The CoinMarketCap Era is Over: Institutional Share in Wintermute’s OTC Flow Hits 72%
While crypto investors evaluate tokens based on revenue, usage, and value capture capacity instead of market cap rankings, the institutional share in Wintermute’s over-the-counter (OTC) spot flow rose from 59% to 72%; while crypto assets fell by 36% in the first half of 2026, crypto company stocks increased by 23%.
According to CoinDesk’s discussions with executives from Bitwise, Wintermute, Arbitrum Foundation, and Grayscale, this trend indicates that a new approach to token valuation is gaining traction. Institutional investors are no longer just looking at an asset’s position in the rankings, but at real user demand and the economic value generated by the project.
Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley described this transformation as the end of crypto’s “**CoinMarketCap leaderboard**” era. In previous cycles, new Layer-1 networks were priced relative to the market cap of larger blockchains. Horsley stated that in the case of Hyperliquid, the **HYPE token** is valued based on the platform’s derivative trading volume and economic structure. HYPE has risen approximately 20% in the last year.
Perpetual futures drive prices in the short term
Wintermute OTC trader Jasper De Maere noted that while fundamental indicators determine the long-term floor and the token watchlist, daily prices are driven by **perpetual futures**, funding rates, and liquidations. Perpetual futures volume outweighs the spot market for most major tokens.
According to De Maere, interest over the last 12-18 months has shifted from infrastructure to **revenue-generating tokens** such as decentralized finance, perpetual futures exchanges, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). Institutional OTC flow has concentrated on major cryptocurrencies and a limited number of revenue-generating tokens.
On-chain data is changing valuation
Brendan Ma from the Arbitrum Foundation stated that fee revenue, fee-paying users, stablecoin balances remaining on the network, and tokenized assets are more reliable on-chain indicators. While Arbitrum has processed more than 2.7 billion transactions, the number of transactions in 2026 exceeded 500 million. Robinhood Chain’s annual revenue is around $40 million, and 10% of the net protocol revenue returns to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, said that a small number of tokens with strong fundamentals will stand out, while weak projects will be left behind.