeper into these trends: ETFs, tokenized funds, and what they reveal about the next phase of institutional crypto. 🎟️

Just arrived in Prague for the @Trezor conference. Big week ahead. Let's go.