China, Dec. 31st

ME Group, in collaboration with CoinFound, jointly presents the year’s flagship series, “Crypto Chronicle 2025: The Era of Convergence | ME Annual Rankings & Year-End Review.” Based on what the Chinese-speaking community focuses on most, the series will release five major industry rankings, spotlighting the year’s most influential people, events, and innovations.

This article argues that the topics defining Web3 in 2025 no longer need to prove whether they are “innovative,” but must continuously answer: how to comply, how to govern, and how to survive through cycles. Regulatory implementation, institutional entry, and market risk clearing are interwoven, moving crypto from a fringe narrative into a new stage that is regulatable, priceable, and accountable. What the Top 20 records is not a collection of isolated events, but a clear main line: Web3 is being incorporated into the rewriting of the global financial order.

The most emblematic regulatory event of 2025 took place in September at the OECD Global Financial Markets Roundtable. In a keynote speech, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul S. Atkins made a rare, high-profile statement: “The crypto era has arrived.” He announced that the SEC would advance a framework centered on “Project Crypto” to migrate securities rules on-chain, clarify the legal classification of crypto assets, and provide a predictable regulatory roadmap for on-chain activities such as trading, lending, and staking.

Unlike the “enforcement as regulation” approach of recent years, Atkins said the United States would return to an institution-building path. He argued that the vast majority of crypto tokens should not be treated as securities, and that founders should be able to raise capital safely within the United States instead of being forced offshore by legal uncertainty. He emphasized that the SEC would reduce duplicative regulation, simplify business licensing, and coordinate with other federal agencies so that on-chain trading, custody, and financial products can operate under a unified regulatory architecture, creating a truly open and competitive environment for innovation.

The speech is widely seen as a watershed moment in U.S. regulatory posture: a shift from “suppression” to “shaping,” and from an “enforcement cycle” to an “institutional cycle.”

Atkins’ remarks sent a clear signal: the United States is no longer a bystander in global crypto finance, but intends to reclaim leadership in rulemaking.

On September 8, Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange, formally submitted an application to the SEC seeking approval to launch a tokenized trading system for equities and ETFs. The meaning of this filing goes far beyond the product itself: it is the first time Wall Street has proactively asked to move America’s most critical capital market infrastructure on-chain, signaling a structural loosening of the long-standing barrier between public markets and blockchain-based markets.

Under Nasdaq’s proposal, investors would be able to trade the same stock either through a traditional account or as an on-chain token, with identical priority in execution. Tokenized securities would be traded via regulated exchanges, alternative trading systems, and FINRA-regulated broker-dealers, with settlement handled by the U.S. Depository Trust Company (DTC). Token holders would enjoy full shareholder rights, including voting and liquidation rights, avoiding the legal ambiguity that earlier “shadow stock” structures created.

The deeper implication of the application is that traditional finance is, for the first time, acknowledging on-chain ledgers as a “legitimate, regulatable, and auditable” settlement layer.

Over the past decade, tokenized securities largely remained on offshore venues or experimental RWA protocols. Nasdaq’s move pushes tokenization into the core track of U.S. capital markets, making it possible that 24/7 trading, real-time settlement, and on-chain composability could become foundational attributes of U.S. equities rather than a parallel crypto-world narrative.

More importantly, Nasdaq’s entry is effectively an official declaration by the United States: the next generation of capital markets will not exist only inside Wall Street databases, but will run in parallel on-chain.

This is one of the most symbolic events in the structural transformation of global finance in 2025.

In 2025, the United States formally completed its first federal-level regulatory framework for stablecoins. The GENIUS Act was introduced in the Senate in February, went through months of debate and bipartisan negotiation, and in May passed a 66–32 cloture vote to end debate, breaking through procedural hurdles. It then cleared the Senate and was sent to the House of Representatives.

On July 18, the House passed the GENIUS Act (S.1582) by 308 votes to 122, including support from 102 Democratic lawmakers, exceeding market expectations. The next day, the bill was delivered to President Trump for signature and officially took effect, marking the first time the United States has systematically regulated stablecoins via federal law.

The GENIUS Act clearly defines payment stablecoins and requires 1:1 backing by cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries, or central bank deposits. It adopts a dual-track regulatory model: large issuers are federally supervised, while smaller institutions can operate under state supervision but must meet unified standards. It also strengthens requirements for reserve segregation, periodic audits, disclosures, anti-money-laundering (AML), and customer due diligence (KYC), and grants holders priority redemption rights in bankruptcy. The act sets higher thresholds for large technology companies issuing stablecoins and requires foreign issuers operating in the U.S. to undergo equivalent scrutiny.

Although the legislative process involved controversy over conflicts of interest and regulatory authority, the final text, shaped by bipartisan negotiation, returned to the core goals of reserve transparency and consumer protection. With the GENIUS Act now in effect, the U.S. stablecoin market has its first unified, clear, and enforceable federal standard, pushing dollar stablecoins into a new phase of compliance-driven competition and redefining America’s role in the global digital financial system.

MiCA (MiCAR) entered phased implementation starting in 2024 and moved into a full “landing and stress-test” phase in 2025. Stablecoin provisions (ART/EMT) took effect on June 30, 2024, while the remainder—covering licensing for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), market abuse prevention, and investor protection—became fully applicable on December 30, 2024. MiCA’s core significance is that the EU, for the first time, replaced fragmented national regimes across 27 member states with a single unified regulation, providing legal certainty and compressing regulatory arbitrage.

MiCA regulates both assets and services. On the asset side, it defines crypto assets in a technology-neutral manner and distinguishes among asset-referenced tokens (ARTs), e-money tokens (EMTs), and other crypto assets. ARTs follow a path closer to an approval-based regime, EMTs fall under an e-money regulatory logic, and other tokens are regulated primarily through disclosure and traceable accountability.

On the service side, MiCA establishes a unified CASP licensing system and a “passporting” mechanism: once approved in any one member state, an institution can operate across the EU, sharply reducing cross-border compliance costs. The regulation sets hard, enforceable thresholds on institutional substance, client asset segregation, trade monitoring, and disclosures, and provides a transition period through 2026.

On August 1, Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Ordinance officially took effect, marking Hong Kong’s completion of the third key puzzle piece of its virtual asset regulatory system—after Bitcoin ETFs and licensed virtual asset trading platforms—by establishing a full institutional framework for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuance and distribution. It is the first law in Asia to create a licensing regime for stablecoin issuers and a major milestone in Hong Kong’s ambition to become a global, compliant Web3 financial hub.

The ordinance clearly states that any institution issuing fiat-referenced stablecoins in Hong Kong, or selling stablecoins pegged to the Hong Kong dollar within Hong Kong, must apply for a license from the Monetary Authority and meet a full set of high-standard requirements covering reserve asset management, redemption mechanisms, client asset segregation, information disclosures, audits, and AML. It also sets strict market entry rules: only stablecoins issued by licensed issuersmay be sold to retail investors, and unlicensed stablecoins are prohibited from marketing, with advertising broadly banned.

These rules not only raise transparency and safety in the stablecoin market, but more importantly lay an institutional foundation for Hong Kong’s future on-chain financial activity.

The deeper meaning is that stablecoins are no longer merely a circulation medium within crypto; they are being formally incorporated into Hong Kong’s financial infrastructure system.

The ordinance provides legal support for cross-border payments, on-chain HKD settlement, tokenized asset circulation, and cross-border capital pilots, positioning Hong Kong as a more strategic node between Asian clearing networks and global offshore markets.

In 2025, Hong Kong used a single stablecoin ordinance to pre-install the institutional foundations for the next decade of on-chain finance.

In September, multiple mainland Chinese internet giants, central state-owned enterprises, and state-backed financial institutions were reportedly instructed to suspend or withdraw from participating in stablecoin issuance, exchanges, or other crypto-related businesses in Hong Kong. It is understood that state-owned enterprises and the Hong Kong branches of mainland-funded banks may be absent from applications for Hong Kong stablecoin issuer licenses, while internet platforms were required to scale back overseas crypto investments and trading activities.

