Institutions are not coming to save ‘crypto’ from itself

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“The institutions are coming” was a popular mantra in the digital currency space just a few years back.

While a few did come, such as BlackRock (NASDAQ: BLK) and Vanguard, with their BTC ETFs, the latest report on eTrading from JPMorgan (NASDAQ: JPM) suggests the vast majority aren’t interested, and the number of traders who think blockchain is an important technology has declined sharply.

The annual JPM eTrading survey surveyed 4,200 institutional traders. It showed that 71% of institutional investors have no intention of getting involved. 13% are currently trading, and 16% plan to enter the market.

While the price of BTC did increase significantly in the months following the BlackRock ETF announcement in January 2024, the industry is struggling to find a new narrative as memecoin mania damages its credibility, trade wars weigh heavy on market sentiment, and retail traders struggle with persistent inflation and the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Blockchain and digital currencies are losing credibility

The JPM eTrading survey included a question about whether blockchain technology is an essential technology for the future. Only 7% of respondents answered in the affirmative, down from 12% last year. This shows that serious players are losing interest.

It’s little wonder when you think about it. While blockchains like BSV scale to one million transactions per second (TPS) and companies like CERTIHASH revolutionize cybersecurity, these blockchain breakthroughs receive little attention.

Instead, digital currency publications and viral X posts focus on Solana memecoin pump and dumps and any sign that more fiat is coming to pump the price of their bags. Just last month, the industry was giddy at the prospect of American taxpayer money being used to buy BTC, XRP, and other ‘American Made’ coins. So much for free markets and liberty!

If we were under any illusion that this madness was contained within a small sphere of the Internet and wouldn’t impact the technology’s reputation at large, that was shattered this week when Argentinian President Javier Milei found himself at the center of a meme coin scam. Literally, heads of state from Trump to Milei are getting caught up in the latest crypto craze that will amount to nothing.

Yet, blockchain is an important technology in the long run

Despite not grabbing many headlines, scalable blockchain technology has a bright future and will likely play an integral role in everything from cross-border payments to mitigating the worst potential impacts of artificial intelligence (AI).

While all of the focus has been on token speculation for the last decade, those who believe in the potential of blockchain have been working diligently in the background, and they’re starting to get impressive results.

Just some of the noteworthy accomplishments in blockchain recently include:

• The Teranode update has scaled the BSV blockchain to one million TPS for fractions of a cent.
• CERTIHASH has developed next-generation cybersecurity tools in conjunction with IBM (NASDAQ: IBM) and is raising funds to take it to the next level.
• Champions TCG has become a popular real-world trading card game using scalable blockchain in the background.

Sooner or later, the world will wake up and realize that scalable distributed ledgers are a game-changer, and the coins attached to them are only a means to write transactions to the ledger.

Until then, it looks like we’ll have to suffer another round of humiliating ‘scammery’ as Presidential memecoins and tens of thousands of Pump Fun tokens further hurt the reputation of an industry that’s already been dragged through the mud.

Nonetheless, when it’s all said and done, the utility tech will be here, the apps will be ready, and everything from payments to cybersecurity to data management and communications will be transformed.

Until then, expect the interest of serious players to remain subdued. The institutions aren’t coming, and with serious changes to the economic order on the horizon, another brutal bear market is more likely than the bull market many had hoped and waited for.

Watch: Developers can propel the BSV blockchain forward