10T Holdings founder and macro investor Dan Tapiero has said institutional interest in Bitcoin represents a major change in the cryptocurrency landscape.
Speaking on TheStreet Roundtable, Tapiero emphasized the influence spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have had on education and availability.
“The ETF really changed things in terms of awareness, making it easy for people to just push a button, and all of a sudden, in their equity account, they’re long Bitcoin,” Tapiero said. “Again, they’re long the ETF, they’re not actually long Bitcoin.”
Institutions are making significant investments in Bitcoin
The growing involvement of financial behemoths like BlackRock and the U.S. government has proved divisive in the crypto community. Some early adopters and cypherpunks insist that Bitcoin was designed to function outside institutional control, enabling individuals to transact freely without reliance on traditional financial structures.
Others, however, welcome the influx of institutional money, believing it will drive further legitimacy and adoption.
Tapiero said he sees a resemblance between Bitcoin’s development and that of the gold market, where some investors want to hold physical gold, and others are happy trading gold ETFs or futures.
Source: TheStreet
The macro investor said that the world is big enough for both those who prefer to self-custody Bitcoin—keeping it on their ledger, carrying it in their pocket, or storing it in a safe without ever touching it—and those who simply want to trade it, use it as collateral, or generate yield.
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Scott Melker, host of the roundtable, asked if the rise in institutional adoption of Bitcoin is in line with its original vision.
Melker explained that the original cypherpunks made these assets to create parallel systems so that you could avoid governments and institutions. However, those aiming to boost the asset’s value are now applauding the entry of BlackRock and the U.S. government into the space.
Despite the philosophical debates, Tapiero remains convinced that institutional involvement is ultimately positive for Bitcoin’s development.
He added that all the hype and the overall awareness of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, digital assets, and Web3 will soon blend into every aspect of life. And though some people are going to keep self-custody and remain off the grid, both of them can co-exist.
More than 75% of institutional investors have increased their exposure to cryptocurrencies
Coinbase discovered in a study that most institutional investors planned to purchase more cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency-related investments in 2025 when the price of Bitcoin surged toward its all-time high of over $100,000 earlier in the year.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Coinbase and research partner EY-Parthenon stated that after surveying more than 350 institutional investors, they discovered that “more than three-quarters of surveyed investors expect to increase their allocations to digital assets in 2025, with 59% planning to allocate over 5% of assets under management to digital assets or related products.”
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Furthermore, Paul Brody, a global blockchain leader at EY, said that the level of adoption in the highest-net-worth individuals and family offices for some level of crypto, tokenized real-world assets, and DeFi was already quite high, but now the interest is spreading broadly into the institutional investor space.
The study was conducted in mid-January when Bitcoin’s price rose to more than $108,000. In addition, estimates were made before Donald Trump became president of the United States and filled his new government with officials who supported crypto.
The institutional investors that Coinbase surveyed stated that “regulatory clarity” was the primary driver behind their increased allocation to digital assets or products related to digital assets.
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