Recently, I noticed an interesting discussion by the CEO of Keyrock about the current state of the crypto market. Kevin de Patoul said that Bitcoin should be trading much higher given all the positive developments that are happening, but in reality it is still moving in a speculative way like a typical risky asset.

He has a pretty interesting point. If we look across 2025 to now, there have been so many regulatory advancements and institutional adoption that should have pushed prices to soar. But what’s happening is the opposite. Bitcoin is still below its peak of around $126K, and it is currently trading around $74K. Rising macro uncertainty should have increased demand for Bitcoin, but in fact Bitcoin is still being treated like a speculative asset that will be sold first when investors seek certainty.

According to de Patoul, the institutional capital that has flowed in over the last 18 months has been more tactical than ideological. In other words, they still see Bitcoin as a speculative instrument for short-term profits, not as a true store of value. When market pressure builds, they will exit first. That’s why trading volume has thinned out and volatility has fallen over the past six months.

What’s interesting, though, is his perspective on 2026. He doesn’t see this as a breakthrough year, but as a transition year. Many of the things that used to define crypto are starting to fade, while things that truly make sense are still in the process of being built, such as traditional finance moving onchain.

De Patoul distinguishes two markets developing in parallel. First, the crypto-native ecosystem with DeFi and altcoins, where sentiment is cooling and speculative rallies are becoming harder to sustain. Second, the digitization of traditional finance with stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, where he remains highly optimistic.

In his view, institutions are not losing enthusiasm for asset tokenization. Their goal is not to speculate on the next crypto rally, but to overhaul the financial infrastructure. However, even though these assets have been tokenized, their utility is still in the development stage. Tokens exist, but they often function only as wrappers, not as truly transformative instruments.

He sees 2027 and 2028 as the real inflection points. Traditional capital markets are much larger than crypto, and even a small percentage migrating onchain could surpass the previous crypto peak. So even though the crypto market currently feels speculative and sluggish, the infrastructure being built in the background is far more important than short-term price movements.

Keyrock itself positions as a bridge between traditional finance and digital, focusing on how to turn tokenization into real functionality at large scale. Regulatory clarity is a key factor for accelerating this.

So the takeaway is that even though Bitcoin is still moving in a speculative manner and the market feels less enthusiastic, the foundation for the digital transformation of finance is being built quietly. The real scale hasn’t arrived yet, and that’s why de Patoul still sees significant momentum ahead.