Time always flies by unexpectedly, and stock charts always fluctuate in unpredictable ways. This is the essence of 2025. Now, standing at the tail end of time, we look back and look forward to the future. The year 2025, which is about to end, wasn't exactly a year of dramatic ups and downs for the crypto industry, but it was certainly relatively calm. From the frenzy sparked by Trump's coin at the beginning of the year, to Ethereum's return in the summer, and then the bloodbath brought by 1011 in the late autumn, the crypto market has experienced its ups and downs. But putting aside these fluctuations on the charts, the crypto industry has finally ushered in another spring. In January, the White House issued an executive order completely abandoning the previous "restrictive regulation" approach. In March, Trump launched the Bitcoin Reserve Program, adding 200,000 confiscated Bitcoins to the strategic reserve. In April, the U.S. Department of Justice disbanded its dedicated crypto enforcement task force, creating more room for compliant platforms to develop. In July, the U.S. Stablecoin Act (GENIUS) officially took effect. In August, Hong Kong's Stablecoin Ordinance officially came into effect. These events are not isolated occurrences, but rather form a clear logical chain around "compliance": The restructuring of US legislation addressed the core concerns of institutional investors, while the enactment of Hong Kong's ordinance opened up a compliance pathway in Asia. Looking back at the more than ten-year history of cryptocurrency development, its relationship with regulation has always evolved through a game of strategy. The flurry of compliance policies rolled out globally in 2025 marks the industry's official departure from its period of unchecked growth and its entry into a new phase of development. Therefore, if we had to summarize the development of the crypto industry in 2025 in one word, it would be—compliance. But where will the industry go after compliance? Will the development dividends still exist? These are the questions that deserve our consideration. A Decade of Regulatory Changes: From Prohibition to Regulation Over the past decade, global crypto regulation has roughly gone through three stages: rejection and prohibition, cautious exploration, and standardized development. The shift in regulatory attitudes mirrors the expansion of the industry. When Bitcoin was first created in 2009, its decentralized nature kept it outside the traditional financial regulatory system. Most parts of the world remained silent about this emerging phenomenon, while a few regions viewed it as a speculative tool. Before 2015, the cryptocurrency market was less than 10 billion US dollars, and global regulation mainly consisted of prohibition and warning. The People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks" in 2013, clarifying its non-monetary attributes; Russia included crypto trading in the illegal category in 2014; the US SEC only considers it as... Investment Tools to Be Wary Of
Investment Tools to Be Wary Of"。 The industry is currently in a regulatory vacuum, with most transactions completed through third-party platforms, leading to frequent hacker attacks and fraud incidents. From 2017 to 2022, with the rise of the Ethereum ecosystem and the explosion of the DeFi wave, the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies exceeded $2 trillion, and regulation entered a period of cautious exploration. Japan became the first country to attempt to regulate crypto trading, revising its Payments Act in 2017 to issue licenses to crypto exchanges; Switzerland, on the other hand, passed the Crypto Valley. The strategy is to build an inclusive regulatory framework that allows banks to conduct crypto custody business. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began to clarify its regulatory stance at this stage, defining some tokens as securities, and regarding ICOs... The crackdown on irregularities has begun, but conflicts remain between federal and state regulatory standards. During this period, while some regions in Asia have issued bans, a global regulatory consensus has begun to form. Complete prohibition cannot stifle technological innovation; establishing a suitable regulatory system is key. Since 2023, the regulatory environment has entered a period of standardization. After experiencing risk events such as the FTX collapse, the global crypto market has an unprecedentedly urgent need for compliance. The EU took the lead, with the MiCA law fully taking effect by the end of 2024, becoming the world's first unified regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies; the US SEC followed suit. The text="">then adjusted regulatory strategies, shifting from the generalization of securitization to categorized regulation; Singapore, the UAE, and other countries established specialized regulatory agencies and created compliance sandboxes. This systematic regulation laid the foundation for the surge in compliance trends in 2025. Why is 2025 considered a year of compliance breakthroughs? By 2025, global crypto compliance will have achieved a qualitative leap. Western markets, represented by the US and EU, have established clear legal frameworks. Hong Kong, with its stablecoin regulations, has accelerated compliance processes across Asia, forming a regulatory network covering major economies. The US completed a comprehensive restructuring of its crypto regulatory system in 2025, becoming central to global policy changes. On January 23, the Trump administration issued an executive order titled "Strengthening U.S. Leadership in Digital Financial Technologies," rescinding restrictive policies implemented during the Biden era and establishing a regulatory tone focused on "promoting innovation." This executive order directly spurred the enactment of a series of subsequent legislation: On July 18, the GENIUS Act was signed into law by the president, establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins. The