Foreign media: As liquidity in major trading pairs continues to deepen and institutional participation increases, the extreme bull-bear cycles that once characterized the crypto market may be gradually diminishing. Ben Nadareski, CEO of Solstice, a DeFi platform on the Solana ecosystem, said in an interview that the structure of the digital asset market has changed compared to earlier cycles.
Bitcoin volatility has clearly declined.
Nadareski believes that the maintenance of liquidity during bear markets is one of the key reasons for reduced market volatility. In previous cycles, liquidity often vanished rapidly during downturns, making prices more prone to sharp swings. Today, the depth of major crypto trading pairs is greater than ever, weakening the conditions that lead to extreme price movements.
The report, citing data from Glassnode and Fasanara Digital released in December 2025, states that Bitcoin’s one-year realized volatility has declined from 84.4% to 43%. Both firms attribute part of this change to increased market depth and greater institutional participation.
Meanwhile, the average daily spot trading volume of Bitcoin has also expanded compared to the previous cycle. The report shows that this scale has risen to a range of $8 billion to $22 billion, compared to approximately $4 billion to $13 billion in the previous cycle.
Institutional capital is changing market structure
Nadareski said that the crypto market is increasingly absorbing institutional capital and household wealth allocations, rather than being primarily driven by high-risk speculative trading. He noted that the market does not wish to replay the volatile phases seen in 2017 and 2021.
This type of assessment is not limited to a single respondent. In March of this year, Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Partner at SkyBridge Capital, also stated that the traditional four-year cycle patterns of Bitcoin have been weakened, though not entirely eliminated, due to inflows from institutional investors and spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Solana's stablecoin market size is viewed favorably
In addition to market structure, Nadareski also discussed the growth potential for stablecoins on Solana. He expects the total value of stablecoins on the Solana chain to exceed $50 billion over the next five years and approach $100 billion, driven by increased adoption by fintech companies and the network’s fast transaction speeds and low fees.
According to DefiLlama data, Solana’s stablecoin market cap is currently around $16 billion, and the role of stablecoins in overall crypto liquidity continues to grow.
CEX.IO data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, stablecoins accounted for 75% of total cryptocurrency trading volume, the highest level on record; during the same period, related trading volume exceeded $28 trillion. This indicates that stablecoins are not only on-chain settlement tools but are also becoming a key driver of trading activity in the cryptocurrency market.