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.

Solana-based tokenized stocks surpassed $100 million in market capitalization less than one month since their official launch on June 30.

According to rwa.xyz data, the tokenized stock market on Solana is valued at nearly $102 million as of July 22, representing a 242% increase from its $29.8 million size at the debut date. This market is fueled mainly by xStocks, issued by Backed Finance.

As a result, Solana now accounts for 20.4% of the tokenized stock market. Notably, Ethereum and its layer-2 blockchains Arbitrum, Polygon, and Base account for $11.8 million, which makes Solana’s tokenized stock market over eight times larger.

The largest tokenized stock is TSLAx, representing Tesla’s shares, with a market capitalization of $13.6 million and 11,073 holders.

Tokenized S&P 500 are also in the tens of millions, with SPYx showing a market capitalization of just over $10 million and 9,886 holders.

The tokenized shares of Circle trail closely, with CRCLx reaching a $9.1 million market cap, distributed among 5,746 holders.

Furthermore, the official xStocks profile on X shared that the tokens have surpassed $300 million in on-chain trading volume.

Assessing composability

Despite the explosive growth of tokenized assets issued on Solana, xStocks investors are not interacting with DeFi protocols that have made these assets composable.

Solana-based money market Kamino offers support for eight xStocks tokens as collateral: TSLAx, SPYx, Nvidia’s NVDAx, Robinhood’s HOODx, Strategy’s MSTRx, Apple’s AAPLx, Nasdaq’s QQQx, and Alphabet’s GOOGLx.

Although their collective market cap stands at nearly $50 million, only $585,000, roughly 11%, has been used as collateral so far.

The numbers fare slightly better when it comes to liquidating providing. On Raydium’s pools, the largest TSLAx pool has $1.1 million in liquidity, of which $423,600 represents the amount of tokenized stock deposited per GeckoTerminal data.

The SPYx with most liquidity also displays a significant amount of $1.9 million in liquidity, with $502,000 worth of tokenized stocks on it.

Nevertheless, the ratio remains short. The roughly $637,000 worth of TSLAx tokens used on DeFi is just 4.7% of its market cap. For SPYx, the ratio is 7%.

Crypto to traditional, not the other way around

The relatively low usage of tokenized stocks on DeFi applications occurs mainly because money is mostly flowing from crypto to traditional products, rather than the other way around.

Michael Cahill, CEO and co-founder of Douro Labs, explained in an interview with CryptoSlate that holders from the traditional market who are entering the crypto space are not yet ready to utilize DeFi composability.

He used the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitized Fund (ACRED), launched by Pyth and created by Apollo Global Management and Securitize, as an example to illustrate that the issue of wasted composability still affects the entire tokenization industry.

ACRED has over $100 million in net asset value, yet its on-chain lending pool represents only a small fraction of this value.

However, Cahill also said he sees growth potential. He added:

“But it’s just getting started. We didn’t have xStocks last year. The last time we saw anyone making a meaningful attempt at stocks was Mmirror back in the Terra days, and it wasn’t even that big either. It’s taken a really long time for people to get comfortable with this, but I think that that’ll start very gradually and then people will get a little bit more and more comfortable.”

Furthermore, he believes a Strategy-style “big company moment” could help, but thinks the real catalyst will be the product experience with a traditional finance interface for on-chain products.

Cahill concluded:

“When you get one of those barriers to fall, then you can start to really see it grow together and explode way faster than that whole ramp-up we had with Strategy. It could happen very, very quickly in my mind.”

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S&P 500 futures extended losses early Wednesday with a 1.6% intraday drop, falling to 444.32 and erasing nearly two days of gains.

The move came as investors digested rising uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy, including potential new tariffs targeting Chinese semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.

As of 8:00 A.M. GMT, futures on the benchmark index were down more than seven points from the previous close of 451.56.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, continued to underperform across a range of global assets over the last 24 hours. Trading around $83,400 at the time of writing, the digital asset moved mostly sideways after retracing steep overnight losses, diverging from the broader flight-to-safety shift seen in traditional markets.

