Institutions are ‘locked out’ until an altcoin become a major pair: Analyst

Altcoins offer regular investors a “more even playing field” than the stock market does

article-image

Igor Faun/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Let’s look ahead and forget about bitcoin (briefly) sliding under $100k, shall we?

For Amberdata’s Greg Magadini, any altcoin szn is currently set to give retail a potentially profitable run. Though, clearly, this is crypto, and everyone should maintain caution. 

Anyway, he pointed out that altcoins offer regular investors a “more even playing field” than the stock market does. 

“If you think about a company that goes public, typically there are VCs that are early stage investors, there’s a Series A, B, C, so on, so forth. Then there’s an IPO, and then retail buys at the very, very tail end. In crypto, it’s actually the opposite. Its retail is in Discords — small teams essentially talk to their Discord communities to launch a token, and often retail is the first one to be in the market, so they essentially have an information advantage,” Magadini explained. 

“And so that’s what makes this market very interesting: as a small player, you can invest and be at the forefront of value creation. But obviously the volatility can be crazy, and there’s a lot more scams. There’s no regulation along the way. Basically, you are kind of on your own.”

Magadini said that bitcoin — though volatile — is the lowest volatility asset for crypto right now, and also has the benefit of being the biggest market in which most people, and institutions, with crypto exposure are in. 

This opens the door for a potential altcoin rotation to have a “higher beta performance,” where bitcoin can go 2x, and altcoins go 10x, Magadini said. 

The good news for retail this cycle is that, despite seeing institutional action in bitcoin and ether, Magadini said he thinks institutions are still “locked out” until we see an altcoin become a major pair.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday