Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

With only a handful of working days left in 2025, it might be useful to look back on the year of crypto policy that passed, to inform us as we look forward. What were the main industry’s key policy expectations of this year?

Banks make money from trading and brokerage. JP Morgan’s Markets division: $31 billion in 2024 and Goldman Sachs: $26 billion, according to private industry analysis. Morgan Stanley’s wealth division made $28 billion. Digital assets don’t change the role banks play to earn this revenue. In fact, they extend it. But activity is migrating. Coinbase generated $4 billion in transaction revenue in 2024, the same intermediation function banks provide.

Brazil has formalized a comprehensive framework for virtual asset service providers (VASP). This is the moment when the rules become operational, enforceable, and aligned with the scale of activity taking place in the country. For institutions already active in Brazil and those evaluating market entry, this is a shift that raises expectations and lowers uncertainty at the same time.

Most banks approach digital assets with the same assumptions they use for traditional custody. It is a natural starting point, but it does not hold. Digital assets behave differently, and control that once sat inside core systems now has to be applied in the wallet layer. Institutions that understand this now gain meaningful advantages in speed, flexibility, and market positioning.

On October 10, 2025, crypto markets experienced their largest liquidation event in history. A whopping $19.5 billion was liquidated across all markets with approximately $1 trillion in total market cap wiped out. Binance halted trading. Ethereum Layer 2s lagged. Arbitrum fees spiked above $500, with median fees jumping to $116. The entire ecosystem was under unprecedented stress. This was the ultimate real-world test of mission-critical infrastructure.

Over the next decade, wallet infrastructure will be a defining factor in onchain finance. Institutions that invest in robust wallet capabilities in the next 18–24 months will shape how value is moved, held, managed, and issued. This shift isn’t driven by hype. It’s grounded in a real transformation of how financial markets function. From banking to payments to capital markets, leading institutions are doing more than building products.

For the first time in history, banks and financial institutions are adopting digital assets as an integral part of their internal operations and product offerings. As they do so, they face new threat vectors, unfamiliar custody models, and growing pressure to identify and align with emerging supervisory standards, which may or may not serve as complete safe havens from risk.

By the time of Sibos 2025, banks and policymakers seemed to agree: digital money will be part of the operating models of traditional finance. The question now is how to make it happen. The urgency comes from a structural shift already under way. For the first time in regulated finance, value can meaningfully cross borders without banks. Virtual asset service providers are already moving stablecoins from Singapore to São Paulo without correspondent banks.

On September 8, 2025, a sophisticated attacker compromised a prominent staking provider’s infrastructure and walked away with customer funds. The breach at Kiln was not prevented by audits, penetration tests, or SOC 2 compliance, all of which were in place. The attacker used state-actor-level techniques that evaded every security measure.

The industry’s focus on stablecoin connectivity is showing up in the data, as institutions shift resources toward the infrastructure that makes these flows possible. The EY-Parthenon 2025 Stablecoin Survey shows that 56% of financial institutions view wallet infrastructure as a top strategic priority, matched by the same share prioritizing on- and off-ramp services. Together, these capabilities define how U.S.