Custodia CEO and key crypto determine Caitlin Lengthy has questioned the readiness of conventional finance companies for his or her first-ever crypto winter. Talking with CNBC on Friday on the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025, Lengthy emphasised that whereas Wall Avenue’s growing involvement has fueled the present market cycle, its legacy techniques and danger fashions could show insufficient when the inevitable bear market returns.
Wall Avenue Titans Might Not Be Prepared For A Crypto Market Downturn – Custodia Boss
In answering a query on the importance of institutional involvement within the crypto market, Lengthy contrasted the early days of crypto, when retail buyers and grassroots individuals labored to broaden decentralization and safe networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum, with right now’s panorama dominated by institutional finance. In keeping with the Custodia founder, the cycle is now largely pushed by Wall Avenue titans who’re constructing monetary wrappers, derivatives, and company treasuries round digital belongings.
Notably, institutional participation in crypto has hit document highs in recent times. The Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which launched early final 12 months, have been TradFi’s greatest digital asset success, boasting $53.80 billion in cumulative inflows. In the meantime, Spot Ethereum ETFs are starting to collect momentum, registering $8.20 billion because the starting of July alone.
Whereas this inflow has undoubtedly introduced credibility and capital to the sector, Lengthy warned that the standard playbooks of those establishments aren’t suited to belongings with finite provide, e.g, Bitcoin. The previous Morgan Stanley government and Custodia CEO mentioned:
….They (TradFi) are completely snug taking extra leverage than you’d take with an asset of finite provide as a result of they’ve all these mechanisms to bail them out within the occasion that provide for an asset turns into too tight. They’ve low cost window. They’ve fault tolerances constructed into the securities system in order that if the books don’t stability, it’s okay. They will at all times go the following day and get the shares from the market the following day.
In contrast, crypto operates in actual time with no exterior buffers. Caitlin Lengthy explains that this structural distinction might depart TradFi companies uncovered in the event that they try to use typical leverage and hedging methods to a market that behaves somewhat otherwise. Having witnessed a number of boom-and-bust cycles since 2012, the Custodia boss expressed certainty that one other downturn will come regardless of the outstanding market development within the current cycle, and questions whether or not conventional gamers will be capable of stand up to its impression.
Crypto Market Overview
On the time of writing, the entire market crypto cap is valued at $3.95 trillion, following a minor 0.94% decline previously day.
Featured picture from Fox Enterprise, chart from Tradingview

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