Custodia Chief Doubts TradFi’s Ability To Handle Crypto Bear Market

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Custodia CEO and key crypto figure Caitlin Long has questioned the readiness of traditional finance firms for their first-ever crypto winter. Speaking with CNBC on Friday at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025, Long emphasized that while Wall Street’s increasing involvement has fueled the current market cycle, its legacy systems and risk models may prove inadequate when the inevitable bear market returns.

Wall Street Titans May Not Be Ready For A Crypto Market Downturn –  Custodia Boss

In answering a question on the significance of institutional involvement in the crypto market, Long contrasted the early days of crypto, when retail investors and grassroots participants worked to expand decentralization and secure networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum, with today’s landscape dominated by institutional finance. According to the Custodia founder, the cycle is now largely driven by Wall Street titans who are building financial wrappers, derivatives, and corporate treasuries around digital assets.

Notably, institutional participation in crypto has hit record highs in recent years. The Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which launched early last year, have been TradFi’s biggest digital asset success, boasting $53.80 billion in cumulative inflows. Meanwhile, Spot Ethereum ETFs are beginning to gather momentum, registering $8.20 billion since the beginning of July alone.

While this influx has undoubtedly brought credibility and capital to the sector, Long warned that the traditional playbooks of these institutions are not suited to assets with finite supply, e.g, Bitcoin. The former Morgan Stanley executive and Custodia CEO said:

….They (TradFi) are perfectly comfortable taking more leverage than you would take with an asset of finite supply because they have all these mechanisms to bail them out in the event that supply for an asset becomes too tight. They have discount window. They have fault tolerances built into the securities system so that if the books don’t balance, it’s okay. They can always go the next day and get the shares from the market the next day.

By contrast, crypto operates in real time with no external buffers. Caitlin Long explains that this structural difference could leave TradFi firms exposed if they attempt to apply conventional leverage and hedging strategies to a market that behaves rather differently. Having witnessed multiple boom-and-bust cycles since 2012, the Custodia boss expressed certainty that another downturn will come despite the remarkable market growth in the present cycle, and questions whether traditional players will be able to withstand its impact.

Crypto Market Overview

At the time of writing, the total market crypto cap is valued at $3.95 trillion, following a minor 0.94% decline in the past day.

Featured image from Fox Business, chart from Tradingview

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