After a volatile 15-year ride marked by hype, scams and a few genuine breakthroughs, the crypto industry is beginning to settle into a tentative, if uneasy, form of legitimacy. Today, there are only two big stories worth serious attention – and they’re likely to shape how global capital interacts with crypto in the years ahead.
Yes, the sector remains noisy. A stream of headlines about non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralised finance (DeFi), tokenised real-world assets, the metaverse and CryptoAI continues to grab attention. But for now, these are mostly sideshows – entertaining, and in some cases promising, but not systemically significant. At least not yet.
The two crypto stories that matter most right now are bitcoin and stablecoins. Their trajectories are increasingly intertwined, and together they are quietly redrawing the lines of the global financial system.
The first, bitcoin, has travelled a remarkable path since emerging from its libertarian roots in 2010. Once dismissed as an anarchic experiment, it is now being recognised by the world’s largest economy as a strategic reserve asset – alongside gold, foreign exchange and International Monetary Fund facilities. It’s also finding favour with a growing number of company treasuries, having spent more than a decade as the butt of institutional scepticism.
The second is the rise of stablecoins – a less headline-grabbing corner of the crypto universe, but arguably the more transformative. Unlike bitcoin, stablecoins don’t swing wildly in value. They’re pegged to fiat currencies, usually the US dollar, and backed by cash or equivalents held in traditional banks. That stability makes them dull in speculative terms – but immensely useful in practice.
Before diving deeper into the symbiosis between bitcoin and stablecoins, it’s worth quickly setting aside the rest of the crypto landscape. NFT art? Mostly a speculative sideshow. DeFi? A once-dead experiment is now being cautiously revived. Tokenised real-world assets? Likely to have their moment, but not just yet. The metaverse, Web3, DAOs, CryptoAI? Perhaps game-changing someday, but not today.
Back to the main act.
Workhorse of crypto finance
Bitcoin was conceived as a decentralised, secure and unhackable currency – free from government interference. While it is still not widely used for day-to-day payments, it has evolved into a digital store of value, akin to gold. And it is now being taken seriously not just by retail investors and crypto evangelists, but by institutions and sovereign actors.
This shift is visible in the data. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF has amassed $70bn in assets in just 341 days – five times faster than the previous record, held by a gold ETF. BlackRock, with $14-trillion in assets under management, is not dabbling. It’s leading.
Now to stablecoins – the digital workhorses of crypto finance. They are, in essence, secure blockchain-based tokens that can be redeemed 1:1 for a dollar. Their lack of price volatility means they’re not speculative instruments, but efficient tools for moving value. And that’s what makes them so powerful.
They can be transferred across borders in seconds, at virtually no cost, with no banks or intermediaries involved. You can send $1 or $100m with the same ease and negligible fees – typically about one US cent per transaction. Stablecoins can also be lent out, used as collateral, or integrated into automated financial contracts – all without traditional paperwork.
This frictionless movement of capital – the “velocity of money” – is catching the attention of governments. Faster transactions mean faster economic activity, and regulators are scrambling to write rules to let stablecoins operate within formal financial systems.
The most advanced of these efforts is the US’s proposed Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act – or GENIUS. It’s expected to reach President Donald Trump’s desk within weeks and, if passed, would provide a federal framework for stablecoin regulation. South Korea has just passed its own legislation.
The implications are vast. Stablecoins are already being used by businesses for cross-border payments and by consumers at point-of-sale terminals. In May alone, $2-trillion in stablecoins were transacted.
The market is currently estimated at $250bn, dominated by Tether and Circle, but now including dozens of others, including PayPal’s stablecoin. Once GENIUS is enacted, the value of stablecoin-based transactions is forecast to top $27-trillion annually within three years, which is more than Visa and Mastercard combined, as institutional hesitancy fades.
There is a caveat. Every jurisdiction considering legalising stablecoins insists on identity verification to prevent illicit finance and comply with anti-money laundering laws. Regulatory frameworks, including Genius, include rules for know-your-customer compliance and transaction traceability.
This is where stablecoins diverge from bitcoin. Bitcoin was designed to be government-proof and, for the most part, remains so. Stablecoins, by contrast, are edging into the mainstream by accepting regulatory oversight. Still, not all will be monitored. Some stablecoins will remain outside the reach of governments, operating in parallel.
Yet both bitcoin and stablecoins are branches of the same evolutionary tree. They are cheap and easy to exchange between, with bitcoin serving as an off-grid store of value and stablecoins acting as a bridge to the formal economy. The success of one increasingly reinforces the success of the other.
Bitcoin’s market capitalisation now exceeds $2-trillion. If stablecoins grow as forecast, nearly $6-trillion in crypto assets could be circulating in the legitimate financial system within a few years – not counting tokenised real-world assets or a potential DeFi revival.
For perspective: gold’s global market cap is about $12-trillion. It took millennia to reach that. Crypto could get halfway there in less than two decades.
So if your eyes still glaze over at the mention of crypto, be warned: this is no longer a niche sideshow. It’s the fastest reallocation of financial capital in modern history – and it’s coming to a balance sheet near you.
Watch closely. It may be your portfolio’s next inflexion point.
For all your bitcoin pricing needs, we have conveniently added the Binance pricing widget here for you.
This article was produced in partnership with Binance.
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