Cross-asset divergence: Bitcoin stalls as bonds, gold catch bids

The multi-asset comparison chart below captures the disconnect in market behavior since yesterday’s U.S. market open.

Gold rose 2.7%, and U.S. 10-year bond prices gained 0.55%, reinforcing a defensive tilt in investor positioning. Even Chinese 10-year bonds, traditionally more insulated, posted a modest rise of 0.19%.

Equities, however, faced broad selling pressure. E-mini S&P futures (ESM2025) dropped 2.06% while oil slid 1.13%, both reflecting renewed macroeconomic caution following the White House’s confirmation that U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports have effectively reached 145%.

The losses come amid a new national security investigation into Chinese semiconductor and pharmaceutical exports, which markets interpreted as a prelude to further tariff escalation.

The U.S. dollar index (DXY) fell 0.44% over the same period, partially due to weak sentiment surrounding further trade decoupling.

Bitcoin fell 2.8% over the same period, underperforming every other major asset class in the chart, including oil and S&P futures, which recorded smaller losses.

Trade uncertainty drives defensive allocation, leaves Bitcoin on sidelines

Market responses appear to reflect the growing weight of U.S.-China tensions on capital allocation decisions.

CNBC reported that China’s Q1 GDP rose 5.4%, exceeding expectations, yet investment banks cut annual forecasts, citing concerns about weakened exports to the U.S. and a sharp drop in capital expenditure.

With the share of Chinese exports to the U.S. now at 14.7%, down from 19.2% in 2018, global supply chains appear to be undergoing a sustained fragmentation.

The reaction across equities and bonds suggests rising demand for hedges and liquid assets, but Bitcoin’s stagnation may imply a reassessment of its current utility in macro hedging portfolios.

In contrast to gold, which set a new record high near $3,261 per ounce, Bitcoin’s price action does not currently reflect similar demand despite inflationary risks associated with rising tariffs.

The underperformance may also reflect uncertain signals around spot ETF flows, even as institutional narratives continue to shift toward Bitcoin’s role as a macro hedge.

However, outside of the past 24 hours, Bitcoin has shown relative strength compared to traditional assets since the start of April, gaining over 5% while S&P 500 futures (ESM2025) declined more than 4%, oil dropped nearly 13%, and the dollar index (DXY) fell 4.5%.

Despite its recent dip, Bitcoin remains one of the better performers over this multi-week window, trailing only gold, which has surged nearly 6%.

Semiconductor tensions mount as Nvidia flags $5.5B export risk

Further compounding market uncertainty, Nvidia disclosed that U.S. government licensing requirements would indefinitely restrict exports of its H20 AI chip to China, citing national security risks.

Per the BBC, the company projected a $5.5 billion hit to earnings from inventory-related charges and unfulfilled orders. The move was widely interpreted as reinforcing a broader U.S. strategy to curtail China’s access to cutting-edge semiconductor technologies.

Semiconductor-linked equities were sharply lower in Europe. Dutch chipmaking equipment firm ASML dropped 6.5% following a miss on net bookings and guidance, citing “export uncertainty,” while peer ASM International fell 4.5%.

As CNBC noted, these losses weighed heavily on the pan-European Stoxx 600, which fell 0.8% at the open. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were also down approximately 1%, with investor sentiment further pressured by macro data showing weaker-than-expected UK inflation and declining beer sales at Heineken despite revenue beating expectations.

Outlook

Over the past day, the sharp divergence in asset performance emphasizes the extent to which traditional hedges like gold and sovereign bonds have reasserted themselves amid renewed trade conflict.

Bitcoin’s muted response, particularly in contrast to gold’s upward surge and bond inflows, raises fresh questions about its short-term sensitivity to global macro catalysts and its positioning in institutional portfolios during geopolitical shocks.

With the White House emphasizing that future negotiations are contingent on Chinese concessions, markets appear to be pricing in a prolonged standoff.

For now, Bitcoin’s relative stasis amid surging tariffs and falling equity futures signals cautious positioning by investors still weighing the asset’s evolving correlation to broader risk markets.

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