Can the core value of Crypto Assets survive in regulatory changes?

In the context of profound changes in the current regulatory environment, the Crypto Assets industry is facing a critical period where value reconstruction and innovative opportunities coexist. On one hand, industry insiders have deeply reflected on the intrinsic value of Crypto Assets; on the other hand, expectations for new application scenarios are also continuously rising.

To delve deeper into this issue, we interviewed several senior experts who are about to speak at an industry conference. These experts are not only seasoned practitioners in the Crypto Assets field but also advocates for reasonable regulation. They shared their views on how to maintain the core values of the industry amid regulatory reforms and the potential innovative opportunities that may arise under the new regulatory framework.

How to Maintain the Core Values of Crypto Assets in Regulatory Reform?

Personal autonomy and freedom are core values in the crypto space. Privacy protection and decentralization are important because they are the foundation for achieving this autonomy. Without these mechanisms, surveillance and centralized control will gradually erode individual sovereignty.

To uphold these values amid regulatory reform, we need to reconstruct the discussion framework: focusing on demonstrating that new technologies can not only achieve the fundamental goals of existing laws "in different ways" but also "in better ways." For instance, many financial regulatory rules are intended to prevent custodians from abusing their power, but when humans wield this power, the risks of greed and corruption are difficult to eliminate.

Strictly regulating intermediary institutions is one method, but fundamentally eliminating the role of "human intermediaries" is the only way to completely solve the problem. It's like how autonomous driving technology can fundamentally address the issue of drunk driving, rather than merely curbing it through increased control.

The application of new technologies will inevitably experience growing pains, and its risk characteristics are also different from traditional models. However, as long as we consistently discuss the core proposition of "how to better achieve legal objectives through technological innovation," the core value of the crypto world can be sustained in the evolution of regulation.

Blockchain technology can provide users with unprecedented transparency, reliability, and security, provided that the policy framework promotes its development through incentives for decentralization. Under reasonable regulation, blockchain projects will continue to advance decentralization, allowing users to truly control their financial assets and digital property, reducing dependence on third parties.

Decentralized blockchain networks, as underlying infrastructure, can also support applications in multiple fields:

• Data Sovereignty Social Platform: Users fully own and control their personal data
• Community Governance Platform: Competing with large tech companies through decentralized mechanisms
• Anti-AI Forgery Protocol: Build a digital identity protection system to resist AI forgery attacks.

Defining decentralization from a legal perspective is most effective by taking "control" as the entry point. The "control test" can greatly alleviate the issue of information asymmetry caused by overly concentrated control of tokens, providing a basis for projects to seek regulatory exemptions or downgrades.

When it comes to core values, we should focus on the values of developers and users attracted to the crypto world, rather than just the characteristics of the technology itself. This group is indeed drawn to the ideals of personal sovereignty and decentralization, but their spiritual pursuits go far beyond that.

In the past decade, what has truly propelled me forward is the deep collaboration with this diverse and innovative community. They build the "value internet" with almost obsessive passion, dedicated to connecting the world more closely. We must recognize that the crypto ecosystem is essentially a bottom-up growing tool system, embodying the wisdom of countless individuals, rather than the top-down design of large companies. This grassroots nature is what makes the spirit of encryption so compelling.

Decentralization is the most important core value, as it is only by distributing power, control, and decision-making authority to network nodes rather than centralized entities that true autonomy of digital assets and free trading can be achieved. For the aspects that still have centralized control, it is necessary to formulate legal and regulatory protection mechanisms tailored to the particularities of the blockchain system.

To ensure that the principles of decentralization are respected, it is crucial for legislators and regulators to have a deep understanding of the underlying technological architecture. Only in this way can dual objectives be achieved when formulating rules: to protect consumers from the risks of financial loss and asset devaluation, while effectively preventing financial crimes such as money laundering.

As a corporate lawyer with over 20 years of experience, I have always been a staunch supporter of the free market. The legal recognition of transferable property rights, the entrepreneur's right to freely experiment, the "freedom of contract principle" (, and the right of adults to independently exchange goods and services ) are the cornerstones of corporate law, which are essentially also the core values of the spirit of encryption.

Although encryption technology is innovative, there are precedents for the paradigm of "innovation needing to be balanced with reasonable regulation." For example, when commercial airplanes were introduced, we established pilot qualification certifications and safety standards based on safety considerations; today, the aviation industry coexists and thrives with the regulatory framework. Similarly, regulators can certainly maintain an open attitude while formulating targeted protective mechanisms to achieve a balance between preventing financial risks and encouraging innovation.

Is regulatory reform fostering valuable new business models?

