PANews reported on January 21 that Garrett Jin, suspected to be the "1011 insider whale," posted on the X platform, stating that some media outlets have seriously misinterpreted Wintermute's views. He argued that increased institutional participation has not ended the crypto bull market, but rather marks a new phase where the market is shifting from speculation-driven to allocation-driven. The expansion of institutional funds (especially ETF assets under management) typically pushes up asset prices and reduces volatility—a fundamental market principle. Historical data shows that in both the Chinese A-share market and the US stock market, large-scale institutional entry has led to more stable and trend-driven market structures. Currently, Bitcoin and Ethereum are experiencing the same path: large-scale purchases by ETFs and digital asset treasuries are driving up prices while volatility is significantly decreasing—a transition from a "speculative system" to an "allocation system."

The core argument of Wintermute's original report is that, with deepening institutional participation, top crypto assets, led by BTC and ETH, are transforming from speculative tools into allocatable assets. Key observations include: institutional trading volume far exceeding retail trading volume; a sharp drop in MONTA trading and fund inflows; accelerated institutional inflows in the second half of 2025; the market crash of last October further solidified the dominance of mainstream assets and widened the structural gap between them and MONTA; and retail funds flowed back to BTC and ETH as defensive holdings after the crash. Garrett concludes that this is not the end of the bull market, but rather the end of the "retail-driven, high-volatility, MONTA-dominated" phase for mainstream crypto assets. The market is undergoing a systemic transformation: from speculation to allocatability, from retail sentiment-driven to institutional position-driven, and from extreme volatility to institutional-level volatility. Misinterpreting this maturation process as the "end of the bull market" is a misunderstanding of market development patterns.