Recently, HTX Ventures—the global investment arm of Huobi HTX—released its latest research report titled 2025 Annual Review: Crypto Assets Move Toward Mainstream Adoption. The report reviews key industry progress across three dimensions: “regulatory shifts,” “the world going onchain,” and “accelerated institutional adoption.” Drawing on our practical experience as long-term ecosystem builders, the report deeply analyzes how these trends are reshaping investment logic and value discovery—and clarifies our future focus areas.

The report notes that in the past year, mainstream adoption has moved beyond slogans to become operational, auditable, and scalable business workflows—evidenced by stablecoin-based payments, tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), and institutional entry under compliant frameworks.

Looking ahead to 2026, HTX Ventures believes the competitive focus will shift further—from “narratives and price” toward “whether infrastructure can sustainably capture value.” Entities that build replicable capabilities across critical areas—including compliance frameworks, payment and clearing systems, asset tokenization, and institutional onboarding channels—will be better positioned to lead in the next phase of mainstream adoption.

As a long-standing participant deeply embedded in the industry, Huobi HTX and HTX Ventures continue to prioritize foundational capabilities capable of enduring market cycles. On one hand, we track structural trends through rigorous research to help the market identify long-term directions; on the other, we support teams with genuine product strength and sustainable business models via investments and ecosystem collaboration—advancing blockchain technology into broader real-world applications in a more robust and sustainable manner.

Regulation Is Becoming “Predictable”: Compliance Frameworks Are Bringing Institutional Capital Onboard

HTX Ventures observes that regulatory gray zones have significantly narrowed across major jurisdictions globally in 2025. Regulation has transitioned from “gray-zone tolerance” to “rule-setting,” with emphasis placed on stablecoin frameworks, market structure compliance, and stricter requirements for trading, custody, and disclosures. In the U.S., the GENIUS Act establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins and reinforces requirements such as 1:1 full backing. In Europe, MiCA’s implementation has substantially raised compliance thresholds, pushing the industry from “growth-at-all-costs expansion” toward “compliance-driven competition.” Hong Kong is also advancing issuer licensing for stablecoins and rolling out new regulations. HTX Ventures believes increased regulatory clarity directly reduces uncertainty for institutional participants—and provides more actionable pathways for compliant capital inflows.

The World Is Going Onchain: Stablecoins Achieve Scale in Payments; RWAs Enter Expansion Phase

In 2025, pivotal changes to onchain infrastructure were driven by two parallel forces: stablecoin expansion and institutionalized RWA adoption.

First, stablecoins rapidly evolved in 2025 from crypto-native tools into core components of global financial infrastructure: total stablecoin market capitalization hit a record $308 billion in October, stabilizing near $309.4 billion by mid-December—a 50.3% annual increase. Total onchain transfer volume exceeded $46 trillion for the year—roughly equivalent to the combined annual transaction volume of Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal.

Second, RWAs entered a phase of scale: as of December 17, 2025, the value of distributed RWA assets onchain reached $18.74 billion (excluding stablecoins), more than tripling since the start of the year. Tokenized U.S. Treasury securities accounted for approximately $8.7 billion—or 47.3%—of this total. Landmark products such as BlackRock’s BUIDL fund ($2.006 billion) exemplify deep integration between traditional asset management and onchain tokenization. The report concludes that “going onchain” for real-world assets and business processes is shifting blockchain from self-contained growth to externally oriented service provision.

Institutional Entry Paths Are Becoming Clearer: From “Should We Allocate?” to “How Do We Allocate Compliantly?”

HTX Ventures defines 2025 as the year institutional adoption paths became “quantifiable.” The core institutional shift was not about “full-scale bets on highly volatile assets,” but rather about entering crypto using more auditable, standardized approaches aligned with traditional balance-sheet language—and decomposing onchain capabilities into deployable financial modules.

Specifically, institutional participation is advancing along several clear pathways: • Using ETFs/ETPs to embed crypto exposure within traditional investment vehicles; • Adding BTC to corporate treasuries as balance-sheet assets; • Migrating payments and settlements ontochain via stablecoins; • Converting “cash equivalents and collateral” into composable onchain assets via RWA/tokenization. These pathways collectively drive market “institutionalization”: liquidity concentrates among top-tier assets; volatility becomes increasingly constrained by macroeconomic and risk-management factors; and market depth becomes more predictable—while institutional activity remains heavily concentrated in “safe-haven” assets like BTC, ETH, and onchain USD.

More importantly, institutional entry is transforming how markets operate. HTX Ventures summarizes this structural impact in three points: 1. Increased market concentration (capital flows further toward mainstream assets); 2. Sharply heightened importance of compliance and risk management (demanding greater data transparency and regulatory reporting); 3. Yield curves and pricing logic converging with traditional finance (concepts such as term structure and funding costs becoming deeply embedded in crypto pricing). At the strategy level, institutions favor low-risk or neutral-return strategies—such as arbitrage, market-making, hedging, and delta-neutral positions—acting more as “structure providers” than short-term price drivers.

What HTX Ventures Will Focus On in 2026

Alec, Head of HTX Ventures, stated: “Following the structural shifts of 2025, the industry is entering a critical phase where infrastructure capabilities will determine leadership. Capital is flowing along trajectories defined by ‘regulability,’ ‘auditability,’ and ‘scalability.’ Thus, the next stage’s focal point will no longer be short-term price performance—but who can sustainably capture value at the core infrastructure layer.”

In light of these trends, HTX Ventures—as a long-term industry builder—will prioritize the following areas in 2026:

• AI × Blockchain: AI agent frameworks, machine accounts and payments, onchain execution automation, onchain data feeds and settlement loops
• Stablecoins & Payment Infrastructure: Compliant issuance and reserve management, onchain clearing and reconciliation, risk control and anti-money laundering (AML), enterprise-grade wallet permissions, and payment routing optimization
• RWA Expansion & Secondary Liquidity: Extending from cash equivalents to onchain issuance of private credit and institutional assets—and enhancing trading and liquidity infrastructure
• User Experience & Productization: Applications and protocols lowering barriers to onchain finance (e.g., intuitive interfaces, one-click cross-chain functionality, mobile-first security)
• Strong Multi-Chain Application Ecosystems: Identifying “strong applications” and integrated platforms that retain users, generate recurring cash flow, and attract developers across multi-chain environments

For the crypto industry, 2025 marks a pivotal transition—from “technically feasible” to “operationally scalable.” Cryptographic technologies are now embedding themselves into the global financial system in ways that are compliant, transparent, and interoperable. Looking ahead to 2026, Huobi HTX and HTX Ventures will continue applying long-termist principles to uncover value creation—focusing on critical infrastructure and real-world use cases—to advance the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and help build a more open, fair, and transparent future financial system.

About HTX Ventures

HTX Ventures is the Huobi HTX global investment division, integrating investment, incubation, and research to identify the world’s most talented and innovative teams. As an industry pioneer, HTX Ventures brings over 11 years of blockchain-building expertise and excels at identifying cutting-edge technologies and emerging business models. To accelerate growth across the blockchain ecosystem, we provide comprehensive support—including fundraising, strategic guidance, and resource access.

HTX Ventures currently supports over 300 projects spanning multiple blockchain domains; several high-quality projects are already listed on Huobi HTX. Additionally, as one of the most active fund-of-funds (FOF) in the industry, HTX Ventures invests in 30 top-tier global funds—and collaborates with leading blockchain funds including Polychain, Dragonfly, Bankless, Gitcoin, Figment, Nomad, Animoca, and Hack VC to co-build the blockchain ecosystem. Visit us.

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