 ▲ Cryptocurrency © |
The recent virtual asset market suffered a devastating 47% سقوط from its peak, wiping out a staggering $2 trillion in value, but the core fundamentals supporting the market still point to a solid bull run.
According to investment media outlet FX Empire on Feb. 22 (local time), the trigger for this flash crash was U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to raise tariffs amid stalled trade negotiations with China. The massive liquidation event that began on Oct. 10 erased $16 billion in long positions within just hours, sparking a deadly chain of sell-offs across the market for the next four and a half months. As extreme fear gripped investors, sensational headlines once again proclaimed the “death of Bitcoin (BTC).”
However, beneath the pessimistic surface, institutional capital inflows remain resilient. Regulated investment products such as cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs), which entered Wall Street last year, attracted a massive $47.2 billion in total inflows. Although the recent price decline halved total assets under management (AUM) from $260 billion last October to $132 billion last week, with $1.3 billion flowing out this year, Wall Street’s appetite for crypto has not waned. Investment demand continues to expand across Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), and Chainlink (LINK).
The explosive growth of the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market is another powerful testament to the practical utility of blockchain technology. The total value of this market surged 17% in less than two months, from $21.2 billion at the end of last year to $24.9 billion. Tokenized gold products such as Tether’s XAUT and Paxos’s PAXG account for 19% of the market, while products like BlackRock’s U.S. Treasury fund BUIDL suggest that institutional on-chain adoption is evolving beyond mere speculation into a tangible financial infrastructure.
Notably, Bitcoin appears to be evolving beyond its traditional “digital gold” narrative into a fully independent asset class. Amid macroeconomic instability in 2025, gold surged 65% while Bitcoin fell 6%; this year, gold climbed 16% as Bitcoin plunged 23%. Bitcoin has also diverged completely from the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index over the past two years, demonstrating that rather than serving as a perfect hedge against macroeconomic shocks, it behaves as a distinct asset driven by its own dynamics.
The outlet assessed that despite the extreme fear currently prevailing in the market, positive narratives such as ETF inflows and the expansion of the tokenization market still overwhelmingly dominate. As Bitcoin strengthens its position as a unique asset rather than a replica of gold, the recent crash may mark not the end of the crypto era but the beginning of an entirely new chapter characterized by accelerating institutional adoption.
Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only and does not take responsibility for any investment losses incurred based on it. The content should be interpreted solely for informational purposes.