institutional investors use OTC or private trade direct with mining pools. they dont trade on CEX to any large amount

the retail market IS the CEX market
what people need to realise is if they are looking at cex btc volume charts. it may seem lower than previous years.. however if you measure it in a fiat price of said btc you will realise that more trades for more $$ have been made compared to those previous years, meaning that trade volume is actually higher as more money has changed hands

simplified example:
imagine i bought 1.5btc each month in 2020, but only bought 0.5btc each month in q3-q4 of 2024

in 2020 1btc was ~$10k  meaning $15k average investment monthly 2020
in q3-4 2024 1btc was ~$75k  meaning $37.5k average investment monthly 2024
so 2.5x more invested

Im not sure if retail is not part of the cycle so far. Just from own experience I’d say that retail is at least beginning to join the ‘party’. News outlets should be taken with a grain of salt imo.

Institutional investors and the government have a better understanding of the market, so they were well prepared for the bull run. Retail investors are mostly driven by the increase in price. Some individuals will never invest in Bitcoin when the price is dropping. But they are moved to buy when they see the price going high. As the news of the bull run keeps trending, retail investors will begin to put in more money.

Only ignorant newbies will consider shitcoins as a long term asset. A quick search on the internet will enlighten a newbie that Bitcoin is the most reliable crypto investment that can be kept for a long time.

Retail investors still involve in Bitcoin although we don't know for sure. Who doesn't want to make a profit through Bitcoin if they can and have that chance? I am sure they still want to involve in Bitcoin and trying to make more and more profit especially the Bitcoin price now increase.

Profit or money that is the reason for them to still involve in Bitcoin and even Bitcoin price reach the high price, that doesn't mean people will stop to make a profit because they know that the price will go up and down so they will not want to miss that chance to make a profit.

Some people still use altcoin as a long term investment but that is only for the altcoin that have potential to increase in the future. You see Ethereum is the next choice for people to use it as their investment besides of the other altcoin. Other people choose memecoins as their investment so that will be up to them which coins that they will choose as their investment.

Small cap investors are at a loss if they are going to buy at anything above 90k USD for the time being. This is first time bitcoin touched this level and crossed it and hence we cannot normalize this level for buying. Maybe we will touch 100k and cross it but for now the easier thing for retail investors to do is to wait it out and see where the price starts facing resistance and then drops back to another support level.

So going by that idea, maybe retail investors have been low in number in 2024 - does not necessarily mean they all went into shitcoins. There are traditional markets to invest in too.

The reason is because many people think trading crypto will make them a millionaire and so they start investing in altcoins thinking they are cheap.
They don't realize the fact that it's the trust on bitcoin that has kept it at the top and altcoins cannot be trusted so easily.
People lose money in altcoins and since they are more volatile, people panic sell and encounter losses.
The truth is, it's their greed which causes them to suffer while the easy way still is to invest in bitcoin.