Although these developments were not officially confirmed, they were subsequently corroborated indirectly through multiple channels. State-owned capital has been explicitly prohibited from engaging in commercial stablecoin businesses, and internet conglomerates are required to strictly adhere to mainland regulatory red lines, with participation in blockchain innovation permitted only through strategic investments or underlying technology involvement, rather than direct commercial operations.

This situation reveals a critical signal: Hong Kong’s path toward crypto openness is not equivalent to the level of capital freedom in mainland China. There exists a non-negligible institutional gap between cross-border financial liberalization and crypto policy.

While Hong Kong seeks to build a regional Web3 financial center through its virtual asset licensing regime, the regulatory focus in mainland China remains on preventing systemic financial risks, safeguarding capital flow security, and avoiding scenarios in which institutions use Hong Kong as a conduit for high-risk digital asset activities.

From a broader perspective, Hong Kong is accelerating the construction of a globally compliant crypto hub. However, for mainland Chinese institutions to enter this arena, they must simultaneously satisfy the boundary conditions of two distinct regulatory systems. The policy window may close at any time, and structural tension is likely to persist over the long term.

In June 2025, USDC issuer Circle completed its IPO on the NYSE under ticker CRCL. The offering range was $27–$28, and it ultimately listed at $31. After listing, the stock surged sharply and, within the period, at one point approached $300, hitting a high of $298.99. The “first stablecoin stock” became one of the most watched crypto-finance capital events of the year.

Circle’s popularity reflected the market’s view of stablecoins as key clearing tools connecting traditional finance and the crypto system, and Circle’s core narrative was “compliance, transparency, and institutionalization” around USDC. In its prospectus, USDC was explicitly positioned as a “digital dollar,” emphasizing operation within regulatory frameworks and deep integration with traditional financial infrastructure.

From a business-model perspective, Circle’s revenue is highly dependent on the yield generated by USDC reserves. USDC’s 1:1 reserves are primarily held in cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries, and the resulting interest income forms its core cashflow, making profitability tightly linked to the rate cycle.

However, going public also amplified structural constraints: profits are extremely sensitive to interest-rate environments; long-term cooperation with Coinbase limits Circle’s exclusive capture of reserve yields; and distribution and liquidity costs required to compete for adoption can compress margins during expansion.

Overall, Circle’s IPO was not just a single-company capital event but a broader industry repricing inflection point. Stablecoins were, for the first time, fully incorporated into public-market valuation frameworks, shifting from “on-chain infrastructure” to a “tradable financial narrative,” and signaling that markets are beginning to evaluate stablecoin models through stricter lenses of finance, cycles, and risk.

On October 11, the crypto market experienced a systemic rupture within hours. Bitcoin plunged from $117,000, Ether crashed 16%, and altcoins widely flash-dumped 80–90%, with global liquidations approaching $20 billion. The surface emotion was panic, but the true collapse chain came from the simultaneous failure of macro shocks and on-chain leverage structures.

The external shock began when Trump announced the previous day a proposed 100% tariff on Chinese goods, igniting global risk-off sentiment. U.S. equities, commodities, and FX swung violently, and the fear in traditional finance quickly transmitted into crypto markets, setting the first layer of pressure via liquidity contraction.

The internal trigger came from the stability structure of USDe. As a “delta-neutral” synthetic stablecoin constructed from ETH spot and perpetual short positions, USDe’s cost structure inverted under extreme conditions: funding rates turned negative, ETH fell sharply, and loop lending within borrowing protocols magnified leverage multiple times, causing health factors to collapse instantly.

The key node occurred on Binance. A large institution using USDe as cross margin was systemically liquidated, and USDe’s price briefly fell to $0.60. The depeg crushed collateral value, loop-loan positions triggered automatic liquidations, and smart contracts continuously sold into the market, forming a reflexive spiral that accelerated a triple break in stablecoin, leverage, and liquidity.

Market makers were also trapped. Many institutions used USDe as margin; when it halved in value, leverage was passively amplified and liquidations cascaded, further draining market liquidity. Altcoins then suffered a second leg of collapse as depth vanished.

The 10/11 event was not a single-asset issue. It was the systemic fragility of high-yield loop-lending structures exposed under extreme conditions: when collateral, yield sources, and margin assets are all hit at the same time, liquidation chains expand exponentially.

On October 6, 2025, Bitcoin surged past $126,000 to a new all-time high (ATH). The level was widely seen at the time as a milestone, but as prices later retraced toward the $90,000 range into year-end, the rally’s phase characteristics became clearer, providing an anchor point for reviewing the year.

Unlike previous bull markets driven mainly by retail sentiment or single narratives, the October surge was more a release of structural forces. After U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs expanded in 2024, they continued absorbing medium- to long-term capital throughout 2025, with sources expanding from crypto-native institutions to pension funds, family offices, and some insurance capital. The holding structure shifted: long-term holder address share rose, and near-term sell pressure weakened around the peak.

Meanwhile, “Bitcoin treasury-ization” further developed in 2025. Multiple listed companies and quasi-financial entities added Bitcoin to balance sheets as inflation hedges or to increase asset convexity, some using debt or equity instruments to fund allocations. This behavior amplified demand elasticity near the highs and strengthened the consensus of Bitcoin as an “asset allocation tool” in that phase.

Macro conditions also supported the move. Although inflation eased from peaks, uncertainty around fiscal deficits, sovereign debt, and monetary credibility continued accumulating, and Bitcoin, as a non-sovereign fixed-supply asset, was more frequently discussed within hedging frameworks.

However, the $120,000 area did not form a stable base. The subsequent pullback highlighted that Bitcoin has entered a more typical “financialized trading phase”: derivatives share increased, sensitivity to macro events rose, and price behavior resembled traditional risk assets more than a one-way trend asset.

From a year-end perspective, breaking $126,000 looks more like a phase completion of pricing rather than the end or start of a long trend. The peak confirmed Bitcoin’s deep embedding into global finance, while also showing that its pricing is now constrained by more complex capital structures and macro conditions. Bitcoin is no longer about “will it rise,” but about being continuously repriced as an asset.

Looking back at the 2025 MEME wave, President Trump’s January launch of the “TRUMP” meme coin provided an extreme case: rapid ascent to a large market cap shortly after release, with exchanges listing quickly, app growth loops, and social media amplification forming a closed cycle. It pushed the mobilization efficiency of “celebrity IP + trading access” into view and attracted short-term inflows from outside the crypto circle.

After celebrity MEMEs captured attention, another main line came from tool-based platforms. In the Solana ecosystem, Pump.fun productized the MEME issuance process with extremely low barriers and fully automated mechanisms, becoming a key emotional and liquidity on-ramp in this cycle. In mid-2025, Pump.fun launched its native token in the context of cooling MEME heat and growing market segmentation, completing pricing and fundraising. The issuance was both a capitalization milestone for the platform and a signal that the MEME attention economy was shifting from “traffic-driven” to “value assessment.”

Later in the year, a more “crypto-native” MEME narrative emerged in the BNB ecosystem: “Binance Life.” Its breakout was not accidental but built on strong symbols and sustained interaction. A clear narrative anchor formed around “Binance,” “CZ,” and “He Yi,” and public interactions provided the community with story templates that were easy to remix and spread. KOLs amplified the wealth effect, themed MEMEs proliferated, and a narrative cluster formed, allowing attention and capital to circulate within the same language.

Overall, “Binance Life” was not an accidental pump of a single token, but a replication of MEME flow mechanics: strong symbols lowered comprehension cost, interaction plus a trading loop accelerated diffusion, and short-term emotion eventually settled into ecosystem-level heat and capital migration.

On June 25, multiple sources confirmed that U.S. President Trump approved a pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ). The move drew a phase line under a multi-year regulatory conflict that began when CZ was sentenced to four months in 2024 for violations of anti-money-laundering and U.S. sanctions rules. CZ was released in September that year and paid substantial fines.

