# Crypto / Web3
> A global ecosystem of blockchain-based digital assets, smart contracts, and stablecoins reshaping payments and finance, now subject to the US GENIUS Act and EU MiCA.

**Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads:  · 4 takes · 3 lenses · 2 regions

## What it is

Crypto and Web3 denote the set of blockchain-based digital assets, protocols, and applications built on cryptographic consensus networks. The ecosystem has three principal layers: settlement networks (Bitcoin and Ethereum as base chains), programmable finance (decentralised finance, or DeFi, running on smart contracts that execute automatically without an intermediary), and payment tokens (stablecoins, predominantly US-dollar-pegged, carrying roughly US$320 billion in market capitalisation as of May 2026). The Web3 label adds a governance ideology: user-owned networks replacing platform intermediaries. Key regulatory actors include the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission as primary US regulators, the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation in force since late 2024, and the Financial Stability Board coordinating global standards on behalf of the G20.

## History

Bitcoin launched in January 2009, derived from a pseudonymous white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto, with a total supply capped at 21 million coins. Ethereum, proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2013 and live from July 2015, introduced smart contracts, enabling the DeFi protocols and NFT markets that produced a speculative wave in 2020 and 2021. Cross-chain stablecoin volume peaked around US$2.6 trillion in 2021 before retreating. The November 2022 collapse of the Bahamas-registered exchange FTX, run by Sam Bankman-Fried, erased roughly US$8 billion in customer assets. A US federal jury in New York convicted Bankman-Fried of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023; a US federal judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison in March 2024. The collapse triggered regulatory overhauls across the US, EU, and multiple Asian jurisdictions.

## Current state

The US SEC approved eleven spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products on January 10, 2024, opening institutional capital access to Bitcoin for the first time in the United States; net inflows into those products exceeded US$40 billion by early 2026. The EU's MiCA regulation, phased in through 2024, established the first comprehensive crypto-asset licensing regime among the G7 economies, requiring issuers and service providers to register with national regulators.

In the United States, President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025, creating a federal stablecoin framework. The law requires issuers to hold 100% reserves in liquid assets including short-dated US Treasury bills, comply with Bank Secrecy Act anti-money-laundering obligations, and publish monthly public disclosures. The bill passed the US Senate 68-30 and the US House 308-122, with bipartisan support.

The stablecoin sector is the fastest-growing segment of crypto. An FSB peer review completed in August 2025 found significant gaps in how G20 jurisdictions have implemented its 2023 crypto recommendations, warning that uneven adoption creates arbitrage opportunities and complicates cross-border oversight. DeFi protocols, which held more than US$250 billion in total value locked at their 2021 peak, recovered to roughly US$100 billion by mid-2026. Ethereum's layer-2 scaling networks (Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base) process the majority of DeFi transaction volume.

## Relationships

Crypto sits within the global startups-vc funding ecosystem: Y Combinator's S26 batch in June 2026 included its first fully on-chain USDC seed investment and a cohort of crypto-infrastructure startups presenting alongside AI companies (see [YC S26演示日汇聚196家初创企业，首推链上USDC种子投资](/zh/n/yc-s26-demo-day)). Prediction markets built partly on crypto rails, typified by [Kalshi](/zh/n/kalshi-prediction-markets-2026) (valued at US$22 billion as of March 2026 after a US$1 billion Series F), have drawn institutional traders to on-chain event contracts. Stablecoin infrastructure is becoming a cross-border payments layer in markets where US-dollar access is constrained: [Daya](/zh/n/daya-stablecoin-pre-seed-2026)'s Lagos-to-UAE stablecoin corridor, backed by Hivemind Capital and the Aptos Foundation, illustrates how dollar-pegged tokens are routing around slow correspondent banking in Africa.

## What to watch

- Whether the US GENIUS Act's reserve and disclosure requirements consolidate stablecoin issuance among bank-affiliated entities or remain open to fintech challengers such as Circle and emerging-market startups.
- Whether the EU MiCA regime and the US GENIUS Act converge or diverge, and whether the FSB can close the regulatory-arbitrage gaps its October 2025 review identified.
- US CFTC and SEC jurisdictional contest over DeFi protocols, which determines whether smart-contract platforms require licensing or qualify as non-custodial software.
- Bitcoin ETF inflow durability: whether institutional adoption holds through a downturn or retrenches when speculative momentum fades.
- Central bank digital currency development as a competing layer: the BIS argues that tokenised central-bank money on a unified ledger can perform stablecoin functions without the dollarization risk.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### official research
- **Bank for International Settlements, Annual Economic Report 2026** (global, en) — BIS June 2026 annual report chapter on digital money; finds stablecoin market capitalisation at roughly US$320 billion as of end-May 2026, annual transaction volume at an estimated US$28 trillion in 2025, and 99.4% of fiat-backed stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.
  Source: https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2026e3.htm
- **Financial Stability Board** (global, en) — FSB October 16, 2025 thematic peer review of its 2023 crypto-asset regulatory framework; finds significant gaps and inconsistencies across G20 jurisdictions as of August 2025, creating regulatory arbitrage risks and complicating cross-border oversight.
  Source: https://www.fsb.org/2025/10/thematic-review-on-fsb-global-regulatory-framework-for-crypto-asset-activities/

### official record
- **White House** (United States, en) — US White House fact sheet dated July 18, 2025, recording President Trump signing the GENIUS Act into law; describes 100% reserve requirement in liquid assets, Bank Secrecy Act compliance obligations, and monthly public disclosure rules for stablecoin issuers.
  Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-signs-genius-act-into-law/

### legislative record
- **US Congress, Library of Congress** (United States, en) — Full text of S.394, the GENIUS Act of 2025 (119th Congress); passed the US Senate 68-30 on June 17, 2025, and the US House 308-122 on July 17, 2025, before being signed into law.
  Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/394/text

## Across the graph
- Related: [[daya-stablecoin-pre-seed-2026]], [[yc-s26-demo-day]], [[kalshi-prediction-markets-2026]]
- Entities: Crypto Web3, Fintech, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stablecoin

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