In 2025, the US Congress passed stablecoin-specific bills, including the STABLE and GENIUS Acts. Legally define ‘payment stablecoins’. Require 1:1 reserve backing. Prioritise the development and growth of lawful, dollar-backed stablecoins. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) March 2025 guidance further enabled national banks to hold deposits that serve as reserves for certain stablecoins, effectively opening the doors for traditional institutions to enter the space. Impose transparency. Audit requirements. US President Donald Trump has also issued the ‘Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology’ Executive Order.

You should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, cybersecurity, or other advice. Past performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future performance. Returns on the buying and selling of crypto assets may be subject to tax, including capital gains tax, in your jurisdiction. Although the term ‘stablecoin’ is commonly used, there is no guarantee that the asset will maintain a stable value in relation to the value of the reference asset when traded on secondary markets or that the reserve of assets, if there is one, will be adequate to satisfy all redemptions. When assessing a crypto asset, it’s essential for you to do your research and due diligence to make the best possible judgement, as any purchases shall be your sole responsibility. The value of crypto assets can increase or decrease, and you could lose all or a substantial amount of your purchase price.

The reforms also ban the use of credit cards for crypto purchases.

As of June 2025, Singapore’s amended Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) requires all digital token service providers (DTSPs) – including overseas exchanges serving Singapore residents – to obtain a local license. Due to the decentralised nature of DeFi, it continues to pose one of the biggest regulatory puzzles. The Tornado Cash sanctions and decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) accountability debates have initiated a push to apply existing financial laws to decentralised protocols. Establish minimum capital requirements for exchanges. Unlicensed operations are subject to severe financial penalties. The reforms also ban the use of credit cards for crypto purchases. However, rather than blanket crackdowns, compromises have been made, with proposals for front-end registration, protocol-level disclosures, and verifiable KYC integrations.

Once dominated by ambiguity, fragmentation, and enforcement-first approaches, the global regulatory landscape is now tilting towards clarity, coordination, and (at least in some regions) collaboration. As the cryptocurrency industry matures, governments and agencies are refining their mindsets and redefining their roles to be more accepting of blockchain and crypto technologies. In this article, we distill how regulation is evolving across key jurisdictions, namely the United States, European Union, and Asia, and across pivotal sectors of the crypto ecosystem: stablecoins, exchanges, decentralised finance (DeFi), and the expanding world of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Once dogged by the stigma of USDT’s de-pegging incident, as well as Terra’s downfall in 2022, stablecoins have made leaps towards legitimacy under clearer regulatory contours.