The pardon application was first publicly confirmed by CZ in May. Before that, The Wall Street Journal reported discussions inside Binance about a proposal to inject funds into Trump-family-linked crypto project World Liberty Financial in exchange for a potential pardon, and claimed the Trump family considered a stake in Binance.us—claims CZ denied at the time.

This pardon was not only a personal turning point but also a key node in crypto’s regulatory narrative. After FTX, U.S. regulation was characterized by heavy pressure and enforcement-first priorities. CZ’s pardon suggests a rare policy-level loosening, symbolizing an institutional reconciliation over past compliance disputes. For Binance, the outcome may open space for easing long-standing tensions with U.S. regulators.

From an industry perspective, the pardon reshapes the governance narrative of the world’s largest exchange and adds a consequential twist to 2025’s regulatory landscape.

On November 26, a five-alarm fire broke out at Hong Fook Court in Tai Po, Hong Kong. The blaze began from external wall repair scaffolding and rapidly spread to multiple buildings, becoming one of the most severe residential disasters in recent years. The fire lasted more than a day, with residents trapped and evacuated, and significant casualties, with numbers continuing to be updated. A firefighter also died in the line of duty. The incident shocked the city, and relief efforts mobilized across society.

Following the fire, the Web3 industry formed an unprecedented wave of concentrated mobilization. Starting November 27, many companies and institutions announced donations in quick succession, ranging from HK$10 million-level major relief to dedicated fund creation. Donations quickly exceeded HK$152 million. Major platforms including HashKey, Yunfeng Financial, Avenir Group, Binance, OKX, Gate, HTX, Bitget, and MEXC announced contributions, with some adding further rounds. Funds were directed toward emergency relief, post-disaster resettlement, and community rebuilding.

Beyond institutions, KOLs and communities also participated rapidly. Many creators and community members publicly donated, ranging from HK$30,000 to HK$140,000, alongside multiple community-driven small fundraising initiatives. The speed and scale of Web3 community response were unprecedented in Hong Kong’s major disasters.

The significance is not only the amount, but the emergence of collective action at the industry level: in the face of disaster, Web3 firms, foundations, founders, and investors for the first time participated in public-good efforts in a coordinated and transparent manner with continuous updates. The Tai Po fire became a turning point for Web3’s public-giving capacity—from dispersed efforts to systematic mobilization.

Hong Kong, stay strong. We stand with you.

In October, the U.S. Treasury and Department of Justice, together with law enforcement agencies across the U.K., Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other jurisdictions, launched synchronized action against Cambodia’s Prince Groupand its founder, freezing on-chain and off-chain assets linked to cross-border scams, money laundering, and underground gambling operations. The U.S. DOJ seized approximately 120,000 BTC held under the founder’s name, worth over HK$100 billion at the time, setting a record for the largest single crypto asset freeze.

The operation represented the highest-level enforcement targeting Southeast Asia’s cross-border scam industrial chains. It alleged that Prince Group used real estate and casino compounds as a front while operating networks involving forced labor, online gambling, and on-chain laundering at scale. The U.S. treated it as transnational organized crime, and for the first time combined on-chain tracing, international sanctions lists, and judicial freezing mechanisms to lock assets across borders simultaneously.

In Hong Kong, police froze approximately HK$2.75 billion in Prince Group-linked assets and revoked licenses of affiliated securities and insurance brokerage entities, becoming a major coordinated action by Hong Kong’s financial regulatory system against cross-border crypto crime. Singapore and Taiwan also seized properties and financial accounts. Global enforcement for the first time displayed a pattern of “multi-jurisdiction collaboration + on-chain evidence collection.”

The Prince Group case in 2025 signaled the arrival of an era of “on-chain financial policing.” On-chain flows are no longer regulatory blind spots; crypto assets have become a central battlefield for cross-border financial crime and geopolitical enforcement.

The U.S. action delivered a clear message: the international order of crypto finance will no longer be shaped by the industry alone, but by state-level enforcement and cross-border regulation.

On December 1, 2025, HKEX disclosed that HashKey Holdings Limited (3887.HK) had passed the main board listing hearing, with J.P. Morgan, Guotai Haitong, and Guotai Junan International as joint sponsors. As a licensed virtual asset trading platform, HashKey provides core services including trade facilitation, on-chain services, and asset management. The platform also has capabilities to issue and circulate tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and operates its self-developed HashKey Chain. On December 17, its first trading day, the stock opened higher and peaked at HK$7.12.

According to Frost & Sullivan data, by 2024 trading volume HashKey was Asia’s largest regional onshore digital asset platform; by staked asset scale it was also Asia’s largest on-chain services provider. As of September 30, 2025, the platform supported 80 tokens, with cumulative spot trading volume reaching HK$1.3 trillion, and it was among the earlier exchanges under Hong Kong’s VATP licensing regime to open services to retail users.

On-chain services include institutional-grade staking with segregated custody and slashing protection. As of September 30, 2025, staked assets reached HK$29 billion. RWAs on HashKey Chain totaled HK$1.7 billion. In asset management, the firm’s AUM accumulated to HK$7.8 billion, and its funds completed over 400 investments.

From an industry perspective, HashKey’s listing may bring three structural shifts to Hong Kong:

1. compliant exchanges are incorporated into traditional valuation frameworks, offering a new financing path for global crypto companies;

2. tokenization infrastructure receives capital market validation, boosting institutional adoption of RWAs and on-chain settlement;

3. Web3 competition between Hong Kong and Singapore enters a capital-market phase, reshuffling regulation, institutions, and liquidity.

HashKey’s successful hearing is not only a company milestone, but a historic anchor point for Hong Kong’s virtual asset roadmap.

On the night of February 21, on-chain analysts detected abnormal large-scale outflows from Bybit. It was later confirmed that nearly $1.5 billion in ETH had been stolen, becoming the largest crypto hack by value in history. Multiple on-chain evidence sources linked the attack to North Korea-backed Lazarus Group, and the incident quickly drew global attention.

Bybit stated that apart from the affected wallet, other cold wallets and user funds were not impacted. The platform’s total assets exceeded $20 billion, and it secured temporary liquidity support from partners to keep withdrawals functioning. Binance, Bitget, and other exchanges provided emergency support, demonstrating industry coordination under extreme conditions. Security teams isolated related addresses to limit further movement of stolen assets.

The shock went beyond the dollar amount; it exposed systemic risk. Multi-signature setups long regarded as institutional-grade security showed clear fragility under complex social engineering attack paths. The attacker did not directly break the chain-level system but exploited trust chains to complete permission transfers, allowing high-value assets to be drained rapidly.

The Bybit incident became one of the most cautionary security cases of 2025, forcing the industry to reassess custody models for large exchanges and institutional funds. Discussions intensified around asset segregation, operational auditing, and custody standards. The industry is being pushed to confront a reality: as capital scale and financialization grow, existing security paradigms may no longer match the risk level.

In October 2025, the x402 protocol was publicly released and quickly entered the Web3 and AI spotlight, becoming one of the year’s most discussed infrastructure-level innovations. Unlike past payment products, x402 did not appear as an application or platform; instead, it pushes “payment” forward to the starting point of internet service invocation, attempting to reconstruct long-neglected network monetization logic.

x402 did not emerge by accident. On one hand, stablecoins have been increasingly positioned as compliant instruments across major jurisdictions and are being adopted in real payment contexts. On the other hand, the rapid growth of AI agents and automation services has created payment demand that is low-value, high-frequency, and machine-led for API calls, data access, and compute usage. In this context, account-based or subscription models appear inefficient.

As a result, x402 is widely viewed as a key signal for “AI-native payments.” The discussion it triggered goes beyond a single protocol and points to a macro question: when primary users shift from humans to machines, does the internet’s payment logic need to be redesigned. Under this premise, x402 quickly attracted high attention from developer communities, payment circles, and investors.

Yet controversies arose simultaneously. As attention grew, debates intensified over gateway centralization, regulatory responsibility spillover, and whether real commercial demand can support large-scale adoption. If payment becomes a base-layer capability, its compliance boundaries and governance models still require clarification by markets and regulators.

