Source: China Business News
Since 2025, the market size of stablecoins has been rising steadily, the price of Bitcoin has once exceeded $100,000, the decentralized financial industry has continued to enrich, and the global cryptocurrency market has entered a period of standardized innovation and rapid development.
More importantly, cryptocurrencies and the financial system have shown a trend of comprehensive integration and development, the integration and innovation of stablecoins and payment systems has been rapidly promoted, banking institutions have actively expanded cryptocurrency services, and the integration of capital markets and crypto markets has been promoted in all directions.
In this process, the United States has led major countries in the world to accelerate the formulation of stablecoin and cryptocurrency regulatory laws and regulations, increase strategic reserve investment in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, etc., which has accelerated the formalization and popularization of cryptocurrencies and provided policy guarantees for the integration and innovation of cryptocurrencies and financial systems.
Looking to the future, the integration and development trend of stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and traditional financial systems is difficult to reverse. Among them, the performance of stablecoins in reshaping the global payment system, cryptocurrencies in upgrading global financial infrastructure, and tokenization in transforming asset trading and settlement systems deserves special attention.
Trend 1: "Quick and fast progress" in the integration and innovation of stablecoins and payment systems
Stablecoins have obvious advantages in payment time and cost. Stablecoins are based on blockchain peer-to-peer payments, and payment is settlement, which has significant advantages in payment efficiency and cost. Existing bank cross-border remittances usually take up to 5 working days to settle, while cross-border payments based on stablecoins, 100% of transactions are completed in less than 1 hour. According to data from the World Bank, the average cost rate of cross-border remittances under the traditional model is about 6.35%, but the average cost of sending stablecoins through high-performance blockchains such as Solana is about US$0.00025. In addition, payment infrastructure based on blockchain technology, such as Ethereum and Tron, also achieves differentiated management of transaction priorities by introducing a mechanism similar to "Gas Fee".
Stablecoins are being widely used in real economic and financial transaction payments. In addition to being used for transaction payments of encrypted assets, stablecoins have also been rapidly applied to cross-border trade settlements, inter-enterprise payments, consumer payments, employee salary payments, and other financial investments and physical investments in recent years.
Visa's monitoring data shows that as of April 2025, the market size of stablecoins has exceeded US$220 billion, and the number of active stablecoin holding addresses in the past 12 months has exceeded 240 million. The adjusted number of stablecoin payment transactions has reached 1.4 billion times, and the transaction volume has reached US$6.7 trillion. Among them, the leading stablecoin issuers are also constantly exploring and expanding stablecoin payment scenarios. The stablecoin issuer Tether has cooperated with the UAE real estate platform Reelly Tech to allow home buyers to use USDT and other real estate transactions. Some physical enterprises have also begun to accept stablecoin payments. Since 2025, Metro Department Store in Singapore has begun to accept customers to use stablecoins USDT, USDC, and WUSD for payment. The global chain retail giant SPAR (with more than 13,900 stores in 48 countries around the world) is testing cryptocurrency payments in Switzerland.
Cryptocurrency institutions cooperate with traditional payment institutions to promote domestic and overseas payment services. Tether has made a strategic investment in Fizen, a fintech company focusing on digital payments, to enhance the practical application and payment infrastructure of USDT around the world; Circle, the issuer of the second largest stablecoin USDC, has cooperated with the Philippine electronic payment platform GCash to allow users to receive, purchase, hold or trade USDC. At the same time, cryptocurrency exchanges Kraken and OKX have cooperated with Mastercard to launch digital debit cards, allowing global cryptocurrency holders to use cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (such as USDC, USDP, etc.) for consumption at merchants around the world, thus connecting cryptocurrencies with daily consumption.
