Institutional momentum behind crypto is visibly shifting from niche infrastructure to mainstream plumbing. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has argued that traditional finance and governments are moving toward acceptance — a trend visible in expanding regulation for stablecoins, proposals like the US GENIUS Act, and growing institutional integration across payment and banking channels (coverage and context here: https://fortune.com/2026/01/22/tradfi-warms-to-crypto-bybit-ceo-ben-zhou-hack/).

Concrete signals are piling up. Reported stablecoin transaction volume exceeded $18 trillion in 2025, overtaking classic card networks in raw transaction throughput and forcing incumbents to rethink rails and settlement models. Regulators are responding: tighter supervision and clearer legal frameworks for stablecoins remove a key source of counterparty and compliance risk, which in turn lowers the barrier for banks and asset managers to offer crypto-linked services.

Large legacy players are moving beyond pilot programs. Goldman Sachs has broadened its custody and prime brokerage offerings, while Visa has continued to expand crypto rails and settlement partnerships — developments that suggest tradable and payment-related crypto products are migrating from error-prone integrations to standardized, bankable services.

Exchanges and custodian platforms are adapting too. Bybit’s operational footprint — relocated from China to Singapore and Dubai after facing banking friction, now operating in more than 180 countries — illustrates how exchanges are following capital and regulatory clarity rather than jurisdictional loyalty. That global expansion has not been without cost: high-profile breaches have pushed platforms to harden defenses, with many adopting hardware security modules, multi-party computation, and layered hot/cold custody models to reduce systemic counterparty risk.

Regulatory scaffolding such as the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) is lowering uncertainty on the supply side, enabling banks and funds to underwrite, custody, and trade digital assets with clearer compliance pathways. The practical result is bifurcated adoption: advanced markets are moving toward regulated productization, while emerging markets — where on‑chain savings and cross-border stablecoin use solve real friction — are seeing more rapid user-level uptake.

Taken together, these mechanics point to a transition in which crypto infrastructures increasingly plug into, rather than sit alongside, existing financial systems — reshaping liquidity distribution, custody models, and payment settlement choices in ways that favor interoperable, regulated rails rather than isolated on‑ramps.