Crypto YouTube views drop to 2021 lows, are retail investors leaving or is the market evolving?

Cryptocurrency YouTube channel views have plummeted to their lowest levels since the market boom began in early 2021. Data tracked by renowned analyst Benjamin Cowen shows that over the past three months, the 30-day moving average views across all major channels have experienced a significant decline.

Crypto content creator Tom Crown observed that since October last year, data across all platforms has shown a “cliff-like drop.”

Even with recent volatility in the cryptocurrency market, comments and likes on videos remain stagnant, indicating that the retail force that once fueled market frenzy is quietly retreating.

01 Viewing Volume Bottom

The social media buzz in the crypto space is experiencing a clear “cooling down.” Latest data shows that views of cryptocurrency-related content on YouTube have sharply declined over the past three months, reaching the lowest levels since January 2021.

This phenomenon is not an isolated case but a widespread and evident trend. Multiple content creators report a “cliff-like drop” in their channel metrics.

Market analysis indicates that this decline became particularly pronounced in October 2025, coinciding with a period of intense market volatility. Previously, high volatility often attracted millions of viewers chasing quick profits, but now, that excitement seems to have dissipated.

The cooling of social media engagement is happening alongside potential shifts in market structure. Despite price fluctuations, the retail investor group driving crypto market discussions is waning in attention.

02 Retail Investors Exit

Behind the waning interest of retail investors are multiple overlapping factors. The comparison of investment returns appears especially direct, as many investors experienced tough times last year.

Compared to strong-performing traditional safe-haven assets, some top cryptocurrencies’ returns are modest, prompting some funds to flow into more “certain” sectors.

Erosion of trust is another core reason. Analysts attribute this to endless “scam cycles” and “pump-and-dump” schemes, which have caused many retail traders to suffer losses, leading to fatigue and caution toward the entire field.

Additionally, a major market volatility in October last year resulted in daily liquidations of up to $20 billion, destroying thousands of small accounts and leaving remaining retail traders in a highly cautious state.

03 Structural Changes

As retail voices weaken, the driving forces in the market are undergoing fundamental shifts. Analysts generally believe that institutional investors have replaced retail traders as the main drivers of current price movements.

Unlike retail traders relying on social media for information, these large professional institutions depend on specialized analysis tools and teams, with decision-making processes that are rarely linked to “moonshot” prediction videos on YouTube.

This shift is also reflected in capital flows. Recent data shows that the US Bitcoin spot ETF experienced several days of net outflows, possibly indicating that some institutional funds are reassessing or adjusting their positions.

Market support zones also show signs of institutional game-playing. For example, Bitcoin has formed a core consolidation range between $89,500 and $94,000, while Ethereum fluctuates within the $3,100 to $3,350 range.

04 Narrative Shift

The core narrative of the industry is shifting from retail-focused speculation stories to more fundamental, institutionalized long-term infrastructure development. Market analysis predicts that the next generation of ICOs, integrating reputation systems and compliance frameworks, could become a new cradle for high-quality assets.

Meanwhile, self-custodied, yield-generating accounts and efficient cross-border stablecoin payments are forming a unique competitive barrier for the native “new banks” of crypto.

More forward-looking perspectives suggest that the foundational role of crypto is evolving. For example, crypto miners, leveraging mature energy infrastructure and flexible load switching capabilities, are transforming into key providers of distributed AI computing power and energy, entering the rapidly growing high-performance computing market.

With the development of autonomous robots and AI intelligences, the demand for machine-native financial networks is emerging. Blockchain’s permissionless payment, settlement, and collaboration layers could become the only financial infrastructure capable of supporting this ecosystem.

05 Future Trends

Looking ahead, the participation models and growth logic of the crypto market are expected to continue evolving. On one hand, on-chain real-time information aggregation layers are rising, aiming to consolidate fragmented market data and provide institutions and AI with actionable insights, similar to traditional financial markets’ “Bloomberg Terminal.”

On the other hand, sources and forms of yield are also being innovated. Institutional-grade DeFi platforms are evolving toward “meta-yield” engines, packaging various decentralized on-chain yield sources—such as staking rewards, perpetual contract funding rates, and MEV—into structured, transparent products.

Gate Ventures’ 2026 outlook report suggests that five frontier forces—including the aforementioned information aggregation layer, decentralized payment networks, machine finance, meta-yield platforms, and transforming miners—will jointly drive Web3 into an “AI-driven economy’s universal coordination and computation layer.”

The industry’s maturity is also increasing, with more ecosystem companies generating substantial revenues and seeking to enter public capital markets through IPOs, marking a new stage of development for the industry.

Market Shift

The fading of crypto buzz on social media clearly outlines a structural shift from retail-driven frenzy to a framework driven by institutional capital and deep infrastructure innovation.

The decline in crypto KOL traffic coincides with growth in institutional DeFi products and miners transitioning into compute power providers, which is not a sign of industry decline.

As retail investors temporarily exit due to fatigue and disappointment, true builders are laying the groundwork for the next wave of growth driven by AI, global payments, and machine economies. The market’s clamor may diminish, but its foundation is becoming more solid through silent technological evolution.