After the compliance breakthrough in 2025, is a $10 trillion crypto market no longer a pipe dream?

Time always comes unexpectedly, and K-lines always fluctuate in unexpected ways. This is the footnote of 2025. Now we stand at the tail end of time, looking back on the past and looking forward to the future.

The year 2025, which is drawing to a close, 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 resurgence in the summer, and then to the bloodbath brought by 1011 in the late autumn, the crypto market has experienced its own vicissitudes.

But putting aside these fluctuations in the stock charts, the crypto industry has finally ushered in another spring.

In January, the White House issued an executive order that completely abandoned the previous approach of "restrictive regulation".

In March, Trump launched a Bitcoin reserve program, adding 200,000 confiscated Bitcoins to his strategic reserves.

In April, the U.S. Department of Justice disbanded its special crypto enforcement task force, creating more room for compliant platforms to grow.

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 incidents, but rather form a clear logical chain around "compliance": the restructuring of US legislation addressed the core concerns of institutions entering the market, while the enactment of Hong Kong regulations opened up compliance channels 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 series of compliance policies introduced 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 use one word to summarize the development of the crypto industry in 2025, it would be—compliance.

Where will the industry go after it achieves compliance? Will the development dividends still exist? These are questions that deserve our serious consideration.

A Decade of Regulatory Evolution: 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 has been in stark contrast to the expansion of the industry.

When Bitcoin was first created in 2009, its decentralized nature kept it outside the traditional financial regulatory system. Most regions around the world remained silent about this new phenomenon, while a few regions regarded it as a "speculative tool" or a "carrier of crime".

Prior to 2015, the cryptocurrency market was worth less than $10 billion, and global regulation mainly consisted of prohibitions and warnings.

In 2013, the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks," clarifying its non-monetary nature; Russia included cryptocurrency trading in the illegal category in 2014; and the U.S. SEC only regards it as an "investment tool that requires caution."

At this time, the industry was completely in a regulatory vacuum, with most transactions completed through third-party platforms, leading to frequent hacking attacks and fraud incidents.

From 2017 to 2022, with the rise of the Ethereum ecosystem and the explosion of the DeFi wave, the market value 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 Payment Services Act in 2017 to issue licenses to crypto exchanges; Switzerland, on the other hand, has built an inclusive regulatory framework through its "Crypto Valley" strategy, allowing banks to conduct crypto custody business.

At this stage, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began to clarify its regulatory stance, defining some tokens as "securities" and launching a crackdown on the ICO chaos. However, conflicts still exist between federal and state-level regulatory standards.

During this period, although some regions in Asia issued bans, a global consensus on regulation began to form. Complete bans cannot curb technological innovation; the key is to establish a suitable regulatory system.

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 Act coming into full effect at the end of 2024, becoming the world's first unified regulatory framework for crypto; the US SEC adjusted its regulatory strategy, shifting from "broad securitization designation" to categorized regulation; and countries such as Singapore and the UAE created compliance sandboxes by establishing specialized regulatory agencies.

This systematic regulation lays the foundation for the surge in compliance trends in 2025.

Why is 2025 considered a year of breakthroughs in compliance?

By 2025, global crypto compliance had achieved a qualitative leap. Western markets, represented by the United States and the European Union, had established clear legal frameworks, while Hong Kong, with its stablecoin regulations, accelerated the compliance process in Asia, forming a regulatory network covering major economies.

The United States completed a comprehensive restructuring of its crypto regulatory system in 2025, becoming central to global policy change.

On January 23, the Trump administration issued an executive order entitled “Strengthening U.S. Leadership in Digital Financial Technologies,” which repealed restrictive policies implemented during the Biden era and established a regulatory tone that “promotes innovation.”

This executive order directly spurred the implementation of a series of subsequent laws: 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 systemically important stablecoin issuers with a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion and requires that reserve assets be 100% pegged to the US dollar.

Concurrently, the House of Representatives passed the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act, which clarified the classification criteria for crypto assets: excluding decentralized tokens such as Bitcoin and Ethereum from the category of securities, and implementing differentiated regulation for centralized stablecoins and security tokens.

In addition, the United States' compliance breakthroughs are also reflected in strategic-level innovation.

On March 6, Trump signed an executive order to establish a "strategic Bitcoin reserve," which included 200,000 Bitcoins seized by the Department of Justice into the national reserve and imposed a permanent ban on their sale. This move, which strengthened the scarcity of Bitcoin through institutional locking, set a precedent for sovereign states to allocate crypto assets.

The direction of regulatory enforcement has also been adjusted accordingly. In April, the Ministry of Justice disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Task Force, clarifying that it will only crack down on serious illegal activities and will no longer initiate criminal prosecutions against compliant trading platforms, creating a more relaxed development environment for the industry.

The European Union, through the deepening implementation of the MiCA Act, has established the world's most stringent compliance system. As of November 2025, 57 institutions had obtained MiCA licenses, achieving full-chain supervision from issuance to custody.

The key point of the bill is that as long as a crypto asset servicer license is obtained in one EU member state, it can operate legally in all 27 member states.

