A recent annual outlook from a leading institution caught my attention, with an interesting judgment: "The end of the four-year cycle, the dawn of the institutional era." In simple terms, the game rules of the crypto market are changing.

The tactics of making money through hype cycles are becoming ineffective. What is replacing them? Compliant channels, long-term capital, and actual fundamentals. In other words, institutions are coming in, and the era of retail investors is coming to an end. And what is the root of all this? It is the increasingly clear global regulatory framework.

You can see the actions in various places. The MiCA framework in Europe has been fully rolled out, with regulations covering the entire chain from issuance to trading and stablecoins. Although some cross-border coordination issues were exposed in 2025, this precisely proves that regulation is deepening. On the U.S. side, significant actions are brewing—after stablecoin legislation, a bipartisan consensus framework for the crypto market is likely to be introduced in 2026, directly breaking the situation where the SEC and CFTC operate independently. Asia is also not falling behind; Hong Kong and Japan are raising crypto capital requirements according to Basel standards, while Singapore insists on a risk-oriented licensing system.

What does clearer regulation mean? It means that institutional funds can finally dare to enter the market in large quantities. Those big funds that were worried about policy risks can now lay out their strategies with peace of mind. The uncertainty of the fiat currency system is rising, while the scarcity of encryption assets is becoming more and more apparent. This contrast will become increasingly pronounced.