Payment institutions actively explore the launch of stablecoin payments to improve the efficiency of payment services. In terms of payment institutions, in 2020, PayPal, an American online payment company, launched PayPal USD, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, and began to support consumers to trade cryptocurrencies through PayPal accounts, etc., and recently cooperated with the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to expand stablecoin payment scenarios; in 2024, Stripe, another American online payment company, acquired the stablecoin platform Bridge to support American companies to use the stablecoin USDC for crypto payment services. In terms of credit card institutions, Visa and Crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange, will cooperate in 2021 to use USDC and Ethereum blockchain for cross-border transaction payments; in addition to cooperating with cryptocurrency exchanges to carry out stablecoin payments, Mastercard has recently announced the development and launch of a "multi-token network" to integrate on-chain and off-chain assets to provide digital asset trading infrastructure for consumers, merchants and financial institutions.
In general, cryptocurrency, especially stablecoin payments, have greatly improved payment efficiency and reduced cross-border transaction costs. The integration and innovation of stablecoin issuers, cryptocurrency exchanges, traditional payment institutions and banking institutions have been accelerated. Stablecoins have developed from marginal payment tools to an important part of the global payment system.
Trend 2: Banking institutions cooperate with crypto institutions to issue transaction services
Mainstream banks are trying to launch their own stablecoins. In 2019, JPMorgan Chase launched its own stablecoin, JP Morgan Coin. Since 2025, the pace of banking institutions exploring the issuance of stablecoins has accelerated significantly. In July 2024, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) conducted a "sandbox test" for the issuance of stablecoins. In 2025, Itau Unibanco, the largest bank in Brazil, plans to launch its own stablecoin. Sumitomo Mitsui, the second largest financial group in Japan, announced that it would cooperate with blockchain platform companies to develop stablecoins linked to legal tender. Japanese financial group SBI and stablecoin issuer Circle launched stablecoin USDC in Japan. First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest bank in the UAE by assets, and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ explored the launch of a stablecoin backed by dirhams.
Banking institutions explore the development of diversified stablecoin and cryptocurrency services. Since the second half of 2024, the number of banking institutions involved in stablecoin and cryptocurrency services has increased rapidly, and leading banking institutions have entered the market one after another, and the scope of business involved has also been continuously expanded. Hong Kong virtual bank ZA BANK directly provides cryptocurrency trading services to retail users, supporting users to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum through Hong Kong dollars and US dollars. Emirates NBD, one of the largest banks in Dubai, launched cryptocurrency trading services through its digital banking platform Liv X. Bunq, the second largest digital bank in Europe, announced a partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Kraken to launch the cryptocurrency service platform Bunq Crypto, which supports users to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies on the platform. In addition, the global systemically important bank Bank of New York Mellon recently expanded its services to stablecoin issuer Circle, allowing customers to make payments to Circle through the bank for the purchase or sale of Circle's stablecoins.
Banking institutions use blockchain to transform and upgrade financial infrastructure. In order to improve payment efficiency and reduce payment costs, JPMorgan Chase will upgrade the Morgan Coin to the blockchain payment platform Kinexys in 2023, with an average daily trading volume of more than US$2 billion. Currently, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, India's Axis Bank, Bahrain Bank ABC, First Abu Dhabi Bank, London Stock Exchange, etc. are all using the Kinexys platform for cross-border payment and foreign exchange settlement services. Since 2025, in order to reduce counterparty risk, Swiss fintech company and infrastructure provider Taurus announced the launch of Taurus-NETWORK, an interbank digital asset (cryptocurrency and tokenized asset) trading platform, connecting global financial institutions, automatically carrying out mortgage loans, real-time settlement and operations of digital assets, without relying on third parties to process or cancel transactions; under the regulatory framework of the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, Standard Chartered Bank and cryptocurrency exchange OKX jointly launched the Global Pledge Asset Mirror Project, accepting institutional clients to use cryptocurrencies and tokenized money market assets as over-the-counter pledge assets, of which Standard Chartered Bank is responsible for the safe storage of pledged assets, and OKX is responsible for the management of pledged assets and the execution of transactions.
In general, banking institutions are actively deploying cryptocurrency services by issuing stablecoins, providing stablecoin and cryptocurrency transaction intermediary services, and using blockchain to upgrade payment, transaction and asset management infrastructure; the participation of banking institutions has greatly enhanced the liquidity of cryptocurrency transactions, provided a safe entry for institutional investors, and accelerated the globalization and disintermediation of financial services.
