Seemingly professional annual outlooks actually hide the logic of institutional chip layout.

A well-known analyst's "2026 Outlook" appears to analyze the market on the surface, but deep down it is a carefully designed expectation management. When top funds publicly shout "big drop in the first half of the year," it is often not a risk warning but liquidity intimidation— they are eager to accumulate chips at low prices.

This gap makes it clear. Predicting BTC to fall to 60,000 in the first half of the year but soaring to 115,000 by the end of the year; ETH from 1800 to 4500. How is this nearly double price difference filled? It is by retail investors scared out of their chips by expectations. There is a key sentence in the report: "These prices provide good opportunities for布局before the end of the year"— the so-called opportunity is essentially serving large capital's low-cost absorption.

**Why do institutions particularly favor ETH?**

The analysis emphasizes ETH's "lack of miner selling pressure and immunity to Bitcoin spot ETF shocks," which precisely reflects traditional capital's preferences. ETH has gradually evolved into a kind of "cryptocurrency bond"—its volatility is artificially smoothed, making it more suitable for large funds' risk-averse allocations. This is not praising ETH but hinting that Bitcoin's uncertainty is even higher.

The most dangerous thing is never the number itself, but when everyone sees the same "inevitable decline" path, that path has long been ambushed by hunters. Rational frameworks are often the easiest to implant expectations.