This categorized regulatory model has proven effective: Tether (USDT) was completely delisted from EU exchanges for failing to meet audit standards, while Circle's compliant stablecoins, thanks to their reserve disclosures, have captured a significant share of the EU stablecoin market.

Even more groundbreaking was Aave, a decentralized lending protocol, which passed the review of the Central Bank of Ireland in November, 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 the Eastern market also achieved a key breakthrough in 2025, with the enactment of the Hong Kong Stablecoin Ordinance marking a significant milestone.

On August 1, the Stablecoin Ordinance officially came into effect, stipulating 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 regulation not only standardizes the issuance of stablecoins, but also lays the foundation for Hong Kong to become an Asian crypto financial center. As of the end of September, 36 institutions had submitted license applications.

Globally, compliance trends in 2025 have taken on two new characteristics:

First, the regulatory framework is moving from "fragmentation" to "unification," with US federal legislation and the EU's MiCA establishing cross-regional standards.

Secondly, the scope of regulation has been extended from "centralized institutions" to "decentralized ecosystems," with DeFi and NFTs beginning to be included in the regulations.

As 2025 draws to a close, compliance will no longer be a constraint on industry development, but rather a passport to attract trillions of dollars in investment, becoming a core trend driving the industry toward maturity.

Industry self-regulation: Institutions help accelerate the implementation of compliance.

Of course, the implementation of the regulatory framework also requires the active participation of industry organizations, after all, regulation without cooperation is just a piece of waste paper.

In 2025, leading platforms such as Coinbase and OKX, along with investment institutions like a16z and Fidelity, will become bridges connecting regulators and the market through compliance strategies and policy promotion, accelerating the industry's compliance process.

As one of the earliest compliant institutions in the United States, Coinbase obtained one of the first Bitcoin trading licenses (BitLicense) issued by New York State as early as 2014. Subsequently, it obtained money transfer licenses in 46 states/regions, allowing it to operate legally in all 50 states of the United States.

In 2025, to comply with the MiCA Act, Coinbase will move its new headquarters to Luxembourg and achieve full market coverage in 27 European countries through the MiCA license.

This year, Coinbase also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire Liquifi and Echo to expand its asset issuance and public sales, aiming to serve as a compliant platform for future token issuance and meet institutional clients' needs for compliant and efficient digital asset management tools.

Similarly, another established exchange, OKX, has set 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 also obtained a license to become a major payment institution in Singapore in the same year.

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 with a global compliance team and risk control staff exceeding 600 people.

In addition, OKX has increased its presence in the US market this year, and has now obtained operating licenses in about 47 states and some regions. It has also brought in a significant number of senior professionals with US regulatory and traditional financial backgrounds, such as former New York State Department of Financial Services Director Linda Lacewell, who was appointed as Chief Legal Officer and restructured OKX's legal and compliance department after taking office.

Binance, which had previously struggled with compliance issues, repaired its image by acquiring additional licenses. Following 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 adoption of cryptocurrencies will be a slow process, and a clear regulatory framework is a primary prerequisite.

In addition, some investment institutions are promoting the improvement of the compliance framework through policy lobbying and ecosystem building.

In 2025, a16z invested tens of millions of dollars to promote the compliance process of cryptocurrencies 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, managing crypto asset trusts, and engaging in discussions with governments and regulators such as the SEC and CFTC to push for clear and workable regulatory frameworks.

It is thanks to the efforts and cooperation of these industry organizations 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 collaborative compliant network in 2025, allowing the crypto industry to finally shed its "gray area" label.

Compliance makes the 10 trillion yuan target 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 by 2025 is opening up new growth opportunities for the market.

Compliance has spurred demand for corporate asset allocation. In the past, 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 has accelerated the entry of corporate funds into the market.

According to CoinGecko, in the first three quarters of 2025, the global enterprise-level crypto asset allocation exceeded $120 billion, a 450% increase compared to the whole of 2024. The entry of enterprises not only brings incremental funds but also enhances the liquidity and stability of crypto assets.

The explosive growth of crypto ETFs has become an important channel for capital inflows. After the GENIUS Act took effect, the SEC relaxed the approval standards for crypto ETFs, and dozens of crypto ETFs were 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.

At the same time, the widespread adoption of ETFs allows ordinary investors to participate in the crypto market through traditional brokerages without having to directly access crypto trading platforms, greatly lowering the barrier to entry.

Compliance brings not only increased funding but also a restructuring of ecosystem value. Under the compliance framework, the application scenarios of crypto assets are extending from speculative trading to the real economy. For example, Walmart and Amazon are exploring the use of stablecoins to complete cross-border supply chain settlements, which is expected to reduce settlement costs by 60%.

The implementation of these scenarios enables 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 in 2025, the crypto industry has completed its leap into mainstream finance in just over a decade.

However, the improvement of regulations is not the end of the industry's development, but rather the new starting point of a "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 serve as a core driving force, propelling the industry to achieve a breakthrough from 3 trillion to 10 trillion in scale and reconstructing the global financial value system.

Despite the current panic surrounding the crypto market, as we stand at the beginning of 2026, those of us still building the industry should not only hold onto hope but also do our best in everything we do right now.

Because "life is always, and only is, this moment we are experiencing now," just as Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a white paper 17 years ago, which gave birth to a completely new industry.