The phrase “we are still early” remains a popular sentiment in the crypto community in 2025, suggesting that despite bitcoin’s (BTC) price surpassing $100,000, the overall adoption of digital assets is still in its infancy.

Morgan Stalney’s recent survey of financial professionals confirms this sentiment. The investment banking giant surveyed more than 500 summer interns in North America from June 10 to 27, and 147 summer interns in Europe from June 26 to July 7.

The survey revealed that only 18% of interns own or use cryptocurrencies, increasing from 13% the previous year. Meanwhile, the percentage of interns interested in digital assets has risen to 26% from 23%. Meanwhile, 55% still do not care for digital assets, a majority, although the number has receded from 63% last year.

The widespread lack of interest appears significant, especially considering that BTC has already gained acceptance on Wall Street through the introduction of ETFs.

The 11 spot BTC ETFs have amassed $53.7 billion in investor wealth since their debut in January last year, according to data source Farside Investors. Ether ETFs have registered an inflow of $12.4 billion. Corporations are rapidly adding both assets to their balance sheets.

BTC’s price has surpassed $100,000 this year, gaining a foothold in institutional investor portfolios. Ether hit a record high of over $4,800 on Friday.

More open to AI

The survey revealed a clear adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) by future finance industry leaders, with 96% of U.S. interns and 91% of their European counterparts reporting the use of technology at least occasionally.

The consensus is that AI is effective, with nearly all respondents agreeing they “save me time” and are “easy to use”. However, 88% of interns also had a nuanced view, believing the technology still “needs accuracy improvement.”

The widespread adoption is consistent with the sentiment on Wall Street, where the Mag 7 firms are expected to spend $650 billion in capital expenditures and research and development this year.

Trillion dollar humanoids market

The survey revealed that most interns are interested in owning humanoids, or sophisticated machines designed with a human-like form and capabilities, but are cautious about their impact on society.

Over 60% of U.S. interns and 69% of European interns expressed interest in having a humanoid at home, with both regions believing the robots will have “viable use cases” and replace many human jobs.

Still, only 36% of U.S. interns and 24% of Europeans agreed that humanoids will have a positive impact on society.

Morgan Stanley estimates that the humanoid market could surpass $5 trillion by 2050, including sales from supply chains and networks for repair, maintenance and support.

“Although humanoids are still under development, there could be more than 1 billion by 2050, with 90% used for industrial and commercial purposes,” the investment banking giant said in a report in May.

Anthony Pompliano, a venture investor and the CEO of ProCap, visited CNBC’s Squawk Box to talk about Bitcoin and its current position in the market, also mentioning altcoins, and stablecoins.

Pompliano (often referred to as “Pomp”) believes that at some point in the near future the US government is going to start buying Bitcoin.

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Bitcoin has established itself as the king of the market: Pompliano

First of all, when Joe Kernen, the CNBC host, asked Pompliano about not only Bitcoin, but also Ethereum getting a lot of attention and inflows recently, Pomp stated that Bitcoin has established itself as the king of the market, and it is unlikely to change any time soon.

“Actually,” he said, “most Wall Street’s time and attention is on Bitcoin,” and not Ethereum or any other large-cap altcoin. Pompliano pointed out that even though Ethereum and Solana have also been receiving some inflows recently, however, they have not established new all-time highs, unlike BTC. Therefore, Bitcoin has broken away from the rest of the cryptocurrency market. He admitted that in the futur,e some other cryptos can also reach new price peaks, but so far, he said, Bitcoin continues to dominate the market in terms of the market cap growth, inflows, and overall investor attention.

Responding to another question about stablecoins, since there has been a lot of talk about them recently, Pomp said that these assets cannot go any further than just $1. They can grow in market cap in terms of more people using them but he pointed out, they will hardly rely on them in terms of financial performance, unlike with BTC.

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US government to start acquiring Bitcoin at some point, Pomp says

Pomp’s statement about him expecting the US government was made as an answer to a question as to what the next big thing to move the Bitcoin price higher from where it is now will be. So, the US government announcing they are buying BTC for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve would be one of those, per Pomp. He referred to this as “the main dish.”

The second thing here is that the last Wall Street companies that have been hesitating whether to buy BTC or not, will capitulate. The third driver would be that people who are “cautiously optimistic” about BTC would transition to being “optimistic.”