Overall, x402’s significance in 2025 is not whether it has become an industry standard, but that it pushed the question of “how payment integrates into the internet itself” to the forefront for the first time. This directional shift is being taken seriously across the industry.

In 2025, stablecoin-based on-chain payments moved from “concept validation” into a phase of “institutionalized implementation,” becoming one of the few tracks that truly crossed beyond crypto-native circles and formed structural connections with real-world financial systems. Stablecoins are no longer only trading media or DeFi base assets; they are beginning to serve real functions such as cross-border settlement, corporate payments, and treasury movement.

A representative development was Circle’s launch of the Circle Payments Network (CPN). Rather than a single transfer network, CPN acts as a stablecoin-centered coordination layer for financial institutions. Through unified rules and governance frameworks, it brings originating financial institutions (OFIs) and beneficiary financial institutions (BFIs) into the same compliance system and coordinates clearing and settlement on public blockchains. Stablecoins, for the first time, are being embedded systematically into cross-border payment processes as “regulated settlement assets,” no longer relying solely on the SWIFT system.

This shift targets core pain points of traditional payments: high costs, multiple intermediaries, slow settlement cycles, and weak global interoperability. In cross-border remittances, B2B trade payments, and global payroll, stablecoins increasingly demonstrate advantages in speed, transparency, and capital efficiency, expanding adoption from crypto-friendly users to SMEs and cross-border merchants.

Meanwhile, traditional finance and payment giants entering the field reinforced the trend. Stripe acquired Bridge, Ripple launched enterprise stablecoin solutions, and multiple banks explored deposit tokens and on-chain settlement, indicating that stablecoin payments are now regarded as a key component of next-generation global payment infrastructure.

Compared with the last cycle, the 2025 stablecoin payment narrative is less idealistic and more focused on compliance, risk controls, and network governance. 2025 was not a single breakthrough but a structural migration, laying foundations for on-chain FX, RWA settlement, and enterprise treasury management.

In 2025, RWA (real-world assets on-chain) moved from proof-of-concept into institutionalized and scalable deployment, becoming one of the key main lines connecting traditional finance and the on-chain world. This shift was not driven by a single technical breakthrough, but by the overlay of three forces in the same year: regulatory clarity, institutional entry, and infrastructure maturity.

Throughout the year, stablecoins and RWAs were explicitly included in multiple regulatory discussions. “Assets going on-chain” is no longer only technical innovation; it is now part of the evolution path of the financial system. In Hong Kong, the Stablecoin Ordinance was enacted and licensing mechanisms were clarified. Combined with supplemental guidelines for virtual asset intermediaries covering staking, institutional participation, and tiered management, RWAs gained regulatory soil for compliant yield distribution, institutional custody, and professional investor participation. The regulatory focus shifted from “whether to allow assets on-chain” to “how to operate and scale under compliance.”

On the market side, RWAs no longer remained small pilots. Low-risk, high-transparency assets such as tokenized U.S. Treasuries were the first to complete large-scale validation, becoming the primary entry point for institutions into on-chain finance. Traditional asset managers and crypto-native financial platforms formed stable operating models around “Treasury RWAs + stablecoin settlement,” enabling RWAs to evolve from simple mappings into financial products that can be allocated, priced, and circulated.

More importantly, RWAs were no longer discussed in isolation in 2025. They became deeply coupled with stablecoins, DeFi collateral, and institutional treasury management. Stablecoins provide settlement and liquidity bases, while RWAs provide real yield sources for on-chain finance, forming structural complementarity. Looking back, RWAs completed a key transformation from experimental instruments to asset forms that are understandable, regulatable, and allocatable.

In 2025, Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies became one of the most recognizable event-driven narratives in the market. Multiple listed companies raised funds via share issuance, PIPEs, convertible bonds, or reverse mergers, and allocated proceeds directly into BTC, ETH, SOL, and other crypto assets, packaging “buying coins” as a replicable capital market template. The core was not the token holdings themselves, but the mNAV mechanism—the premium of market capitalization relative to the value of held assets. When the premium exists, financing can continue and allocations can be amplified; once the premium disappears, the narrative quickly comes under pressure.

This fault line became visible in the second half of 2025. Premiums of leading DATs compressed significantly, and some stocks even decoupled from BTC’s price moves, reflecting weakening confidence in the sustainability of high premiums. At the same time, incremental buying slowed, showing DAT behavior as more of a pro-cyclical amplifier than a counter-cyclical support. As stock volatility amplified underlying asset drawdowns, DATs were among the first narratives to come under pressure when risk appetite cooled.

The deeper issue is structural constraint. DATs are neither traditional companies that can return value through dividends, buybacks, or organic growth, nor ETFs with creation/redemption mechanisms. They resemble “closed-end funds without redemption.” Once they enter discount territory, focus shifts from price volatility to governance and capital channels: whether forced selling occurs to meet debt or shareholder pressure, and potential litigation and regulatory risks.

Meanwhile, regulators and market rules began tightening boundaries. Some jurisdictions may view coin-hoarding transformations under “cash company” standards, and index compilers may reduce weights due to fund-like characteristics. Overall, DATs amplified the bull market in 2025 and completed a stress test during valuation pullbacks. Their sustainability depends on financing capacity and transparency of asset usage in down cycles.

In 2025, the crypto industry saw a wave of listings with symbolic significance. Unlike the previous cycle driven by token financing and private-market expansion, this shift was about crypto-related companies entering mainstream capital markets via IPOs, SPAC mergers, and reverse mergers, allowing “crypto exposure” to be absorbed systematically in equity form. The industry moved from narrative-driven dynamics toward corporate, institutionalized pricing.

Stablecoin and crypto-finance firms led the way. In June, Circle listed on the NYSE, becoming the first stablecoin core institution to enter mainstream public markets, marking stablecoins’ formal incorporation into compliant finance. After that, crypto financial services firms such as Galaxy and Amber listed, bringing crypto investment banking, asset management, and market-making under traditional market evaluation of earnings structure and risk exposure.

Trading platforms also formed a major component of the listing wave. Beyond Coinbase, exchanges such as Bullish and Gemini listed during the year. Platforms like eToro and Robinhood, spanning traditional and crypto trading, also became key channels for traditional investors to gain crypto exposure. Crypto exchanges are increasingly treated as priceable financial infrastructure.

The year also saw reverse-merger and capital restructuring routes. U.S.-listed SRM Entertainment introduced Tron-related capital and implemented a TRX treasury strategy, becoming a representative case of crypto projects entering U.S. markets through existing listed shells.

Meanwhile, core institutions including Grayscale, BitGo, Consensys, Kraken, OKX, FalconX, Animoca Brands, and Bithumb released listing signals in 2025, with some entering substantive preparation stages. Alongside spot ETFs and clearer regulatory boundaries, crypto enterprises are connecting to traditional finance as “companies” rather than “token narratives.”

Overall, this listing wave was not a set of scattered events but a structural migration: the crypto industry is being incorporated into long-term pricing frameworks of mainstream capital markets.

Looking back at the “Top 20 Web3 Hot Topics of 2025,” a clear main line has emerged: Web3 is shifting from “technology and narrative-driven” to being shaped jointly by institutions, capital, and risk. The key of the year was not how many new concepts appeared, but that multiple core variables aligned in the same cycle: regulators began offering definitive answers, mainstream capital formally entered, and markets completed stress tests through extreme volatility.

These events collectively did one thing: they pushed crypto and blockchain from fringe innovation into a financial structure that is regulatable, priceable, and accountable. Stablecoins were written into laws, exchanges and infrastructure entered public markets, equities and real-world assets moved on-chain, and on-chain risks were confronted directly through state-level enforcement and systemic liquidations.

Perhaps starting in 2026, Web3 will no longer exist as an “industry,” but as a default option of the financial system itself. Whether assets are on-chain, trading is programmable, and capital crosses borders will no longer be idealistic debates, but real processes driven jointly by institutions and markets. 2025 was the year this path was clearly written.

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Recommended Reading: “Crypto Chronicle 2025: The Era of Convergence | Web3 Annual Rankings & Year-End Review.”

