The crypto world has indeed changed. Over the past two years, a large influx of institutional funds has completely transformed the way the market operates.

The most intuitive feeling is that market movements are becoming harder to read. On December 27th, BTC hovered around $87,000, with only a 0.12% decline throughout the day. It seems quiet, but the long-short contract ratio was locked at 0.99, and the 24-hour liquidation amount approached 100 million USD—both longs and shorts are getting no gains. ETH isn't much better, fluctuating around $2900, with a daily drop of 1.05%.

The Layer 2 ecosystem has already handled over 60% of transaction volume. Base leads with a 62% share of Layer 2 revenue, but the token just can't take off. This is the current dilemma—industry data looks good, but the token prices don't reflect that.

Looking at the holdings structure, the problem becomes clearer. Institutional holdings have risen to 24%, while retail investors are retreating at a rate of 66%. BlackRock's IBIT alone holds 800,000 BTC, more than MicroStrategy. The top three institutions directly monopolize 89% of BTC spot ETF assets. What does this mean? Pricing power is no longer in the hands of retail investors.

The correlation between BTC and the S&P 500 has risen to 0.5, binding it more tightly to traditional finance, and its volatility logic is also changing strangely. Institutions operate based on macro asset allocation, while retail investors still trade short-term using old methods, only to be repeatedly cut.

Here are some tips for retail investors who want to survive:

**For derivatives:** Never leverage heavily to fight the market. Instead of betting on direction, focus on funding rates and on-chain transfer counts (maintained at around 390,000-400,000 transactions daily) to gauge the market's true sentiment.

**For coin selection:** BTC is more resilient than ETH and other tokens because of ETF support. Be especially cautious with trending tokens—they're easy targets for institutional harvesting.

**For sector layout:** RWA (Real-World Assets) is a promising direction. Ethereum hosts 64% of RWA deployments, which has long-term potential.

Those who can survive and profit in this market are always the ones who adapt quickly to changing rules. The market has already changed players—are you keeping up with your strategy?