Bitcoin Shatters $100K: Wall Street’s Takeover Leaves Retail in the Dust

Forget moonboys—this rally's fueled by blackrock balance sheets, not reddit threads.

When bitcoin punched through six figures this morning, the usual suspects screamed 'FOMO.' They're wrong. This isn't 2021. The ticker tape reads 'institutional adoption' in 50-foot letters.

Whales vs. Minnows

Spot ETFs now hold 4% of all BTC—more than MicroStrategy. Pension funds quietly allocate 1-3% to digital assets. Meanwhile, retail trading volumes stagnate at 2023 levels. The 'dumb money' isn't even in the pool anymore.

The New Calculus

Goldman Sachs reports 72% of family offices now treat crypto as a separate asset class. BlackRock's BTC holdings exceed JPMorgan's silver reserves. And—in a delicious twist—the SEC's revolving door spins faster than a bitcoin block timer.

This isn't your little brother's bull market. The suits cut out the middlemen, bypassed the memes, and turned Satoshi's experiment into just another column on their spreadsheets. The revolution will be institutionalized.

Transaction Size Matters

One of the key findings from the analysts was a change in transaction size. The economic volume settled on the network has remained historically elevated, with a yearly average of $7.5 billion settled per day, it noted.

However, the average transaction size has grown to around $36,000, indicating larger entities are increasingly dominating network usage. Additionally, transactions over $100,000 now account for 89% of network volume, up from 66% in 2022.

“This trend implies that larger entities continue to utilize the bitcoin network, with the throughput per transaction rising even as overall activity by count declines.”

Glassnode also reported that transaction fees have dropped, creating a historical divergence. Typically, bull markets NEAR all-time highs see fee spikes due to network congestion, but current fee pressure remains subdued despite elevated prices.

This combination of low transaction count and a heightened volume throughput suggests “large entities” are becoming increasingly dominant for on-chain activity, it stated before concluding:

“This shift highlights the maturation of the derivative complex around digital assets, and a MOVE toward more stable risk management practices.”

Retail Losing Confidence

Meanwhile, Santiment reported that “elite” wallet and “mortal” wallet activity are also diverging.

“When large wallets accumulate as retail loses confidence, this is historically the right combination for bullish momentum to inevitably return to crypto markets,” analysts noted.

Additionally, traders are showing signs of “impatience and bearish sentiment,” it noted in a separate post, adding that markets “historically move in the opposite direction of retail’s expectations.”

Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index, which measures market sentiment, has returned to neutral as the asset continues to trade sideways.

Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is 54 – Neutral
Current price: $104,276 pic.twitter.com/jhjlSn0s3A

— Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index (@BitcoinFear) June 20, 2025