If the biggest anxiety for on-chain users in the past few cycles was "missing out on the next surge," then in 2026, this anxiety is quietly emerging in a different form:
More and more people are no longer worried about missing out on a new coin, but about finding themselves stuck in an old market that is being abandoned by smart money.
This is a subtle but important change.
On one hand, the Crypto clone myth has been completely shattered, and liquidity has been diluted to the point of exhaustion amidst various narrative bubbles; on the other hand, the US stock market is siphoning everything in at an unprecedented speed: retail investors are flowing in, the media is increasing its coverage, CEXs are fully embracing TradeFi, and familiar KOLs and traders are starting to discuss indices, individual stocks, macroeconomics, and financial reports more frequently.
This article also aims to answer the most crucial question: Why now of all times? And, how should new users begin their journey into US stocks (https://msx.com/news/m_point_classify_1765801273_824b02d1-4496-40e1-824a-5c79609bc634) – what is the first step?
I. In 2026, retail investors accelerated their escape from cryptocurrencies and flocked to US stocks.
In 2026, we may be witnessing the most bizarre departure in Crypto history.
Just recently, market maker Wintermute, in conjunction with JPMorgan, released its latest research on retail investor fund flows. This is the first time that retail investor behavior data from Crypto and US stocks has been systematically presented side by side, and the results were as expected.
From the beginning to the middle of 2025, the two curves were basically in sync, indicating rising risk appetite and retail investors buying on both sides simultaneously, which has been the norm for the past few years. Even the brief divergence that began in April for about two months was highly consistent with the macroeconomic event of Trump announcing retaliatory tariffs on "Liberation Day" on April 2.
Of course, to some extent, this also shows that, against the backdrop of simultaneous "black swan" pullbacks, US stocks are indeed more resilient and capable of recovery than altcoins.
However, starting from the end of 2025, this synchronized risk appetite has completely decoupled, and it can even be said to be the most extreme divergence in recent times. The divergence Z-value in the chart below has fallen to around -4, hitting a new low in a year, indicating that funds are voting with their feet, and the destination is the US stock market.
If we extend the timeframe to 2022, we can see an even more striking change (the pink line represents the total market capitalization of altcoins, and the black line represents the inflow of retail investors' funds into US stocks). From 2022 to the end of 2024, the two moved in tandem, with retail investors treating them as the same type of asset: high risk, high volatility, and rising and falling together .
But the decoupling at the end of 2024 stands out starkly in the overall picture. Since then, the behavior of crypto retail investors has become more short-term, emotional, and unstructured; while funds flowing into US stocks have not only not withdrawn, but have continued to reach new highs.
Two markets, the same group of retail investors, made drastically different choices.
The last chart provides statistical confirmation of the above phenomenon. The rolling correlation coefficient shows that retail investors' money flow between Crypto and US stocks maintained a positive correlation for a long time (green area, correlation coefficient > 0.4), but since the dividing line at the end of 2024, this relationship has turned negative—retail investors are no longer buying on both sides simultaneously, but are making a "choose one" allocation.
Each red area represents a portion of funds that might have flowed into crypto instead, which has been diverted to US stocks. This is a structural migration of funds, and the trend is continuing.
In fact, this shift is not only happening at the financial level, but also simultaneously at the media and attention level.
If you open a leading Web3 media outlet in the Chinese-speaking world now, you'll find that more and more of the homepage space is being occupied by US stock market news, macroeconomic variables, and traditional market events. On the surface, this appears to be an adjustment in media content selection, but at a deeper level, it's actually a result of a shift in user attention.
The media will only amplify the demand that has already begun to form, and will not promote a market that has no interest in it for no reason.
In other words, the fact that even "Web3 media" are starting to report on US stocks more frequently already indicates one thing: the emotional cycle of crypto has reached a stage where users are forced to actively seek new outlets.
II. Why now of all times?
This question deserves a serious answer.
The idea that "US stocks are worth watching" is not new. What is truly new is the timing of 2026—when regulations are loosening and the relative cost-effectiveness of assets is being reassessed. These two things are happening at the same time, which is a rare occurrence.
First, the wall between Wall Street and the blockchain world is being actively torn down.
For many years, the US stock market wasn't unattractive to most ordinary users, but rather too cumbersome. After all, opening an account, exchanging currency, depositing funds, selling and waiting for settlement, and then withdrawing funds... each step wasn't impossible, but it was tedious enough to make most users psychologically view it as "another system."
Starting this month, this situation is changing rapidly.
On March 18, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approved Nasdaq to conduct a pilot program for tokenized securities trading. This means that the wallets, on-chain operation logic, and stablecoin settlement paths you are familiar with will no longer only serve Crypto native assets, but will also begin to connect to global core equity assets such as Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla.
In the past, the US stock market was a system that required you to actively adapt to. Now, for the first time, it's starting to approach you in a way that's more in line with the habits of Web3 users. Perhaps we're not far from a point where buying one share of Nvidia is as easy as buying one meme coin.
