Wall Street’s Bid On Crypto Dominated 2025 But What��s The Demand...
Federal Reserve policy and crypto-friendly regulation could be setting the market up for a bullish 2026, but there are still a handful of hurdles investors should be aware of.
2025 was a blockbuster year for Bitcoin (BTC) and the wider crypto market as crypto-friendly legislators platformed growth-focused regulation and Wall Street finally accepted Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), and numerous altcoins as a valid asset class worthy of inclusion in an investment portfolio.
The global bid on Bitcoin, Ether and Solana’s SOL (SOL) token was near immeasurable, with total net flows into the spot Bitcoin ETFs reaching $57 billion and the total net assets across the ETFs reaching $114.8 billion.
Going into 2026, the real question is, will the pace of institutional, corporate and government-level adoption, which were critical price drivers in 2025, continue? Since October, the robust inflows to the spot Bitcoin ETF tapered off and, in some cases, turned into a sellers' market for weeks on end, and this was followed by a 30% correction in BTC and 50% in Ether.
In an interview with Schwab Network’s Nicole Petallides, Cointelegraph Head of Markets Ray Salmond said that the crypto market’s performance in early 2026 will depend on a range of factors.
.@Cointelegraph's Head of Markets Ray Salmond tells @NPetallides that he expects bitcoin, ethereum and solana demand in the spot and ETF markets to set the tone for the industry in 2026.For more market news, tune into: https://t.co/PYaqKPRp8C pic.twitter.com/ZCp1EIXyUh
Beyond the ETF flows and demand across spot markets like Binance and Coinbase, investor sentiment regarding the immense size of the AI industry buildout and the performance of the tech-heavy S&P 500 is likely to have a direct impact on crypto markets.
The AI buildout, company valuations, fundraising, IPO performance, and whether datacenter hyperscalers continue to propel the equities markets alongside MAG7 will remain at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
In the interview, Salmond explained that rapid balance sheet expansion was a strategy that supercharged tech-related equities in 2025 as hyperscalers spent double-digit billions on data centers, compute, Nvidia GPUs and energy. At some point in 2026, the expectation will be that these companies demonstrate that they can monetize their investments, or at least finance the expansions from their internal cash flow.
In the latter half of 2025, Oracle, Meta and Nvidia saw their stock prices fall as the market questi
Source: CoinTelegraph
