Cryptocurrencies have disappeared from the news but at the same time they are becoming part of global finance.

Western economies are introducing regulatory frameworks (MiCA in the EU, GENIUS and Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in the US, FSMA in the UK) and this paves the way for:

• stablecoins (combination of stable value with the properties of a blockchain asset: 24/7 transfer, global accessibility, programmability, composability)
  • ~$8.82 trillion of stablecoins moved in the first six months of 2026
  • ~$36 trillion USDC on-chain volume in H1 2026 (+150% year-over-year)
  • ~$140 billion US gov debt held by USDT
• trading (decentralised exchanges now compete with centralised ones)
  • ~$11B open interest in Hyperliquid
  • ~$767M annualised protocol revenue in Hyperliquid — 12% of CME Group's $6.5B annual revenue (world’s largest derivatives exchange)
• tokenisation of traditional assets
  • BlackRock (world's largest asset manager) launched BUIDL, tokenised money-market/Treasury fund on Ethereum, ~$2.5B in assets by mid-2026
  • JPMorgan Chase (world's largest bank by market cap) launched MONY and JLTXX, two tokenised money-market funds on Ethereum
• lending and credit
  • eg. Aave and Morpho
  • over-collateralised lending, automated liquidations
• automated markets
  • eg. Uniswap, CoW
• prediction markets
  • eg. Polymarket

Dark side:

• smart-contract exploits
• stablecoin depegs
• oracle manipulation
• liquidation cascades