One Wednesday afternoon, the risk control department of one of the world’s TOP 20 banks was conducting a “doomsday drill”—supposing that customers collectively go insane, frantically exchanging their account balances for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether, and then withdrawing everything. How long could the bank’s system withstand it?

Less than three hours after the test began, the compliance team’s screens were flooded with red alerts. The existing risk management framework was simply no match for this kind of “digital bank run,” with a liquidity gap so huge it was absurd. It’s said that upper management held an emergency meeting that very night, with someone proposing to quietly prepare a $1 billion cold wallet reserve as a buffer.

This isn’t some sci-fi script. By the end of 2025, traditional financial giants finally realized a harsh truth: crypto assets are no longer some fringe toy—they’ve become a liquidity bomb that could go off at any time. The question banks face now is no longer “Should we accept cryptocurrencies,” but rather “How can we accept them without being overwhelmed?”