China, Dec. 31st

ME Group, in collaboration with CoinFound, jointly presents the year’s flagship series, “Crypto Chronicle 2025: The Era of Convergence | ME Annual Rankings & Year-End Review.” Based on what the Chinese-speaking community focuses on most, the series will release five major industry rankings, spotlighting the year’s most influential people, events, and innovations.

This article argues that the topics defining Web3 in 2025 no longer need to prove whether they are “innovative,” but must continuously answer: how to comply, how to govern, and how to survive through cycles. Regulatory implementation, institutional entry, and market risk clearing are interwoven, moving crypto from a fringe narrative into a new stage that is regulatable, priceable, and accountable. What the Top 20 records is not a collection of isolated events, but a clear main line: Web3 is being incorporated into the rewriting of the global financial order.

The most emblematic regulatory event of 2025 took place in September at the OECD Global Financial Markets Roundtable. In a keynote speech, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul S. Atkins made a rare, high-profile statement: “The crypto era has arrived.” He announced that the SEC would advance a framework centered on “Project Crypto” to migrate securities rules on-chain, clarify the legal classification of crypto assets, and provide a predictable regulatory roadmap for on-chain activities such as trading, lending, and staking.

Unlike the “enforcement as regulation” approach of recent years, Atkins said the United States would return to an institution-building path. He argued that the vast majority of crypto tokens should not be treated as securities, and that founders should be able to raise capital safely within the United States instead of being forced offshore by legal uncertainty. He emphasized that the SEC would reduce duplicative regulation, simplify business licensing, and coordinate with other federal agencies so that on-chain trading, custody, and financial products can operate under a unified regulatory architecture, creating a truly open and competitive environment for innovation.

The speech is widely seen as a watershed moment in U.S. regulatory posture: a shift from “suppression” to “shaping,” and from an “enforcement cycle” to an “institutional cycle.”

Atkins’ remarks sent a clear signal: the United States is no longer a bystander in global crypto finance, but intends to reclaim leadership in rulemaking.

On September 8, Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange, formally submitted an application to the SEC seeking approval to launch a tokenized trading system for equities and ETFs. The meaning of this filing goes far beyond the product itself: it is the first time Wall Street has proactively asked to move America’s most critical capital market infrastructure on-chain, signaling a structural loosening of the long-standing barrier between public markets and blockchain-based markets.

Under Nasdaq’s proposal, investors would be able to trade the same stock either through a traditional account or as an on-chain token, with identical priority in execution. Tokenized securities would be traded via regulated exchanges, alternative trading systems, and FINRA-regulated broker-dealers, with settlement handled by the U.S. Depository Trust Company (DTC). Token holders would enjoy full shareholder rights, including voting and liquidation rights, avoiding the legal ambiguity that earlier “shadow stock” structures created.

The deeper implication of the application is that traditional finance is, for the first time, acknowledging on-chain ledgers as a “legitimate, regulatable, and auditable” settlement layer.

Over the past decade, tokenized securities largely remained on offshore venues or experimental RWA protocols. Nasdaq’s move pushes tokenization into the core track of U.S. capital markets, making it possible that 24/7 trading, real-time settlement, and on-chain composability could become foundational attributes of U.S. equities rather than a parallel crypto-world narrative.

More importantly, Nasdaq’s entry is effectively an official declaration by the United States: the next generation of capital markets will not exist only inside Wall Street databases, but will run in parallel on-chain.

This is one of the most symbolic events in the structural transformation of global finance in 2025.

In 2025, the United States formally completed its first federal-level regulatory framework for stablecoins. The GENIUS Act was introduced in the Senate in February, went through months of debate and bipartisan negotiation, and in May passed a 66–32 cloture vote to end debate, breaking through procedural hurdles. It then cleared the Senate and was sent to the House of Representatives.

On July 18, the House passed the GENIUS Act (S.1582) by 308 votes to 122, including support from 102 Democratic lawmakers, exceeding market expectations. The next day, the bill was delivered to President Trump for signature and officially took effect, marking the first time the United States has systematically regulated stablecoins via federal law.

The GENIUS Act clearly defines payment stablecoins and requires 1:1 backing by cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries, or central bank deposits. It adopts a dual-track regulatory model: large issuers are federally supervised, while smaller institutions can operate under state supervision but must meet unified standards. It also strengthens requirements for reserve segregation, periodic audits, disclosures, anti-money-laundering (AML), and customer due diligence (KYC), and grants holders priority redemption rights in bankruptcy. The act sets higher thresholds for large technology companies issuing stablecoins and requires foreign issuers operating in the U.S. to undergo equivalent scrutiny.

Although the legislative process involved controversy over conflicts of interest and regulatory authority, the final text, shaped by bipartisan negotiation, returned to the core goals of reserve transparency and consumer protection. With the GENIUS Act now in effect, the U.S. stablecoin market has its first unified, clear, and enforceable federal standard, pushing dollar stablecoins into a new phase of compliance-driven competition and redefining America’s role in the global digital financial system.

MiCA (MiCAR) entered phased implementation starting in 2024 and moved into a full “landing and stress-test” phase in 2025. Stablecoin provisions (ART/EMT) took effect on June 30, 2024, while the remainder—covering licensing for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), market abuse prevention, and investor protection—became fully applicable on December 30, 2024. MiCA’s core significance is that the EU, for the first time, replaced fragmented national regimes across 27 member states with a single unified regulation, providing legal certainty and compressing regulatory arbitrage.

MiCA regulates both assets and services. On the asset side, it defines crypto assets in a technology-neutral manner and distinguishes among asset-referenced tokens (ARTs), e-money tokens (EMTs), and other crypto assets. ARTs follow a path closer to an approval-based regime, EMTs fall under an e-money regulatory logic, and other tokens are regulated primarily through disclosure and traceable accountability.

On the service side, MiCA establishes a unified CASP licensing system and a “passporting” mechanism: once approved in any one member state, an institution can operate across the EU, sharply reducing cross-border compliance costs. The regulation sets hard, enforceable thresholds on institutional substance, client asset segregation, trade monitoring, and disclosures, and provides a transition period through 2026.

On August 1, Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Ordinance officially took effect, marking Hong Kong’s completion of the third key puzzle piece of its virtual asset regulatory system—after Bitcoin ETFs and licensed virtual asset trading platforms—by establishing a full institutional framework for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuance and distribution. It is the first law in Asia to create a licensing regime for stablecoin issuers and a major milestone in Hong Kong’s ambition to become a global, compliant Web3 financial hub.

The ordinance clearly states that any institution issuing fiat-referenced stablecoins in Hong Kong, or selling stablecoins pegged to the Hong Kong dollar within Hong Kong, must apply for a license from the Monetary Authority and meet a full set of high-standard requirements covering reserve asset management, redemption mechanisms, client asset segregation, information disclosures, audits, and AML. It also sets strict market entry rules: only stablecoins issued by licensed issuersmay be sold to retail investors, and unlicensed stablecoins are prohibited from marketing, with advertising broadly banned.

These rules not only raise transparency and safety in the stablecoin market, but more importantly lay an institutional foundation for Hong Kong’s future on-chain financial activity.

The deeper meaning is that stablecoins are no longer merely a circulation medium within crypto; they are being formally incorporated into Hong Kong’s financial infrastructure system.

The ordinance provides legal support for cross-border payments, on-chain HKD settlement, tokenized asset circulation, and cross-border capital pilots, positioning Hong Kong as a more strategic node between Asian clearing networks and global offshore markets.

In 2025, Hong Kong used a single stablecoin ordinance to pre-install the institutional foundations for the next decade of on-chain finance.

In September, multiple mainland Chinese internet giants, central state-owned enterprises, and state-backed financial institutions were reportedly instructed to suspend or withdraw from participating in stablecoin issuance, exchanges, or other crypto-related businesses in Hong Kong. It is understood that state-owned enterprises and the Hong Kong branches of mainland-funded banks may be absent from applications for Hong Kong stablecoin issuer licenses, while internet platforms were required to scale back overseas crypto investments and trading activities.

