After experiencing the year of 2025's compliance breakthroughs, is the $10 trillion crypto market no longer a fantasy?

Time always arrives unexpectedly, and candlestick charts always fluctuate beyond expectations. This is the footnote of 2025. Now we stand at the tail end of time, looking back at the past and envisioning the future.

The nearly past 2025, the crypto industry was not tumultuous, but it was also calm and steady. From the celebration sparked by Trump Coin at the beginning of the year, to Ethereum’s return in midsummer, and then the bloodbath brought by 1011 in late autumn, outlining the ups and downs of the crypto market.

But beyond these fluctuations on the candlestick chart, the crypto industry has finally welcomed 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 Plan, incorporating 200,000 confiscated Bitcoins into strategic reserves.

In April, the U.S. Department of Justice disbanded the special crypto enforcement team, freeing up space for compliant platforms to develop.

In July, the US Stablecoin Act (GENIUS) officially took effect.

In August, Hong Kong’s “Stablecoin Regulations” were formally implemented.

These events are not isolated but form a clear logical chain around “compliance”: US legislation restructuring addressed core concerns about institutional entry, while Hong Kong’s regulations took effect, opening up the Asian compliance channel.

Reviewing the more than ten years of cryptocurrency development, its relationship with regulation has always evolved through a game of chess. The intensive issuance of compliance policies worldwide in 2025 marks the industry’s official departure from wild growth and stepping into a new phase of development.

Therefore, if we must summarize the development of the crypto industry in 2025 with one word, it should be—Compliance.

And after industry compliance, where will it go? Are the development dividends still there? These are even more worth pondering.

A Decade of Regulatory Changes: From Ban to Regulation

Over the past decade, global crypto regulation has roughly gone through three stages: “rejection and prohibition, cautious exploration, and regulated development,” with regulatory attitudes sharply echoing industry expansion.

At the birth of Bitcoin in 2009, its decentralized nature kept it outside traditional financial regulation systems. Most regions worldwide remained silent on this emerging phenomenon, with a few viewing it as a “speculative tool” or “criminal vehicle.”

Before 2015, the crypto market size was less than $10 billion, and global regulation mainly focused on bans and warnings.

In 2013, China’s central bank issued a notice on preventing Bitcoin risks, clarifying its non-monetary attributes; in 2014, Russia classified crypto transactions as illegal; the US SEC only regarded it as a “warning investment tool.”

At this stage, the industry was in a regulatory vacuum, with most transactions completed through third-party platforms, and frequent hacking and scam incidents.

From 2017 to 2022, with the rise of the Ethereum ecosystem and the DeFi wave, crypto market cap surpassed $2 trillion, and regulation entered a cautious exploration phase.

Japan became the first country to attempt to regulate crypto trading, revising the “Fund Settlement Law” in 2017 to issue licenses to crypto exchanges; Switzerland, through its “Crypto Valley” strategy, built an inclusive regulatory framework allowing banks to conduct crypto custody services.

During this period, the US SEC clarified its regulatory stance, classifying some tokens as “securities,” and began rectifying ICO chaos. However, conflicts between federal and state-level standards persisted.

Although some Asian regions issued bans, a global regulatory consensus was beginning to form. Completely banning technology could not curb innovation; establishing a suitable regulatory system was key.

Since 2023, regulation has entered a normative phase. After risk events like the FTX collapse, the industry’s demand for compliance has become unprecedented.

The EU took the lead, with the MiCA law fully coming into effect at the end of 2024, becoming the world’s first unified crypto regulation framework; the US SEC adjusted its regulatory strategy, shifting from “general securities classification” to targeted regulation; Singapore, UAE, and other countries established dedicated regulatory agencies to build compliance sandboxes.

This systematic regulation laid the foundation for the explosive compliance trend in 2025.

Why is 2025 the Year of Regulatory Breakthrough?

By 2025, global crypto compliance has achieved a qualitative leap. Western markets, represented by the US and the EU, have established clear legal frameworks, with Hong Kong making breakthroughs through the Stablecoin Regulations, accelerating Asian compliance, and forming a regulatory network covering major economies.

In 2025, the US completed a comprehensive overhaul of its crypto regulation system, becoming the core of global policy changes.