Trend 3: Comprehensive advancement of integration between capital markets and crypto markets
More and more institutions are launching tokenized financial products. With the help of blockchain, tokenization can achieve instant purchase, sale and transfer without paperwork and intermediary processing, which can greatly reduce transaction costs, improve transaction efficiency and reduce settlement risks. In terms of real-world asset tokenization, financial asset tokenization is at the forefront with the support of financial regulators and leading financial institutions. In 2022, the Monetary Authority of Singapore launched the tokenization experimental project Project Guardian. In 2023, the US asset management company BlackRock launched the tokenized fund project BUIDL. In 2024, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority launched the regulatory sandbox Project Ensemble covering asset tokenization. Financial asset tokenization has covered areas such as government bonds, corporate bonds, funds, and stocks. In the 12 months ending April 2025, the market size of real-world asset tokenization doubled (over $22 billion), with more than 100,000 holders and nearly 190 issuers. McKinsey's June 2024 report predicts that the market size of tokenized financial assets will reach $2 trillion by 2030 (excluding cryptocurrencies and stablecoins).
Since 2025, well-known global financial institutions have significantly accelerated the tokenization process of financial products. Fidelity, a US asset management company, announced the launch of a tokenized fund that invests in US Treasury bonds and a pension plan that can directly invest in cryptocurrencies. Franklin Templeton Fund launched a tokenized money market fund; Singapore investment management company Invesco launched a tokenized private credit fund; China Asset Management (Hong Kong) launched a retail tokenized fund, and China Pacific Insurance Investment Management (Hong Kong) launched a tokenized US dollar money market fund. In April 2025, Calastone, a British fund management service provider, announced that it is integrating Fireblocks' blockchain infrastructure to help asset management companies around the world tokenize any fund on their platform.
Asset management institutions began to invest in crypto assets on a large scale. In 2024, the securities regulators in the United States and Hong Kong, China, successively approved the launch of crypto asset ETFs, providing a compliant channel for institutional investors to invest in cryptocurrencies, and also driving asset management companies and securities brokerage companies to invest directly in cryptocurrencies. In April 2025, BlackRock deposited 3,296 bitcoins (worth about $254 million) in the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Prime. Hong Kong's State Street Global Asset Management and cryptocurrency service agency Galaxy Digital Holdings have cooperated to launch the "State Street Galaxy" platform, which can carry out both crypto and traditional investment applications, and plans to increase the scale of management of crypto assets to $5 billion by 2026. Recently, Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster plans to launch direct spot cryptocurrency trading in the next 12 months, and Goldman Sachs also stated that it will expand digital asset trading activities, explore cryptocurrency lending, and make a big bet on tokenization business.
The integration of crypto exchanges and stock exchanges is accelerating. With the clarification of regulatory policies and the relaxation of the regulatory environment, crypto exchanges and brokers/dealers have actively promoted mergers and acquisitions since 2025 to integrate traditional stock, derivatives and cryptocurrency trading services. In terms of cryptocurrency exchange mergers and acquisitions, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken acquired retail futures and foreign exchange trading platform NinjaTrader, and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is actively promoting the acquisition of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Deribit. In terms of the integration of cryptocurrency exchanges and payment institutions, cryptocurrency trading platform Swapped.com acquired Web3 payment infrastructure company Kado Software, and crypto payment company Ripple acquired securities brokerage company Hidden Road to provide institutional investors with complete fixed income prime brokerage services. In terms of the integration of cryptocurrency exchanges and stock exchanges, British cryptocurrency exchange Archax acquired brokerage Globacap Private Markets regulated by the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority FINRA and SEC, and securities trading platform Robinhood is integrating cryptocurrency trading platform Bitstamp. In addition, it is reported that there is a possibility of mergers and acquisitions between cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the New York Stock Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the United States.
