Robinhood’s earnings provide a clear signal of where retail enthusiasm stands. Transaction-based revenue climbed 15% year-over-year to $776 million, fueled by options and equities trading. In contrast, cryptocurrency revenue dropped 38% to $221 million.
Retail participation in markets continues at a healthy pace, as broader trading volumes make clear. The difference now is that crypto no longer sits at the center of that activity the way it did during the peak of the cycle.
The way prices have behaved points in the same direction. Bitcoin now trades around $65,400, roughly 46% below its $122,000 all-time high. Ethereum sits near $1,915, down about 60% from its $4,830 peak. Those are drawdowns that test conviction and flush out short-term traders. Without a steady wave of new retail buyers stepping in, quick recoveries become harder to sustain.
Meanwhile, everyday investors haven’t stepped back from markets altogether.
The broader investing public is more active in traditional markets than they’ve been in years. Individual traders accounted for roughly 20% of total U.S. stock trading volume in Q3 2025 – the second-highest level on record and close to the 2021 meme-stock surge.
Before 2020, retail participation typically hovered near 15%. Meanwhile, long-only mutual funds and hedge funds each represented about 15% of trading volume last quarter, meaning individual investors now rival major institutional categories in equities.
Source: X
Crypto, however, is telling a different story. Data from CryptoQuant shows institutional Bitcoin holdings continued to expand throughout 2025, while retail holdings trended in the opposite direction.
Image source: CryptoQuant
Image source: Outset PR
Maximilian Fondé, Outset PR’s senior media analyst, in an exclusive commentary for Benzinga, pointed to how widespread the slowdown was.
“When you see more than two-thirds of outlets lose engagement at the same time, that tells you retail interest has pulled back across the board,” he said. “That’s different from money simply moving from one project to another.”
A Market Split in Two
Institutions, meanwhile, kept leaning in.
Tom Lee’s firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, recently added more than 40,000 ETH to its holdings despite sitting on roughly $7.5 billion in unrealized losses. The company now controls over 4.3 million ETH – about 3.6% of the circulating supply.
For Lee, the ETH drawdown appears to signal opportunity. He has argued that Ethereum historically experiences V-shaped recoveries after major declines and views the current pullback as part of a longer-term accumulation strategy.
The same signal appears on the Bitcoin side.
Strategy (former MicroStrategy) recently spent another $90 million to purchase 1,142 BTC at a cost basis of roughly $78,815 per coin. The firm’s nearly $50 billion Bitcoin position remains below its aggregate acquisition cost after BTC’s recent 23% monthly decline.
We saw that hesitation reflected in how attention concentrated rather than expanded. In Q4, direct traffic accounted for roughly 44% of total visits to crypto news outlets, suggesting the audience that remained was largely intentional rather than hype-driven. At the same time, more than 95% of total traffic flowed to tier-one publishers, reinforcing the idea that participation narrowed rather than rotated.
Image source: Outset PR
When retail drives the market, big swings attract more buyers. When institutions dominate, those same swings tend to scare smaller traders away.
That changes the way this market feels. In the hype phase, almost everything moves together and even average picks can look smart for a while. In this phase, that cushion disappears. Some assets grind higher, others drift sideways, and many simply don’t recover. Showing up isn’t enough anymore and choosing carefully matters more.
In practical terms, that means broad 2x rallies are harder to find. Instead of chasing the loudest narrative, investors are forced to be more selective, and often more patient.
That change is visible in who is actually setting the tone right now. BitMine and Strategy are good examples. Both are accumulating into weakness, not reacting to momentum. Instead of straight-up rallies driven by waves of new traders, the market moves in stretches – weeks of chop, then a push, then another reset. It’s less dramatic, but also less chaotic.
From Here On Out
Retail investors remain active in markets, but crypto currently sits outside their main focus. Without a steady flow of new individual buyers, the easy flip phase naturally loses speed. Breakouts require stronger foundations, and rallies tend to build more gradually rather than lifting everything at once.
What happens next depends largely on whether retail capital rotates back into digital assets. A renewed wave of individual participation could quickly change the tempo, just as it has in previous cycles. Broader enthusiasm tends to compress timeframes and amplify momentum. When that energy fades, markets move differently.
For everyday investors, this means adjusting expectations to the environment in front of them. Selectivity matters more. Patience carries weight. Some opportunities will still emerge, but they are less likely to be driven by collective euphoria and more likely to reward discipline.
Until retail returns in force, this is a market shaped more by conviction than by excitement.
Featured Image Source: Author
Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
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