Although these developments were not officially confirmed, they were subsequently corroborated indirectly through multiple channels. State-owned capital has been explicitly prohibited from engaging in commercial stablecoin businesses, and internet conglomerates are required to strictly adhere to mainland regulatory red lines, with participation in blockchain innovation permitted only through strategic investments or underlying technology involvement, rather than direct commercial operations.

This situation reveals a critical signal: Hong Kong’s path toward crypto openness is not equivalent to the level of capital freedom in mainland China. There exists a non-negligible institutional gap between cross-border financial liberalization and crypto policy.

While Hong Kong seeks to build a regional Web3 financial center through its virtual asset licensing regime, the regulatory focus in mainland China remains on preventing systemic financial risks, safeguarding capital flow security, and avoiding scenarios in which institutions use Hong Kong as a conduit for high-risk digital asset activities.

From a broader perspective, Hong Kong is accelerating the construction of a globally compliant crypto hub. However, for mainland Chinese institutions to enter this arena, they must simultaneously satisfy the boundary conditions of two distinct regulatory systems. The policy window may close at any time, and structural tension is likely to persist over the long term.

In June 2025, USDC issuer Circle completed its IPO on the NYSE under ticker CRCL. The offering range was $27–$28, and it ultimately listed at $31. After listing, the stock surged sharply and, within the period, at one point approached $300, hitting a high of $298.99. The “first stablecoin stock” became one of the most watched crypto-finance capital events of the year.

Circle’s popularity reflected the market’s view of stablecoins as key clearing tools connecting traditional finance and the crypto system, and Circle’s core narrative was “compliance, transparency, and institutionalization” around USDC. In its prospectus, USDC was explicitly positioned as a “digital dollar,” emphasizing operation within regulatory frameworks and deep integration with traditional financial infrastructure.

From a business-model perspective, Circle’s revenue is highly dependent on the yield generated by USDC reserves. USDC’s 1:1 reserves are primarily held in cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries, and the resulting interest income forms its core cashflow, making profitability tightly linked to the rate cycle.

However, going public also amplified structural constraints: profits are extremely sensitive to interest-rate environments; long-term cooperation with Coinbase limits Circle’s exclusive capture of reserve yields; and distribution and liquidity costs required to compete for adoption can compress margins during expansion.

Overall, Circle’s IPO was not just a single-company capital event but a broader industry repricing inflection point. Stablecoins were, for the first time, fully incorporated into public-market valuation frameworks, shifting from “on-chain infrastructure” to a “tradable financial narrative,” and signaling that markets are beginning to evaluate stablecoin models through stricter lenses of finance, cycles, and risk.

On October 11, the crypto market experienced a systemic rupture within hours. Bitcoin plunged from $117,000, Ether crashed 16%, and altcoins widely flash-dumped 80–90%, with global liquidations approaching $20 billion. The surface emotion was panic, but the true collapse chain came from the simultaneous failure of macro shocks and on-chain leverage structures.

The external shock began when Trump announced the previous day a proposed 100% tariff on Chinese goods, igniting global risk-off sentiment. U.S. equities, commodities, and FX swung violently, and the fear in traditional finance quickly transmitted into crypto markets, setting the first layer of pressure via liquidity contraction.

The internal trigger came from the stability structure of USDe. As a “delta-neutral” synthetic stablecoin constructed from ETH spot and perpetual short positions, USDe’s cost structure inverted under extreme conditions: funding rates turned negative, ETH fell sharply, and loop lending within borrowing protocols magnified leverage multiple times, causing health factors to collapse instantly.

The key node occurred on Binance. A large institution using USDe as cross margin was systemically liquidated, and USDe’s price briefly fell to $0.60. The depeg crushed collateral value, loop-loan positions triggered automatic liquidations, and smart contracts continuously sold into the market, forming a reflexive spiral that accelerated a triple break in stablecoin, leverage, and liquidity.

Market makers were also trapped. Many institutions used USDe as margin; when it halved in value, leverage was passively amplified and liquidations cascaded, further draining market liquidity. Altcoins then suffered a second leg of collapse as depth vanished.

The 10/11 event was not a single-asset issue. It was the systemic fragility of high-yield loop-lending structures exposed under extreme conditions: when collateral, yield sources, and margin assets are all hit at the same time, liquidation chains expand exponentially.

On October 6, 2025, Bitcoin surged past $126,000 to a new all-time high (ATH). The level was widely seen at the time as a milestone, but as prices later retraced toward the $90,000 range into year-end, the rally’s phase characteristics became clearer, providing an anchor point for reviewing the year.

Unlike previous bull markets driven mainly by retail sentiment or single narratives, the October surge was more a release of structural forces. After U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs expanded in 2024, they continued absorbing medium- to long-term capital throughout 2025, with sources expanding from crypto-native institutions to pension funds, family offices, and some insurance capital. The holding structure shifted: long-term holder address share rose, and near-term sell pressure weakened around the peak.

Meanwhile, “Bitcoin treasury-ization” further developed in 2025. Multiple listed companies and quasi-financial entities added Bitcoin to balance sheets as inflation hedges or to increase asset convexity, some using debt or equity instruments to fund allocations. This behavior amplified demand elasticity near the highs and strengthened the consensus of Bitcoin as an “asset allocation tool” in that phase.

Macro conditions also supported the move. Although inflation eased from peaks, uncertainty around fiscal deficits, sovereign debt, and monetary credibility continued accumulating, and Bitcoin, as a non-sovereign fixed-supply asset, was more frequently discussed within hedging frameworks.

However, the $120,000 area did not form a stable base. The subsequent pullback highlighted that Bitcoin has entered a more typical “financialized trading phase”: derivatives share increased, sensitivity to macro events rose, and price behavior resembled traditional risk assets more than a one-way trend asset.

From a year-end perspective, breaking $126,000 looks more like a phase completion of pricing rather than the end or start of a long trend. The peak confirmed Bitcoin’s deep embedding into global finance, while also showing that its pricing is now constrained by more complex capital structures and macro conditions. Bitcoin is no longer about “will it rise,” but about being continuously repriced as an asset.

Looking back at the 2025 MEME wave, President Trump’s January launch of the “TRUMP” meme coin provided an extreme case: rapid ascent to a large market cap shortly after release, with exchanges listing quickly, app growth loops, and social media amplification forming a closed cycle. It pushed the mobilization efficiency of “celebrity IP + trading access” into view and attracted short-term inflows from outside the crypto circle.

After celebrity MEMEs captured attention, another main line came from tool-based platforms. In the Solana ecosystem, Pump.fun productized the MEME issuance process with extremely low barriers and fully automated mechanisms, becoming a key emotional and liquidity on-ramp in this cycle. In mid-2025, Pump.fun launched its native token in the context of cooling MEME heat and growing market segmentation, completing pricing and fundraising. The issuance was both a capitalization milestone for the platform and a signal that the MEME attention economy was shifting from “traffic-driven” to “value assessment.”

Later in the year, a more “crypto-native” MEME narrative emerged in the BNB ecosystem: “Binance Life.” Its breakout was not accidental but built on strong symbols and sustained interaction. A clear narrative anchor formed around “Binance,” “CZ,” and “He Yi,” and public interactions provided the community with story templates that were easy to remix and spread. KOLs amplified the wealth effect, themed MEMEs proliferated, and a narrative cluster formed, allowing attention and capital to circulate within the same language.

Overall, “Binance Life” was not an accidental pump of a single token, but a replication of MEME flow mechanics: strong symbols lowered comprehension cost, interaction plus a trading loop accelerated diffusion, and short-term emotion eventually settled into ecosystem-level heat and capital migration.

On June 25, multiple sources confirmed that U.S. President Trump approved a pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ). The move drew a phase line under a multi-year regulatory conflict that began when CZ was sentenced to four months in 2024 for violations of anti-money-laundering and U.S. sanctions rules. CZ was released in September that year and paid substantial fines.