On January 23, the Trump administration issued the “Executive Order on Strengthening America’s Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” rescinding restrictive policies from the Biden era and establishing a regulatory tone of “promoting innovation.”

This executive order directly propelled subsequent legislation: on July 18, the GENIUS Act was signed into law, establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins, with the federal government managing systemically important stablecoin issuers with a market cap over $10 billion, requiring 100% dollar-pegged reserves.

Meanwhile, the House passed the “Digital Asset Market Clarity Act,” clarifying classification standards for crypto assets: excluding decentralized tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum from securities, and implementing differentiated regulation for centralized stablecoins and security tokens.

Additionally, the US’s regulatory breakthrough also includes strategic innovations.

On March 6, Trump signed an executive order to establish a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” incorporating 200,000 confiscated Bitcoins into national reserves with a permanent ban on sale, reinforcing Bitcoin scarcity through institutional locking, pioneering sovereign states’ allocation of crypto assets.

Regulatory enforcement also shifted: in April, the Department of Justice disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, clarifying it would only target serious illegal activities and no longer pursue criminal charges against compliant trading platforms, creating a more relaxed environment for industry development.

The EU, through the deepening implementation of the MiCA law, has built the world’s strictest compliance system. By November 2025, 57 institutions had obtained MiCA licenses, covering the entire chain from issuance to custody.

The law’s key point is that obtaining a crypto service provider license in one EU member state allows operation across all 27 member states.

This classification-based regulation has already shown results: Tether (USDT), due to not meeting audit standards, was delisted from EU exchanges, while Circle’s compliant stablecoin, with transparent reserves, has gained a significant market share in the EU stablecoin market.

More notably, in November, the decentralized lending protocol Aave was approved by the Central Bank of Ireland, becoming the first DeFi project licensed under MiCA, marking the beginning of regulatory coverage over decentralized ecosystems.

Similarly, the compliance process in Eastern markets also achieved key breakthroughs in 2025, with Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Regulations becoming a milestone.

On August 1, the “Stablecoin Regulations” officially took effect, requiring stablecoin issuers to obtain a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), with pegged fiat stablecoins required to hold low-risk reserves at a 1:1 ratio.

This regulation not only standardizes stablecoin issuance but also lays the foundation for Hong Kong to become an Asian crypto financial hub. By the end of September, 36 institutions had submitted license applications.

From a global perspective, the compliance trend in 2025 has formed two new features:

First, the regulatory framework is moving from “fragmentation” to “unification,” with US federal laws and the EU’s MiCA establishing cross-regional standards.

Second, the scope of regulation extends from “centralized institutions” to “decentralized ecosystems,” with DeFi and NFTs beginning to be included in regulation.

As 2025 draws to a close, compliance is no longer a “straitjacket” for industry development but a “passport” attracting trillions of dollars of capital, becoming the core trend driving the industry toward maturity.

Industry Self-Regulation: Institutions Accelerate Compliance Implementation

Of course, the implementation of regulatory frameworks also depends on proactive industry institutions—regulation without cooperation is just paper.

In 2025, leading platforms like Coinbase, OKX, and investment firms like a16z, Fidelity, have become bridges connecting regulation and markets through compliance strategies and policy promotion, accelerating industry compliance.

Coinbase, as the earliest compliant institution in the US, obtained the first Bitcoin exchange license (BitLicense) issued by New York State as early as 2014, then acquired licenses for 46 states/regions, allowing legal operation in all 50 US states.

In 2025, Coinbase relocated its headquarters to Luxembourg to adapt to the MiCA law, achieving full coverage of the European 27 countries through a MiCA license.

This year, Coinbase also invested hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring Liquifi and Echo to develop compliant platforms for asset issuance and public sales, aiming to meet institutional clients’ needs for compliant and efficient digital asset management tools.

Similarly, another veteran exchange, OKX, has built industry benchmarks with its “global licensing + technological compliance” approach. As one of the earliest to start compliance transformation, it became the first global exchange to obtain a full operating license in the UAE in 2024, and also acquired a large payment institution license in Singapore the same year.

