Institutional Crypto Surge: Polygon’s Aishwary Gupta on Market Evolution

Crypto markets have traded on nerves for days, yet the picture is not disorderly. The current total crypto market cap stands at around $3.81 trillion, with a 24-hour turnover of nearly $193 billion. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is hovering near $113,000, Ethereum is close to $4,000, XRP is trading around $2.51, and Solana is holding near $195.

Those markers frame a setting where prices react quickly, but liquidity and participation continue to move in step with headlines and positioning rather than empty speculation.

Into that environment, Aishwary Gupta, Head of Payments and RWAs at Polygon Labs, argues that large allocators have moved beyond trial runs and are building programs that reach into payments, tokenization, and exchange connectivity.

In an exclusive interview with Cryptonews.com, he links the latest sell-off to a market learning curve rather than a retreat in institutional intent, and he places the real risks inside product design and balance sheet choices that either absorb stress or transmit it.

From Trials To Tooling

Gupta works on the enterprise side of Polygon, where mandates, partnerships, and infrastructure plans determine which proposals get real-time and budget. He describes a change in tone among banks and funds, away from distant observation and toward ownership of platforms that touch clients and balances.

“First, they were like at arm’s length. Now they’re like ‘Okay, we want to do it,’” said Gupta. “I was talking to them in 2021, and I am seeing the 2025 institutions, and I am talking to them. There’s a drastic change in the way they’re assessing the opportunities, the way they’re getting into the market, the way they’re actually kind of going out and doing overall work.”

That shift, in his telling, rests on networks that endured hard years and on diligence that separates marketing from delivery.

He also points to consultations with European banks on architecture choices and to sovereign programs exploring dedicated blockchain infrastructure, which together suggest a methodical horizon rather than a sprint for quick wins.

“In 2021, BlackRock’s stance was ‘Okay, we should invest in a company, let them do what they want.’ Which was securitized and now black BlackRock is like, ‘Okay, we want to do it in-house,’” he said. “Two days back, there was an announcement where they said that ‘Okay, we want to do our own tokenization platform. We wanna do to allow people to issue money.’ So all those things are happening.”