federal government is responsible for managing issuers of systemically important stablecoins with a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion and requires that reserve assets be 100% pegged to the U.S. dollar. Concurrently, the House of Representatives passed the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act, clarifying the classification standards for crypto assets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other decentralized tokens are excluded from the category of securities; and centralized stablecoins and security tokens are subject to differentiated regulation. Furthermore, the US compliance breakthrough is also reflected in strategic-level innovation. On March 6, Trump signed an executive order establishing a "strategic Bitcoin reserve," adding 200,000 Bitcoins seized by the Department of Justice to the national reserve and imposing a permanent ban on their sale. This institutionalized lock-up strengthens Bitcoin's scarcity, setting a precedent for sovereign states allocating crypto assets. Regulatory enforcement also shifted accordingly. In April, the Department of Justice disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Task Force, clarifying that it will only target serious illegal activities and will no longer initiate criminal prosecutions against compliant trading platforms, creating a more relaxed development environment for the industry. The EU, through the deepening implementation of the MiCA (Mandatory Asset Service Provider) Act, has established the world's most stringent compliance system. As of November 2025, 57 institutions have obtained MiCA licenses, achieving full-chain regulation from issuance to custody. The key point of the Act is that obtaining a crypto asset servicer license in one EU member state allows for compliant operation in all 27 member states. This categorized regulatory model has shown results: Tether (USDT) was completely delisted from EU exchanges for failing to meet audit standards, while Circle's compliant stablecoin, based on its reserve disclosure, has captured a significant share of the EU stablecoin market. More significantly, in November, the decentralized lending protocol Aave passed the review of the Central Bank of Ireland, becoming the first DeFi project to receive a MiCA license, marking the beginning of regulatory coverage of the decentralized ecosystem. Similarly, the compliance process in Eastern markets also achieved a key breakthrough in 2025, with the enactment of Hong Kong's stablecoin regulations marking a significant milestone. On August 1st, the Stablecoin Ordinance officially came into effect, clarifying that stablecoin issuers must obtain a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and requiring stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies to allocate low-risk reserve assets at a 1:1 ratio. This ordinance not only regulates stablecoin issuance but also lays the foundation for Hong Kong to become an Asian crypto-finance center. As of the end of September, 36 institutions had submitted license applications. From a global perspective, the compliance trends in 2025 have shown two major new characteristics: First, the regulatory framework has shifted from "fragmentation" to "unification," with US federal legislation and the EU's MiCA establishing cross-regional standards. Second, the scope of regulation has expanded from "centralized institutions" to "decentralized ecosystems," with DeFi and NFTs beginning to be included in regulations. As 2025 draws to a close, compliance is no longer a constraint on industry development, but rather a "passport" attracting trillions of dollars in investment, becoming a core trend driving the industry towards maturity. Industry self-regulation: Institutions accelerate compliance implementation. Of course, the implementation of the regulatory framework also requires the proactive participation of industry institutions; after all, regulation without cooperation is merely a piece of paper. In 2025, leading platforms such as Coinbase and OKX, along with investment institutions like a16z and Fidelity, will become bridges connecting regulation and the market through compliance strategies and policy promotion, accelerating the industry's compliance process. Coinbase, as one of the earliest compliant institutions in the United States, obtained one of the first Bitcoin trading licenses (BitLicense) issued by New York State in 2014, and subsequently obtained currency transfer licenses in 46 states/regions, allowing it to operate legally in all 50 states. In 2025, to comply with the MiCA Act, Coinbase will relocate its new headquarters to Luxembourg, achieving full market coverage in 27 European countries through its MiCA license. Coinbase also spent hundreds of millions of dollars this year to acquire Liquifi and Echo to lay the groundwork for asset issuance and public sales, serving as a compliant platform for future token issuance and meeting institutional clients' needs for compliant and efficient digital asset management tools. Similarly, another established exchange, OKX, has built an industry benchmark with its "global licensing network + technological compliance." As one of the earliest exchanges to initiate compliance transformation, it became the world's first trading platform to obtain a full operating license in the UAE as early as 2024, and in the same year, it also obtained a license as a large payment institution in Singapore. Following the formal enactment of the MiCA (Miscellaneous Regulatory Authority) in Europe, OKX became one of the first global exchanges to obtain a MiCA license and operate in Europe. At the same time, OKX rigorously conducts KYC/AML (Know Your Customer) procedures and offers a diverse range of compliant products to adapt to the regulatory requirements of different countries/regions, building a global compliant operation system. Its global compliance team and risk control team now exceed 