The news that came in on December 5 #美联储重启降息步伐 made the crypto market nervous. In Europe, large-scale scrutiny of crypto assets has begun, the Fed’s rate cut has been postponed again, and the dollar is still getting stronger. To make matters worse, a few big whales started cashing out and leaving, directly liquidating a bunch of leveraged positions. With all these factors combined, market sentiment instantly cooled off.

Mainstream coins like Bitcoin are under obvious pressure—their prices are dropping and volatility has surged. A quick look at history shows that when regulation is unclear and liquidity expectations are changing, market risk appetite inevitably takes a hit. In the short term, it’s definitely a tough situation.

However, there’s some good news from the US side. On the same day, the CFTC announced that spot crypto products will soon be able to trade on federally regulated legitimate markets. This is no small matter—it means these assets finally have a clear compliance pathway. For traditional financial institutions, the barriers to entry are basically gone, and the whole industry’s compliance is taking a big step forward.

Speaking of institutions, US banks and brokerages are moving fast. Quite a few top institutions have officially allowed financial advisors to recommend crypto ETFs to clients, and Bitcoin-related products are now available for allocation. The data is interesting: in the past few months, the proportion of institutional funds in the crypto market jumped from 15% straight to 28%. These professional players coming in have indeed provided significant support to the market.

Of course, institutions aren’t going in blindly. The general recommendation is to keep crypto assets within 4% of an individual’s total portfolio, with more conservative investors allocating as little as 1%. Strict risk control is the consensus.

This is a pretty subtle stage right now. In the short term, factors like European scrutiny, monetary policy expectations, and whale moves are definitely creating adjustment pressure. But in the long run, US regulatory breakthroughs and institutional participation are injecting new momentum into the industry. The market needs to find a balance between short-term volatility and long-term logic—the clearer the regulation, the more incremental funds will dare to come in, but leverage risk and policy uncertainty also can't be ignored.

The suggestion is to remain cautious but not overly pessimistic, and focus on projects with strong compliance and solid fundamentals. With a strategic perspective, the long-term value of the industry is still worth capturing. $BTC