At this stage, 3 key aspects affect institutional adoption of bitcoin. 1) Regulatory uncertainty, 2) lack of custodial solutions, and 3) exchange issues (incl. market manipulation, lack of liquidity, pump&dump etc).
I think Bitcoin will clearly be the first one to get regulatory approval. With futures already listed & regulators almost in agreement that it is a commodity, all we need is to solve other issues acting as an impediment to institutional adoption.
There is also news from Consensus 2018 about a custoday solution from Nomura & Ledger and it is big, since a bank such as Nomura, already providing custody solutions in traditional financial markets, is a great name to have. Nomura has the right balance sheet, a crypto friendly govt in the country where it is headquartered and has earned trust from institutions. Bitcoin, being large is not exposed to manipulation & pump and dumps to the same degree as most crap coins. And with an institutional exchange and proper client coverage, based on the news from Coinbase, prices differences on irrelevant exchanges will not matter a lot. I believe smaller exchanges will start tracking a larger institutional exchange, if one is launched.
I can’t believe with such announcements, price is actually down. Anyway, we will not have to wait long for a bitcoin bull run or a bitcoin etf or financial market adoption of bitcoin. It is on its way and it will happen real soon, real fast!