In general, in 2024, cryptocurrency ETFs have opened up formal investment channels for cryptocurrency investment, tokenization has greatly improved the efficiency of financial asset investment transactions, and the merger of cryptocurrency exchanges and stock exchanges, and the cooperation between cryptocurrency service providers and securities brokers have opened up investment transactions of financial assets and cryptocurrencies, which are comprehensively promoting the integration and development of the crypto market and the capital market.
Trend 4: Regulatory policies shift to support the innovative development of cryptocurrencies
The main line of the US stablecoin and cryptocurrency policy has shifted to "supporting innovative development". After Trump took office as US President again, he signed the executive order "Strengthening the US Leadership in Digital Financial Technology", established the Presidential Digital Asset Market Working Group, and actively promoted the formulation of the US Stablecoin and Cryptocurrency Regulatory Act. The main line of policy has shifted from the previous strict restrictions to "supporting innovative and standardized development". At the same time, the attitude of US financial regulatory authorities towards financial institutions participating in stablecoin and cryptocurrency activities has also undergone a major change. Since March 2025, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve have successively revoked the previous prior regulatory filing/approval requirements for banking institutions to participate in cryptocurrency-related businesses, allowing banking institutions to independently engage in cryptocurrency activities permitted by law while doing a good job of risk management.
Major countries have accelerated the promotion of stablecoin and cryptocurrency regulatory legislation. Although Malta, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, the European Union, Hong Kong, China and other countries and regions have formulated and issued regulatory laws and regulations related to stablecoins and cryptocurrencies since 2018, the US policy shift on stablecoins and crypto assets since 2025 has had a great driving effect, activating the regulatory legislative intentions of other countries. Recently, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Argentina, Nigeria, the Cayman Islands, Panama and other countries have issued or announced bills to promote the regulation of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies. According to RIVER statistics disclosed by Cointelegraph, 47 countries in the world have relaxed or simplified the regulation of cryptocurrencies since 2020, and only 4 countries have tightened regulation or completely banned cryptocurrency transactions and mining activities. At the same time, since 2019, countries and regions such as Japan, Hong Kong, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States have actively explored the use of regulatory sandboxes to test the issuance and trading of stablecoins and tokenization to better balance risk prevention and innovative development.
Among them, Australia plans to introduce cryptocurrency regulatory legislation in 2025 to regulate stablecoin issuers, cryptocurrency exchanges, custody services, and brokerage platforms, and reduce the de-banking behavior of financial institutions (i.e., restricting the provision of services to cryptocurrency companies); the UK Treasury issued a statement saying that the UK plans to cooperate with the United States to promote innovation and development in the encryption industry, and will formulate new regulations for crypto asset service providers such as Bitcoin and Ethereum through the "Change Plan" to enhance investor confidence and promote growth; the Japanese Financial Services Agency reviewed and approved the "Report of the Working Group on Fund Settlement System, etc.", while strengthening user protection when exchanges go bankrupt and implementing the "Travel Rules" for stablecoin transactions, it allows cryptocurrency intermediary business and broadens the scope of asset investment of stablecoin issuers to better achieve a balance between security compliance and innovative development.
The United States leads governments in promoting strategic reserve investment in cryptocurrencies. In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order announcing the establishment of a "strategic bitcoin reserve" and a "digital asset inventory", which included about 200,000 bitcoins (worth about $20 billion) confiscated by the government through judicial procedures and administrative fines into the reserve, and explored increasing bitcoin holdings through budget-neutral strategies. At the same time, the U.S. Congress promoted the formulation of the "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve" bill. Driven by the United States, some countries are also considering promoting bitcoin reserve investment. In April 2025, Binance CEO Richard Teng said in an interview that Binance has been providing advice to multiple governments on establishing strategic bitcoin reserves and formulating crypto asset regulations. In addition, sovereign wealth funds in France, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Brunei and other countries are increasing their cryptocurrency investments. Recently, six digital economy industry associations in the UK jointly wrote to the Prime Minister's Office, calling on the government to appoint a cryptocurrency envoy and formulate a special development plan for digital assets, emphasizing that the UK needs to "strengthen strategic focus" to promote investment, employment and economic growth in the crypto field.
