Wintermute said institutional counterparties accounted for 72% of spot OTC flow on its desk in the first half of 2026, up from 61% in the second half of 2025 and 59% in the first half of 2025, underscoring how professional capital is taking a larger role in off-exchange crypto liquidity. The firm's 1H26 report said hedge funds, digital asset treasuries, asset managers and family offices are concentrating activity in fewer tokens than retail traders, pushing more exposure into derivatives and helping compress realized volatility. Between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2026, the number of unique tokens traded by institutional counterparties rose 24%, versus 76% for retail traders, while altcoin options notional volume on Wintermute's desk grew 3.4 times from the second half of 2025 to the first half of 2026 as investors used options strategies to generate yield. Wintermute linked that shift to Bitcoin's realized volatility falling from near 70% in 2025 to about 45% now. The new report also stresses that the 72% figure applies to Wintermute's own spot OTC platform rather than the global crypto market, a distinction that matters because OTC desks capture large trades that do not always appear directly on public exchange order books. The findings suggest institutions are becoming more active in crypto's liquidity layer even as activity remains concentrated in the most liquid assets.