The cryptocurrency market has changed, and if you’ve been paying attention, you will know exactly where this market is heading. 

Up until this point, each crypto bull cycle has had a catalyst or point of hype that defined each cycle. 2012 was the first Bitcoin halving, 2017 was ICOs on Ethereum. Then, 2021 was DeFi and meme coins. If you were paying attention and invested wisely, you could have become very wealthy.

Fast-forward to 2025, and we currently find ourselves in the midst of another bull market. Yet the crypto market has changed more during the last 4 years than most of us could have ever imagined.

We have seen publicly traded companies such as Microstrategy become nearly the first to start their own Bitcoin reserve. We also saw countries like El Salvador that made Bitcoin legal tender in their country.

If those weren’t enough, we would then see BlackRock enter the Bitcoin game with their own spot Bitcoin ETF application, which would later be approved and start a stampede rush of rival Bitcoin ETFs. The game had changed. 

Finally, just as we couldn’t predict what the next move in the market would be. That is when Donald Trump made Bitcoin a key component of his Presidential campaign, which would lead to the approval of real crypto regulation in the USA for the first time and the creation of the US Bitcoin reserve. It is truly amazing just how far this market has gone in just a handful of years. It wasn’t too long ago that the FTX fraud was discovered, and there was real fear that the death blow had finally been dealt to this market.

Yet, this market stood back up and has become even stronger. 

With everything that has happened, it leaves most investors wondering what is next. What is the next move, and what will be the thing that defines this bull market?

If you have been paying attention, it has become abundantly clear.

This bull cycle will be remembered as the institutional cycle.

The hard truth is that the only two crypto projects that have drawn a significant amount of institutional interest are Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Strategy (formerly Microstrategy) owns over 600,000 BTC. Other companies, such as Metaplanet, Semler Scientific also following the same acquisition methods as strategy. That isn’t even taking into account the rush of Bitcoin treasury companies that have begun to pop up everywhere. All with one goal: to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible. Canter Fitzgerald, being the most recent addition, is starting their own Bitcoin strategy, beginning with $4 billion. This is only the beginning, and it has caused Bitcoin’s price to reach new all-time highs at $122k. The sky is truly the limit.

A new player has entered the market.

Ethereum has also begun to draw significant institutional interest. While Bitcoin is compared to gold as a much better digital version. Ethereum, on the other hand, has smart contracts, is programmable, and allows for things to be built on top of it. Perhaps even more importantly, with stablecoin regulation being approved in the US, ETH is the most trusted blockchain for stablecoins, and it isn’t even close.

Tom Lee, recently appointed the chairman of the board at Bitmine Immersion Technologies, is aiming to become the Microstrategy of Ethereum. With their goal of someday owning up to 5% of all ETH. They aren’t alone, though. Sharplink Gaming, led by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, has also begun to implement its own similar strategy. 

Just these companies alone are gobbling up more ETH than is issued each day. And then you need to take into account all of the Ethereum that is locked up through DeFi and Staking. That is when you can begin to see how bullish the scenario for Ethereum is becoming. Once the price moves near its previous all-time high, that will be when things become very interesting. 

The key point is this. Without a doubt, this bull market has been the cycle of institutional adoption. You need to be paying attention to where the money is and what they are buying. They are sending us a clear message. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the only assets that you should be holding for the long term in this market. They are the blue chips, and everything is just noise. You might be able to make some gains in the short term by buying other altcoins, but in the end, they all trend toward zero against BTC/ETH.

I would much rather own the truly valuable assets rather than a handful of junk.

How about you? Do you think this is the institutional bull cycle?

As always, thank you for reading!