After the MiCA law took effect in Europe, OKX became one of the first global exchanges licensed under MiCA and operating in Europe. It strictly enforces KYC/AML and offers diversified compliant products to meet regulatory requirements across different countries/regions, building a global compliant operation system with a compliance team and risk control staff exceeding 600.

Additionally, OKX has increased its US market presence this year, obtaining licenses to operate in about 47 states and some regions, and has significantly recruited senior professionals with backgrounds in US regulation and traditional finance, such as former NY State Department of Financial Services head Linda Lacewell, who was appointed as Chief Legal Officer, and has restructured its legal and compliance departments.

Meanwhile, Binance, previously troubled by compliance issues, has repaired its image through licensing. After regulatory disputes, Binance accelerated license applications in 2025, and has now obtained licenses in 30 countries/regions worldwide.

Recently, Binance officially received a comprehensive license under Abu Dhabi’s ADGM/FSRA framework, becoming the first exchange to obtain full licensing under this regulatory regime, accelerating its compliance layout.

As OKX founder and CEO Star said, “We see more and more crypto companies learning how to develop healthily under regulatory systems,” and Binance founder CZ emphasized that mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies will be a slow process, with a clear regulatory framework being the primary prerequisite.

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

a16z invested over ten million dollars in 2025 to promote crypto compliance and participated in revisions of the GENIUS Act and the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, advocating for inclusion of “protecting innovation” clauses and exemptions for certain decentralized protocols.

Financial giants like Fidelity and BlackRock are managing crypto assets through Bitcoin spot ETFs and trust funds, aligning with compliance progress, and engaging with government and regulatory agencies (such as SEC, CFTC) to push for clear and feasible regulatory frameworks.

Thanks to the efforts and cooperation of these industry institutions, Bitcoin has finally moved from a regulatory vacuum at its inception in 2009, through the global warning after the ICO chaos in 2017, to the formation of a global compliant network in 2025, shedding the “gray area” label.

Does Compliance Make 10 Trillion No Longer a Dream?

Unregulated growth was the biggest bottleneck restricting crypto industry expansion—FTX’s collapse caused the market to shrink by 70% in 2022, and regulatory ambiguity deterred traditional institutions.

The improvement of the 2025 compliance framework is opening new growth space for the market.

Compliance has activated enterprise-level asset allocation needs. Previously, due to regulatory uncertainty, most enterprises were cautious about crypto assets. But with the clear global compliance framework in 2025, corporate funds are accelerating into the market.

According to CoinGecko, in the first three quarters of 2025, the global enterprise crypto asset allocation exceeded $120 billion, a 450% increase over all of 2024. The influx of institutional funds not only brings incremental capital but also enhances liquidity and stability of crypto assets.

The explosive growth of crypto ETFs has become an important channel for capital entry. After the GENIUS law took effect, the SEC relaxed approval standards for crypto ETFs, with dozens approved for listing in 2025.

By November, the total assets under management of US crypto ETFs exceeded $140 billion, with BlackRock’s 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 brokers without directly engaging with trading platforms, greatly lowering participation barriers.

Compliance not only brings capital growth but also reconstructs the ecosystem value. Under the compliance framework, crypto asset use cases are extending from speculative trading to the real economy. For example, Walmart and Amazon are exploring using stablecoins for cross-border supply chain settlements, with settlement costs expected to decrease by 60%.

The implementation of these scenarios truly integrates crypto assets into traditional finance and the real economy, providing solid support for the 10 trillion market target.

From unregulated wild growth to the full implementation of the 2025 compliance framework, the crypto industry has completed a leap into mainstream finance in over a decade.

But the improvement of regulation is not the end of industry development but a new starting point for the “Golden Decade.”

With the formation of a global compliance network and the accelerated integration of traditional capital and the real economy, the crypto market is moving from the periphery to the center. Compliance will continue to be the core driving force, pushing the industry to break through from 3 trillion to 10 trillion in market size, reconstructing the global financial value system.

Although the crypto market is still under the panic of 1011, at the dawn of 2026, besides embracing hope, those of us building the industry should also focus on doing every task well in the present.

Because “life is always—and only—the moment we are experiencing now,” just as Satoshi Nakamoto, 17 years ago, only wrote a white paper, yet gave birth to a whole new industry.