Bitcoin surged to $120,000. Why are retail investors collectively silent?

Bitcoin breaks through $120,000: a capital feast without retail investors.

When the trading screen flashes the historical figure of 121,344 USD, Wall Street investment banks raise their champagne, while retail investors remain collectively silent.

On July 14, 2025, the same set of numbers was flashing on the screens of global traders: Bitcoin breaks $120,000. In just 24 hours, nearly 100,000 people were liquidated, $278 million evaporated, and social media was unusually quiet—no retail investor celebration memes, no "getting rich overnight" posts, only the silent orders of giants like BlackRock and Fidelity quietly buying on the OTC market.

Who is driving this "silent bull market"?

Institutional Capital's Feast

• ETF Whales Consume Liquidity

The U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF has seen a net inflow of funds for 19 consecutive days, with a single-day peak of $650 million, bringing the total management scale to over $51 billion. BlackRock's IBIT holds more than 700,000 BTC, equivalent to a continuous daily injection of $380 million into the market.

• Revolution of Corporate Balance Sheets

The Japanese listed company Metaplanet increased its holdings by 797 Bitcoins (worth $96 million) in a single day, bringing its total holdings to 16,352 coins, surpassing Tesla to become the largest holder in North America outside of the U.S. MicroStrategy's total holdings have even exceeded 528,000 coins, valued at $35.63 billion.

• Exchange inventory is running low

Institutional buying frenzy causes the exchange's Bitcoin supply to plunge to its five-year low, completely reversing the supply-demand relationship.

The Secret Game of Political Power

Trump has turned from a critic of "Bitcoin is air" to the number one spokesperson for crypto assets: promoting crypto blue-chip ETFs, advocating for the establishment of a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and even collaborating with family funds and mining company Hut 8 to establish a mining company. Behind this policy shift is $260 million in donations injected into the cryptocurrency industry to support Trump's super PAC Fairshake.

The "Digital Gold" Narrative Under Global Monetary Easing With rising expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and a weakening dollar index, the negative correlation between Bitcoin and the volatility index of U.S. stocks (VIX) has reached -0.73, a historical peak. As the U.S. Treasury issues $956 billion in bonds in a single quarter, Bitcoin has become a new tool to combat debt monetization.

Why Are Retail Investors Collectively "Absent"?

Despite the price surge, the market shows a strange divergence:

• Google search popularity is only 45

, not even a third of the peak value when Bitcoin first broke $100,000 in November 2024;

• Fear and Greed Index 73

(Historical peak 90), indicating that sentiment is far from the euphoric stage;

• Japanese retail investors even exclaimed: "A coin costs $110,000? I've already missed out!"

Behind this silence lies the psychological barrier of Bitcoin's high price and the transfer of pricing power dominated by institutions. On-chain data reveals the harsh reality: the proportion of large transactions over $100,000 has surged to 89%, an increase of 23 percentage points compared to 2022, while retail investors' small transactions are being marginalized.

Underlying Risk Signals

Behind the carnival, four major hidden dangers quietly emerge:

Leverage Bubble Accumulation: Tether issued 4 billion USDT in one week, the Stablecoin Supply Ratio (SSR) exceeded 1.2, and the perpetual contract funding rate rose to a year-to-date high;

Policy Black Swan Circling: The deadline for Trump to impose tariffs on the EU and Mexico (July 22) is approaching, and the escalation of the trade war may trigger a resonance decline in risk assets.

Technical Overbought Concerns: At the $125,000 threshold, $3.7 billion in options contracts are gathered, and a showdown between longs and shorts is imminent;

Miner Profitability Under Pressure: Canaan Technology's mining machine gross margin plummeted to 29% (42% in the same period last year), with high computational power competition eroding the safety cushion.

Is $150,000 the next stop?

Scenario 1: Regulatory Implementation Ignites the "Compliance Bull" If the "GENIUS Act" passed by the U.S. Congress this week establishes a stablecoin audit framework, traditional asset management giants may increase their Bitcoin allocation ratio from 0.3% to 1%, bringing an $80 billion influx of funds — enough to push the price beyond $150,000.

Scenario 2: Macroeconomic Storm Breeds "Gold Alternative" The interest expenditure in the U.S. will reach $1.6 trillion by 2025. If the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds breaks 4.5%, the correlation between Bitcoin and gold may jump from 0.2 to 0.6, attracting sovereign funds to enter.

Scenario Three: Technological Revolution Reshapes Valuation Logic The locked amount of the Bitcoin Layer 2 network Merlin Chain has exceeded $3.5 billion, and the Stacks ecosystem's TVL has increased by 300% month-on-month. If the scalability bottleneck is resolved, Bitcoin may evolve from "digital gold" to the underlying asset of the value internet.

The Dawn of a New Financial Order

When the German central bank sells gold to switch to Bitcoin, when U.S. state governments include it in their strategic reserves, and when South American families use BTC to hedge against the depreciation of their local currency—this capital revolution ignited by $120,000 is rewriting the rules of financial power distribution.

"This is not a retail investor's frenzy, but the beginning of institutional repricing." A Wall Street trader whispered in front of the OTC desk in the early morning. Behind him, on the electronic screen, BlackRock's ETF purchase orders were flooding the system at a rate of 13 per second, while 80,000 Bitcoins from early whale addresses had just been transferred to the exchange in preparation for sale—this epic turnover of new and old capital will determine whether Bitcoin can truly make the "daring leap" from a risk asset to a store of value.

History does not simply repeat itself, but it echoes similar rhymes:

In 2017, it broke $20,000, Google search popularity 100, fear and greed index 90;

In 2025, it will break 120,000, search popularity 45, fear and greed index 73.

The coming-of-age of the market is always marked by a noisy exit and a rational debut.