Insight: The core narrative of the crypto industry is shifting from volatile trading to financial infrastructure layer

December 29, WeFi co-founder and CEO Maksym Sakharov said the crypto industry’s core story is shifting from price swings and trading volume to corporate balance sheets and financial infrastructure. True adoption doesn’t come from retail investors—it happens when CFOs and risk management teams start greenlighting stablecoin settlements and asset tokenization. Sakharov noted the key changes over the past 12–18 months: mature compliant custody, clearer accounting and regulatory frameworks. Stablecoin rules (like the GENIUS Act and MiCA), the SEC’s shift to “participatory regulation,” and the Basel Committee reworking capital requirements for banks holding digital assets have given businesses their first path to “on-chain compliance.” On the application side, tokenized government bonds and money market funds have hit a key milestone. JPMorgan Chase now settles trades on Solana, Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon are jointly pushing tokenized funds, and BlackRock’s BUIDL fund is already up and running. Sakharov says tokenization isn’t about disrupting markets—it’s about upgrading settlement systems: cutting settlement times from days to minutes, slashing costs, and linking global capital. When it comes to stablecoins, their payment volume hit over $9 trillion this year, with a market capitalization of roughly $309 billion. Sakharov flatly says stablecoins are now a financial stability concern, not a “crypto sideshow”—as regulation shifts from “blocking” to “standardizing,” it’s effectively acknowledging their undeniable systemic influence.