Ultimately, tokenization liberates US stocks from the three major hurdles of "opening an account, depositing funds, and withdrawing funds," transforming it back into an asset form that can be accessed by a wider range of users with lower barriers to entry. For those familiar with on-chain operations, it may just be a new experience, but for users who have been kept out in the past, it is a true liberation.
The second thing is that, against the backdrop of global liquidity tightening, funds are repricing the cost-effectiveness of crypto and US stocks.
The US stock market is essentially a dual-cycle market of "liquidity-earnings". When liquidity is loose, valuations expand and when liquidity is tight, valuations compress. However, unlike crypto assets that rely more on sentiment and narratives, its core support lies in corporate earnings. In other words, it will certainly fall, and may even experience a deep pullback due to macroeconomic pressures. But as long as corporate profits, cash flow and industry logic remain, the market will eventually find a new anchor for recovery.
This is why US stocks have always exhibited a very typical characteristic: they may not fall sharply, but they fall logically; and when they rise, they often recover more quickly.
Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, act more like a high-amplifier of risk appetite. When liquidity is abundant, their gains far exceed those of most traditional assets, while when liquidity contracts and risk appetite declines, drawdowns are typically deeper, faster, and more bottomless. In particular, with the deepening institutionalization brought about by ETFs, Bitcoin is increasingly becoming a core asset recognized by mainstream funds, while a large number of altcoins are gradually losing their ability to sustain investment after the liquidity recedes.
In other words, the era of relying on "sector rotation + widespread gains in imitation stocks" to obtain excess returns is coming to an end. This "institutionalization" has not made it easier for ordinary retail investors to make money; on the contrary, it has led to increasingly concentrated alpha and marginal returns converging more and more towards top assets.
This, in turn, has increased the attractiveness of US stocks.
Compared to most altcoins, US stocks offer greater certainty. While they don't guarantee profits, most of the time you can clearly explain what you've bought, why it's falling, and what logic underlies its rise. For Crypto users who have experienced multiple rounds of high on-chain volatility, this "explainability" is undoubtedly the most scarce value at present.
III. What are the difficulties for new users learning about US stocks?
After reading this, your first reaction might be: "I've wanted to get involved in US stocks for a long time, but I just haven't started yet."
This "not started" is often not due to a lack of willingness. After all, for most users, the traditional path to entering the US stock market is unfriendly from the start. For example, there are steps such as overseas or Hong Kong and Macao identity verification, address verification, cross-border deposits, T+1/T+2 settlement, and holiday postponement. These steps are not fatal on their own. What really deters people is the friction cost that they create when they are combined.
Therefore, many people don't lack the desire to learn about US stocks; rather, whenever they're about to begin, the process forces them back into a vague idea. This is why the emergence of on-chain US stocks isn't just "another option" for everyone, but rather, for the first time, truly opening up a clear path:
Zero-threshold account opening, direct deposit and withdrawal of stablecoins, on-chain self-custody, 24/7 fund transfers... These features, taken individually, may not be revolutionary innovations, but when combined, they precisely address every obstacle that most users face when entering the US stock market.
It's not simply about moving the old world onto the blockchain; it's about using blockchain technology to make learning about US stocks a truly immediate process for the first time.
Having solved the "how to get in" problem, another obstacle has emerged: the knowledge system of US stocks, where to start learning?
In fact, Crypto users have an advantage that most people don't realize: during the years you've spent learning and working on the blockchain, you've unconsciously completed the most difficult part of investment education, such as how to make judgments when information is incomplete, how to manage the position and mindset of highly volatile assets, and how to identify the gap between narrative hype and fundamentals.
These capabilities also apply to the US stock market, only with a different set of terminology:
Dividing FDV by the annual revenue of the agreement and the P/E ratio are asking the same question; the fact that the price drops after the announcement is the same game theory logic as "Buy the rumor, sell the news"; the Fed's quantitative easing driving up BTC and interest rate cuts pushing up Nasdaq are all from the same pool of money.
What people lack is not investment thinking, but a dictionary written in a language they are familiar with.
Based on this judgment, MSX launched the " US Stocks Master Class " program specifically for everyone—not a general introductory course on US stocks, but a systematic approach that starts from basic understanding of the US stock market, breaks down the core concepts of US stocks, and covers a complete framework from the underlying mechanisms of US stocks, the three major indices, the logic of earnings season to valuation methods .
The goal is singular: to enable you to build a basic framework for judging US stocks from scratch in the shortest amount of time, and then truly take action, rather than letting "learning about US stocks" continue to gather dust in your bookmarks.
After all, the wall separating ordinary users from the US stock market is being torn down, and the US stock market will enter the lives of more people faster and more thoroughly than anyone expected.
Those who learn how to get through things first are often the first to stand firm. So, before things completely collapse, make up for any lessons you need to learn.
It's not too late to start this now.