The pardon application was first publicly confirmed by CZ in May. Before that, The Wall Street Journal reported discussions inside Binance about a proposal to inject funds into Trump-family-linked crypto project World Liberty Financial in exchange for a potential pardon, and claimed the Trump family considered a stake in Binance.us—claims CZ denied at the time.

This pardon was not only a personal turning point but also a key node in crypto’s regulatory narrative. After FTX, U.S. regulation was characterized by heavy pressure and enforcement-first priorities. CZ’s pardon suggests a rare policy-level loosening, symbolizing an institutional reconciliation over past compliance disputes. For Binance, the outcome may open space for easing long-standing tensions with U.S. regulators.

From an industry perspective, the pardon reshapes the governance narrative of the world’s largest exchange and adds a consequential twist to 2025’s regulatory landscape.

On November 26, a five-alarm fire broke out at Hong Fook Court in Tai Po, Hong Kong. The blaze began from external wall repair scaffolding and rapidly spread to multiple buildings, becoming one of the most severe residential disasters in recent years. The fire lasted more than a day, with residents trapped and evacuated, and significant casualties, with numbers continuing to be updated. A firefighter also died in the line of duty. The incident shocked the city, and relief efforts mobilized across society.

Following the fire, the Web3 industry formed an unprecedented wave of concentrated mobilization. Starting November 27, many companies and institutions announced donations in quick succession, ranging from HK$10 million-level major relief to dedicated fund creation. Donations quickly exceeded HK$152 million. Major platforms including HashKey, Yunfeng Financial, Avenir Group, Binance, OKX, Gate, HTX, Bitget, and MEXC announced contributions, with some adding further rounds. Funds were directed toward emergency relief, post-disaster resettlement, and community rebuilding.

Beyond institutions, KOLs and communities also participated rapidly. Many creators and community members publicly donated, ranging from HK$30,000 to HK$140,000, alongside multiple community-driven small fundraising initiatives. The speed and scale of Web3 community response were unprecedented in Hong Kong’s major disasters.

The significance is not only the amount, but the emergence of collective action at the industry level: in the face of disaster, Web3 firms, foundations, founders, and investors for the first time participated in public-good efforts in a coordinated and transparent manner with continuous updates. The Tai Po fire became a turning point for Web3’s public-giving capacity—from dispersed efforts to systematic mobilization.

Hong Kong, stay strong. We stand with you.

In October, the U.S. Treasury and Department of Justice, together with law enforcement agencies across the U.K., Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other jurisdictions, launched synchronized action against Cambodia’s Prince Groupand its founder, freezing on-chain and off-chain assets linked to cross-border scams, money laundering, and underground gambling operations. The U.S. DOJ seized approximately 120,000 BTC held under the founder’s name, worth over HK$100 billion at the time, setting a record for the largest single crypto asset freeze.

The operation represented the highest-level enforcement targeting Southeast Asia’s cross-border scam industrial chains. It alleged that Prince Group used real estate and casino compounds as a front while operating networks involving forced labor, online gambling, and on-chain laundering at scale. The U.S. treated it as transnational organized crime, and for the first time combined on-chain tracing, international sanctions lists, and judicial freezing mechanisms to lock assets across borders simultaneously.

In Hong Kong, police froze approximately HK$2.75 billion in Prince Group-linked assets and revoked licenses of affiliated securities and insurance brokerage entities, becoming a major coordinated action by Hong Kong’s financial regulatory system against cross-border crypto crime. Singapore and Taiwan also seized properties and financial accounts. Global enforcement for the first time displayed a pattern of “multi-jurisdiction collaboration + on-chain evidence collection.”

The Prince Group case in 2025 signaled the arrival of an era of “on-chain financial policing.” On-chain flows are no longer regulatory blind spots; crypto assets have become a central battlefield for cross-border financial crime and geopolitical enforcement.

The U.S. action delivered a clear message: the international order of crypto finance will no longer be shaped by the industry alone, but by state-level enforcement and cross-border regulation.

On December 1, 2025, HKEX disclosed that HashKey Holdings Limited (3887.HK) had passed the main board listing hearing, with J.P. Morgan, Guotai Haitong, and Guotai Junan International as joint sponsors. As a licensed virtual asset trading platform, HashKey provides core services including trade facilitation, on-chain services, and asset management. The platform also has capabilities to issue and circulate tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and operates its self-developed HashKey Chain. On December 17, its first trading day, the stock opened higher and peaked at HK$7.12.

According to Frost & Sullivan data, by 2024 trading volume HashKey was Asia’s largest regional onshore digital asset platform; by staked asset scale it was also Asia’s largest on-chain services provider. As of September 30, 2025, the platform supported 80 tokens, with cumulative spot trading volume reaching HK$1.3 trillion, and it was among the earlier exchanges under Hong Kong’s VATP licensing regime to open services to retail users.

On-chain services include institutional-grade staking with segregated custody and slashing protection. As of September 30, 2025, staked assets reached HK$29 billion. RWAs on HashKey Chain totaled HK$1.7 billion. In asset management, the firm’s AUM accumulated to HK$7.8 billion, and its funds completed over 400 investments.

From an industry perspective, HashKey’s listing may bring three structural shifts to Hong Kong:

1. compliant exchanges are incorporated into traditional valuation frameworks, offering a new financing path for global crypto companies;

2. tokenization infrastructure receives capital market validation, boosting institutional adoption of RWAs and on-chain settlement;

3. Web3 competition between Hong Kong and Singapore enters a capital-market phase, reshuffling regulation, institutions, and liquidity.

HashKey’s successful hearing is not only a company milestone, but a historic anchor point for Hong Kong’s virtual asset roadmap.

On the night of February 21, on-chain analysts detected abnormal large-scale outflows from Bybit. It was later confirmed that nearly $1.5 billion in ETH had been stolen, becoming the largest crypto hack by value in history. Multiple on-chain evidence sources linked the attack to North Korea-backed Lazarus Group, and the incident quickly drew global attention.

Bybit stated that apart from the affected wallet, other cold wallets and user funds were not impacted. The platform’s total assets exceeded $20 billion, and it secured temporary liquidity support from partners to keep withdrawals functioning. Binance, Bitget, and other exchanges provided emergency support, demonstrating industry coordination under extreme conditions. Security teams isolated related addresses to limit further movement of stolen assets.

The shock went beyond the dollar amount; it exposed systemic risk. Multi-signature setups long regarded as institutional-grade security showed clear fragility under complex social engineering attack paths. The attacker did not directly break the chain-level system but exploited trust chains to complete permission transfers, allowing high-value assets to be drained rapidly.

The Bybit incident became one of the most cautionary security cases of 2025, forcing the industry to reassess custody models for large exchanges and institutional funds. Discussions intensified around asset segregation, operational auditing, and custody standards. The industry is being pushed to confront a reality: as capital scale and financialization grow, existing security paradigms may no longer match the risk level.

In October 2025, the x402 protocol was publicly released and quickly entered the Web3 and AI spotlight, becoming one of the year’s most discussed infrastructure-level innovations. Unlike past payment products, x402 did not appear as an application or platform; instead, it pushes “payment” forward to the starting point of internet service invocation, attempting to reconstruct long-neglected network monetization logic.

x402 did not emerge by accident. On one hand, stablecoins have been increasingly positioned as compliant instruments across major jurisdictions and are being adopted in real payment contexts. On the other hand, the rapid growth of AI agents and automation services has created payment demand that is low-value, high-frequency, and machine-led for API calls, data access, and compute usage. In this context, account-based or subscription models appear inefficient.

As a result, x402 is widely viewed as a key signal for “AI-native payments.” The discussion it triggered goes beyond a single protocol and points to a macro question: when primary users shift from humans to machines, does the internet’s payment logic need to be redesigned. Under this premise, x402 quickly attracted high attention from developer communities, payment circles, and investors.

Yet controversies arose simultaneously. As attention grew, debates intensified over gateway centralization, regulatory responsibility spillover, and whether real commercial demand can support large-scale adoption. If payment becomes a base-layer capability, its compliance boundaries and governance models still require clarification by markets and regulators.

