In brief
- Elliptic says governments shifted from enforcement to innovation in 2025, driven by Trump-era policy changes and the GENIUS Act.
- The report finds banks preparing to enter stablecoin custody and issuance following regulatory easing of long-standing restrictions.
- APAC and Middle Eastern hubs have advanced licensing and stablecoin regimes, though experts warn that regional coordination remains unlikely.
A global shift in crypto regulation is underway, with banks, stablecoins, and Asia’s financial hubs positioned to drive the next phase of policy development, according to Elliptic’s Global Crypto Regulation Review 2025, released Thursday.
The annual report says governments this year focused on “moving away from enforcement-led approaches” and on constructing comprehensive frameworks that prioritize innovation, marking a clear departure from years of regulatory hostility.
The shift was most visible in the U.S., where President Donald Trump declared crypto leadership “one of his top policy priorities” and oversaw the passage of the GENIUS Act, the country’s first federal stablecoin framework.
U.S. policy shift
Elliptic notes that the Trump administration pushed back against the previous regime’s enforcement-heavy posture.
The report highlights the DOJ’s termination of “regulation by prosecution,” the SEC’s formation of a Crypto Task Force under Commissioner Hester Peirce, and new federal coordination on market structure.
The pivot has “revived optimism that the US can be a leading source of cryptoasset innovation and growth,” the report says.
“The biggest shift has been in how stablecoins are used natively across blockchains,” Calvin Leyon, Kraken’s Head of Onchain, told Decrypt.
Stablecoins once behaved like “centralized bank IOUs… mostly sitting in exchanges or bridges,” he noted, but are now appearing as “collateral, in settlement rails and as yield-bearing instruments” across real DeFi systems.
“That shift has changed how developers think about liquidity, and it’s made stablecoins more critical than ever for both user experience and protocol design,” Leyon added.
Banking sector embraces crypto
U.S. banking regulators pushed back against restrictive policies that had effectively barred banks from offering crypto-related services, issuing comprehensive guidance on crypto safekeeping and custody services, the report notes.
Major financial institutions in the EU and Hong Kong began planning stablecoin issuance and custody offerings, which the report describes as “a structural shift in institutional participation in the cryptoasset ecosystem.”
“Clearer and comprehensive regulation is giving traditional financial institutions more confidence to engage with the cryptoasset space,” the report states. “The presence of these established players in the market is also enabling greater maturation of the space.”
Stablecoin frameworks multiply
Multiple jurisdictions implemented comprehensive stablecoin frameworks this year, with the report identifying this as a key trend for continued development in 2026.
Hong Kong launched its stablecoin regulatory regime with robust AML/CFT standards in August, with the UK and South Korea continuing to develop and advance their own planned frameworks.
The Wolfsberg Group, an association of 12 major global banks, issued guidance in September on providing banking services to stablecoin issuers, the report notes.
Asia-Pacific coordination challenges
Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, the UAE, and Australia advanced new licensing, custody, tokenization, and stablecoin frameworks, according to the report, but regional harmonization still remains distant.
Asked whether APAC should adopt a region-wide regulatory standard similar to the GENIUS Act, Peter Chung of Presto Labs told Decrypt, “If you were to ask me, yes, they should — but they won’t… there are too many vested interests… APAC countries operate under vastly different foundations.”
“Countries in APAC are vastly different, each operating under its own idiosyncrasies—it’s hard to coordinate under such vastly different foundations,” Chung added.
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