A reasonable regulatory framework has far-reaching significance for business forms that rely on community participation and network effects. The current technological development has significantly lowered the threshold for individuals and small teams to create and distribute content, allowing them to compete with large centralized platforms. Effective regulation can further empower individuals through two pathways:

• Capital access democratization: opening pathways for compliant entities to directly obtain capital.
• Ecological participation popularization: promote mainstream groups to participate in ecological construction and share the benefits of community network effects.

This issue has not yet reached a conclusion. As some important bills gradually clarify the regulatory framework, we see a significant increase in mainstream institutions' interest in blockchain technology. However, before these bills are officially implemented, many potentially promising blockchain projects will still face scaling challenges.

I am optimistic about new projects in the following areas:

• Decentralized Artificial Intelligence: Building a censorship-resistant AI training and inference network
• Digital Identity Protocol: Creating a user-managed on-chain identity system
• Social Media 3.0: Achieving a Content Ecosystem for Data Sovereignty Return

At the same time, we look forward to decentralized autonomous organizations such as (DAO) gaining legal recognition. Recent relevant bills introduced in some areas provide important references for the development of such organizations. Only with clear regulatory sandboxes can we unleash the full potential of organizational innovation.

The door to innovation will never close! Ideal regulation should be like a spring breeze and rain, promoting innovation in a balanced and sustainable way, while also responding sensitively to the new business models actually adopted by the community.

The perfect regulatory paradigm in my heart is similar to the evolution of automotive civilization: when the private sector created the "horse-less carriage", these initially stumbling machines on muddy roads prompted the government to begin paving roads and marking traffic lines. Rules constrained driving behavior to a certain extent, yet allowed vehicles to operate more safely. The real technological breakthroughs always come from the private sector: it is the car companies that continuously develop new engines and new models, rather than the government specifying what materials tires should be made of.

Any regulatory measures that attempt to artificially intervene or forcibly support specific technological paths, even with good intentions, will ultimately backfire and distort the market. The mission of innovators is to continuously create, while the role of regulators should be to protect and adapt, rather than to overstep their boundaries.

Over the past decade, I have been deeply involved in the Crypto Assets industry, with my work always focusing on areas of high regulatory intensity such as financial integrity and consumer protection. I have witnessed firsthand how new business models like stablecoins have grown wildly during periods of regulatory absence; I have also seen how prudent regulation has driven innovative products to mainstream acceptance through clear boundary rules, boosting developer confidence and user trust. Compared to ten years ago, the current emphasis on compliance in Crypto Assets projects is no longer comparable.

This transformation is creating historic opportunities for regulatory technology ( RegTech ) by building automated compliance tools and process systems, reconstructing financial infrastructure. In contrast, the core systems of traditional financial institutions were mostly built decades ago, without considering compatibility with modern technology, resulting in:

• Data silos: Information is fragmented and stored in heterogeneous systems.
• Regulatory fragmentation: Differences in compliance standards across jurisdictions increase operational complexity.

The crypto asset platform inherently possesses a compliance gene:

• Transparent Ledger: Blockchain technology ensures traceable transaction records
• Automated Risk Control: Smart contracts enable real-time compliance verification
• Tamper-proof audit: On-chain data is permanently recorded and irreversible.
• API-first architecture: Seamless integration with regulatory technology products
• Data Direct Processing: Automatically generate regulatory reports directly from the transaction data layer, avoiding manual aggregation errors.

These technical characteristics provide Crypto Assets companies with significant compliance advantages: while providing regulators with more accurate information, they greatly reduce compliance costs.

The crypto world contains multiple revolutionary narratives: as a censorship-resistant value storage tool, it has existed for many years and seems somewhat "ancient" in today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape; but what is even more exciting is the wave of stablecoins and the tokenization of real-world assets. The disruptive potential of the deep coupling between capital flow and the Turing-complete global programmable ledger has yet to be fully recognized.

Currency is the lifeblood of commercial civilization, and encryption technology is redefining its circulatory system. Whether it is near-zero friction instant payments or enabling a large global unbanked population to access digital dollar equivalents for the first time, these are just the beginning of the transformation. Currently, stablecoins have begun to take shape, but the forthcoming regulatory framework will ignite their large-scale application. The key lies in establishing the "golden triangle" regulatory principles:

• Minimize run risk: Establish a trust foundation through transparent reserves and stress testing.
• Block illegal fund flows: A technical solution balancing privacy protection and anti-money laundering monitoring.
• Cross-chain interoperability: breaking down silos to build a unified liquidity pool

Only in this way can stablecoins truly become the financial cornerstone of the digital economy era.