Bitcoin spot ETFs continue to see net inflows, which indeed marks the first phase of the "institutionalization era" in the crypto market—asset access and large-scale allocation have been finalized. But to be honest, the real test is just beginning.

The next challenge is the second phase: once these institutions hold ETF positions, how exactly will they use them? How can these assets generate more value? Here are several practical issues that the ETF itself cannot solve.

**The first bottleneck is strategy invisibility.** Imagine a hedge fund holding hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin positions, wanting to hedge options on-chain, enhance yields, or rebalance across assets. The problem is—every operation on transparent public blockchains (like Ethereum) is exposed. Monitoring bots and competitors can see everything clearly, making your strategy essentially public.

**The second is compliance dilemmas.** Institutions need to prove that on-chain activities meet their internal risk controls and external regulatory requirements, such as AML standards. But they also need to protect their trade secrets. With transparent public blockchains, it’s a "do or die" dilemma—either disclose everything completely or operate as a black box off-chain, with no gray area in between.

**The third involves treasury management.** Many corporate Bitcoin reserves are still purely "cold assets" that sit idle and generate no income. They want to turn these into "living assets" that can earn interest automatically and operate programmably, but the entire process must be auditable and explainable. This requires entirely new technological solutions.

So you see, ETFs only solve the "what to buy" problem. True institutionalization also needs to address "how to use"—and that is the next growth point in the market.