Overall, x402’s significance in 2025 is not whether it has become an industry standard, but that it pushed the question of “how payment integrates into the internet itself” to the forefront for the first time. This directional shift is being taken seriously across the industry.

In 2025, stablecoin-based on-chain payments moved from “concept validation” into a phase of “institutionalized implementation,” becoming one of the few tracks that truly crossed beyond crypto-native circles and formed structural connections with real-world financial systems. Stablecoins are no longer only trading media or DeFi base assets; they are beginning to serve real functions such as cross-border settlement, corporate payments, and treasury movement.

A representative development was Circle’s launch of the Circle Payments Network (CPN). Rather than a single transfer network, CPN acts as a stablecoin-centered coordination layer for financial institutions. Through unified rules and governance frameworks, it brings originating financial institutions (OFIs) and beneficiary financial institutions (BFIs) into the same compliance system and coordinates clearing and settlement on public blockchains. Stablecoins, for the first time, are being embedded systematically into cross-border payment processes as “regulated settlement assets,” no longer relying solely on the SWIFT system.

This shift targets core pain points of traditional payments: high costs, multiple intermediaries, slow settlement cycles, and weak global interoperability. In cross-border remittances, B2B trade payments, and global payroll, stablecoins increasingly demonstrate advantages in speed, transparency, and capital efficiency, expanding adoption from crypto-friendly users to SMEs and cross-border merchants.

Meanwhile, traditional finance and payment giants entering the field reinforced the trend. Stripe acquired Bridge, Ripple launched enterprise stablecoin solutions, and multiple banks explored deposit tokens and on-chain settlement, indicating that stablecoin payments are now regarded as a key component of next-generation global payment infrastructure.

Compared with the last cycle, the 2025 stablecoin payment narrative is less idealistic and more focused on compliance, risk controls, and network governance. 2025 was not a single breakthrough but a structural migration, laying foundations for on-chain FX, RWA settlement, and enterprise treasury management.

In 2025, RWA (real-world assets on-chain) moved from proof-of-concept into institutionalized and scalable deployment, becoming one of the key main lines connecting traditional finance and the on-chain world. This shift was not driven by a single technical breakthrough, but by the overlay of three forces in the same year: regulatory clarity, institutional entry, and infrastructure maturity.

Throughout the year, stablecoins and RWAs were explicitly included in multiple regulatory discussions. “Assets going on-chain” is no longer only technical innovation; it is now part of the evolution path of the financial system. In Hong Kong, the Stablecoin Ordinance was enacted and licensing mechanisms were clarified. Combined with supplemental guidelines for virtual asset intermediaries covering staking, institutional participation, and tiered management, RWAs gained regulatory soil for compliant yield distribution, institutional custody, and professional investor participation. The regulatory focus shifted from “whether to allow assets on-chain” to “how to operate and scale under compliance.”

On the market side, RWAs no longer remained small pilots. Low-risk, high-transparency assets such as tokenized U.S. Treasuries were the first to complete large-scale validation, becoming the primary entry point for institutions into on-chain finance. Traditional asset managers and crypto-native financial platforms formed stable operating models around “Treasury RWAs + stablecoin settlement,” enabling RWAs to evolve from simple mappings into financial products that can be allocated, priced, and circulated.

More importantly, RWAs were no longer discussed in isolation in 2025. They became deeply coupled with stablecoins, DeFi collateral, and institutional treasury management. Stablecoins provide settlement and liquidity bases, while RWAs provide real yield sources for on-chain finance, forming structural complementarity. Looking back, RWAs completed a key transformation from experimental instruments to asset forms that are understandable, regulatable, and allocatable.

In 2025, Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies became one of the most recognizable event-driven narratives in the market. Multiple listed companies raised funds via share issuance, PIPEs, convertible bonds, or reverse mergers, and allocated proceeds directly into BTC, ETH, SOL, and other crypto assets, packaging “buying coins” as a replicable capital market template. The core was not the token holdings themselves, but the mNAV mechanism—the premium of market capitalization relative to the value of held assets. When the premium exists, financing can continue and allocations can be amplified; once the premium disappears, the narrative quickly comes under pressure.

This fault line became visible in the second half of 2025. Premiums of leading DATs compressed significantly, and some stocks even decoupled from BTC’s price moves, reflecting weakening confidence in the sustainability of high premiums. At the same time, incremental buying slowed, showing DAT behavior as more of a pro-cyclical amplifier than a counter-cyclical support. As stock volatility amplified underlying asset drawdowns, DATs were among the first narratives to come under pressure when risk appetite cooled.

The deeper issue is structural constraint. DATs are neither traditional companies that can return value through dividends, buybacks, or organic growth, nor ETFs with creation/redemption mechanisms. They resemble “closed-end funds without redemption.” Once they enter discount territory, focus shifts from price volatility to governance and capital channels: whether forced selling occurs to meet debt or shareholder pressure, and potential litigation and regulatory risks.

Meanwhile, regulators and market rules began tightening boundaries. Some jurisdictions may view coin-hoarding transformations under “cash company” standards, and index compilers may reduce weights due to fund-like characteristics. Overall, DATs amplified the bull market in 2025 and completed a stress test during valuation pullbacks. Their sustainability depends on financing capacity and transparency of asset usage in down cycles.

In 2025, the crypto industry saw a wave of listings with symbolic significance. Unlike the previous cycle driven by token financing and private-market expansion, this shift was about crypto-related companies entering mainstream capital markets via IPOs, SPAC mergers, and reverse mergers, allowing “crypto exposure” to be absorbed systematically in equity form. The industry moved from narrative-driven dynamics toward corporate, institutionalized pricing.

Stablecoin and crypto-finance firms led the way. In June, Circle listed on the NYSE, becoming the first stablecoin core institution to enter mainstream public markets, marking stablecoins’ formal incorporation into compliant finance. After that, crypto financial services firms such as Galaxy and Amber listed, bringing crypto investment banking, asset management, and market-making under traditional market evaluation of earnings structure and risk exposure.

Trading platforms also formed a major component of the listing wave. Beyond Coinbase, exchanges such as Bullish and Gemini listed during the year. Platforms like eToro and Robinhood, spanning traditional and crypto trading, also became key channels for traditional investors to gain crypto exposure. Crypto exchanges are increasingly treated as priceable financial infrastructure.

The year also saw reverse-merger and capital restructuring routes. U.S.-listed SRM Entertainment introduced Tron-related capital and implemented a TRX treasury strategy, becoming a representative case of crypto projects entering U.S. markets through existing listed shells.

Meanwhile, core institutions including Grayscale, BitGo, Consensys, Kraken, OKX, FalconX, Animoca Brands, and Bithumb released listing signals in 2025, with some entering substantive preparation stages. Alongside spot ETFs and clearer regulatory boundaries, crypto enterprises are connecting to traditional finance as “companies” rather than “token narratives.”

Overall, this listing wave was not a set of scattered events but a structural migration: the crypto industry is being incorporated into long-term pricing frameworks of mainstream capital markets.

Looking back at the “Top 20 Web3 Hot Topics of 2025,” a clear main line has emerged: Web3 is shifting from “technology and narrative-driven” to being shaped jointly by institutions, capital, and risk. The key of the year was not how many new concepts appeared, but that multiple core variables aligned in the same cycle: regulators began offering definitive answers, mainstream capital formally entered, and markets completed stress tests through extreme volatility.

These events collectively did one thing: they pushed crypto and blockchain from fringe innovation into a financial structure that is regulatable, priceable, and accountable. Stablecoins were written into laws, exchanges and infrastructure entered public markets, equities and real-world assets moved on-chain, and on-chain risks were confronted directly through state-level enforcement and systemic liquidations.

Perhaps starting in 2026, Web3 will no longer exist as an “industry,” but as a default option of the financial system itself. Whether assets are on-chain, trading is programmable, and capital crosses borders will no longer be idealistic debates, but real processes driven jointly by institutions and markets. 2025 was the year this path was clearly written.

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Recommended Reading: “Crypto Chronicle 2025: The Era of Convergence | Web3 Annual Rankings & Year-End Review.”