600 people. In addition, OKX has also increased its presence in the US market this year, currently holding operating licenses in approximately 47 states and some other regions. It has also significantly increased its investment in US regulatory and traditional financial professionals, such as former New York State Department of Financial Services Director Linda Lacewell, who has been appointed Chief Legal Officer and restructured OKX's legal and compliance department. Meanwhile, Binance, which previously struggled with compliance issues, has repaired its compliance image by completing its licensing process. After previous regulatory controversies, Binance accelerated its license application process in 2025 and has now obtained compliance licenses in 30 countries/regions worldwide. Just recently, Binance officially obtained the Abu Dhabi ADGM/FSRA global license, becoming the first exchange to obtain full permission under this regulatory framework, accelerating its compliance strategy. As OKX founder and CEO Star stated, "We are seeing more and more crypto companies learning how to thrive within a regulatory framework." Binance founder CZ also emphasized that mainstream cryptocurrency adoption will be a slow process, and a clear regulatory framework is a primary prerequisite. In addition, some investment institutions are promoting the improvement of compliance frameworks through policy lobbying and ecosystem building. a16z invested tens of millions of dollars in 2025 to promote cryptocurrency compliance and participated in the revision discussions of the GENIUS Act and the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act, pushing for the inclusion of "protecting innovation" clauses in the acts and exempting decentralized protocols from some compliance obligations. Financial giants like Fidelity and BlackRock are aligning with compliance progress by issuing Bitcoin spot ETFs and managing crypto asset trusts, and are participating in discussions with governments and regulatory agencies (such as the SEC and CFTC) to promote clear and feasible regulatory frameworks. It is precisely because of the efforts and cooperation of these industry institutions that Bitcoin has gone from a regulatory vacuum at its inception in 2009, to a global warning following the ICO chaos in 2017, and finally to the formation of a globally coordinated compliant network in 2025, allowing the crypto industry to finally shed its "gray area" label. Compliance makes a billion dollars no longer a pipe dream? Disorderly development was once the biggest bottleneck restricting the growth of the crypto industry—the FTX collapse led to a 70% market shrinkage in 2022, and regulatory ambiguity deterred traditional institutions. The improved compliance framework in 2025 is opening up new growth opportunities for the market. Compliance has activated demand for enterprise-level asset allocation. Previously, due to regulatory uncertainty, most companies adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards crypto assets. However, the clarification of the global compliance framework in 2025 is driving corporate funds to enter the market more quickly. According to CoinGecko statistics, in the first three quarters of 2025, the global enterprise-level crypto asset allocation scale exceeded US$120 billion, a 450% increase compared to the whole of 2024. The entry of companies not only brings incremental funds but also enhances the liquidity and stability of crypto assets. The explosive growth of crypto ETFs has become a significant channel for capital inflows. Following the enactment of the GENIUS Act, the SEC relaxed its approval standards for crypto ETFs, resulting in dozens of crypto ETFs being approved for listing in 2025. As of November, the total assets under management of US crypto ETFs exceeded $140 billion, with the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF reaching $70 billion, making it the most popular and fastest-growing product. Meanwhile, the widespread adoption of ETFs allows ordinary investors to participate in the crypto market through traditional brokerages without directly accessing crypto trading platforms, significantly lowering the barrier to entry. Compliance brings not only capital growth but also a restructuring of the ecosystem's value. Under a compliant framework, the application scenarios for crypto assets extend from speculative trading to the real economy. For example, Walmart and Amazon are exploring the use of stablecoins for cross-border supply chain settlements, which are expected to reduce settlement costs by 60%. The implementation of these scenarios has enabled crypto assets to truly integrate into traditional finance and the real economy, providing solid support for the $10 trillion market target. From unregulated, unregulated growth to the full implementation of the compliance framework by 2025, the crypto industry has completed its leap into mainstream finance in just over a decade. However, the improvement of regulation is not the end of the industry's development, but rather the starting point of a new "golden decade." With the formation of a global compliance network and the accelerated integration of traditional capital with the real economy, the crypto market is moving from the periphery to the center. Compliance will continue to be a core driving force, propelling the industry to achieve a breakthrough from 3 trillion to 10 trillion, and reconstructing the global financial value system. Although the crypto market is currently still gripped by the fear of a 1011 collapse, standing at the beginning of 2026, those of us still building the industry should not only hold onto hope but also focus on doing our best in everything we do now. Because "life is always, and only is, this very moment we are experiencing now," just as 17 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto merely wrote a white paper, yet it gave birth to a completely new industry.
Weatherly
Catherine
Kikyo
Anais