In general, driven by the new policy of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies by the Trump administration, countries are actively promoting stablecoin and cryptocurrency regulatory laws and regulations, greatly reducing the policy uncertainty of the development of the stablecoin and cryptocurrency market; the United States has led governments and sovereign wealth funds to increase strategic reserve investment in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, taking a big step in promoting the formalization and legalization of cryptocurrencies, alleviating the worries of the integrated development of traditional financial institutions, capital markets and stablecoins and crypto ecosystems, marking the maturity of cryptocurrencies as an asset class.
Future Outlook
Stablecoins and cryptocurrencies have been increasingly recognized in improving the efficiency of financial services, reducing the cost of financial services and promoting financial inclusion. The integration trend of stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and traditional financial systems will be difficult to reverse. In the future, with the iterative maturity of blockchain technology and the accelerated improvement of regulatory frameworks in various countries, this integration trend will accelerate in depth, the integrated business ecosystem will be richer, and will ultimately have a significant impact on the global financial development pattern and economic development model.
Stablecoins and cryptocurrencies will achieve complementary development with central bank digital currencies, comprehensively improve payment efficiency and reduce payment costs, reconstruct the global payment system, and drive the development of decentralized finance (DeFi). Although some countries only supported central bank digital currency experiments in previous years, and some countries focused on supporting the innovative development of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies, most of them have recently turned to a model that supports the co-development of the three. Typical representatives of supporting integrated development, such as the European Union, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Hong Kong, China, have clarified or are formulating regulatory regulations for stablecoin and cryptocurrency activities while promoting the application and testing of central bank digital currencies, and regulating the innovative development of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies.
With the support of technical improvement and regulatory norms, cryptocurrencies will transform from "alternative assets" to "popular assets", and eventually upgrade to "infrastructure", reshaping the global financial landscape. According to Triple A data, there will be 560 million cryptocurrency holders in the world in 2024, with a holding rate (penetration rate) of about 6.9%. However, research data from relevant institutions since 2025 show that the cryptocurrency holding rate in the United States, South Korea, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates has exceeded 20%. At the same time, Bitwise data shows that in the first quarter of 2025, listed companies purchased a total of 95,431 bitcoins, an increase of 16.11% month-on-month, and the number of listed companies holding bitcoins reached 79, an increase of 17.91% month-on-month. Some companies use bitcoins as financial reserve assets. These show that with the integration and development of cryptocurrency and the financial system, cryptocurrency has in fact become a popular asset. Tokenization is a revolutionary innovation after ETFs, and is penetrating into all types of assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, and artworks, and ultimately transforming the asset trading and settlement system. The ideal goal of tokenization is to achieve "everything can be tokenized" and enable capital to flow around the clock and globally without friction. Although it will take time to achieve this goal, as the World Economic Forum pointed out in December 2024, the interest of major global financial institutions in asset tokenization continues to heat up because tokenization can reduce costs, improve efficiency and reduce settlement risks. The attractiveness of Singapore's tokenization project Project Guardian, Hong Kong's tokenization project Project Ensemble, and BlackRock's BUIDL fund project shows that the tokenization of real assets has reached a turning point from on-chain experiments to practical applications.
Of course, in this process, countries need to promptly improve policies, regulations and regulatory frameworks, and at the same time improve the global regulatory governance mechanism based on the natural globalization attributes of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies. On the one hand, the current financial regulatory system is built according to the centralized financial service model, while the decentralization of the cryptocurrency system means that it may not work to regulate cryptocurrencies completely according to the principle of "same activities, same risks, same rules" in the end. On the other hand, current financial regulation and governance are nationalized, while cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance are global, requiring international regulatory organizations to pay more attention to and focus on solving the problem of "globalization of business and nationalization of governance" and guard against the hegemony of the United States in the global cryptocurrency governance system.
(Shen Jianguang is the chief economist of JD.com Group, and Zhu Taihui is the senior research director of JD.com Group)
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