By Paul Howard, Senior Director at Wincent

The last 12 months or so have seen cryptocurrencies move from an alternative asset market into mainstream financial infrastructure. Indeed it has been a momentous period for the asset class, starting on October 10 2025 when we witnessed the largest liquidation event in crypto history to the US failing to pass the CLARITY Act on September 15 2026.

Over this time we have seen crypto ETFs launched by Blackrock, VanEck and others, whilst stablecoins have become fundamental to moving money and used by household names such as Visa, Paypal and Stripe. Despite the failure of CLARITY which was partly intended to determine regulatory responsibility for crypto in the US, the industry has visibly moved forward to become institutional.

And the best news for the technology is that Bitcoin and Ethereum are no longer on this journey alone. Zcash ($ZEC) for example, is an Ethereum based zero-knowledge proof decentralized cryptocurrency that allows transactions to hide details such as sender/receiver/amount from the public blockchain. Being decentralized means users maintain full control over their funds. Whist zero knowledge proof can be thought of as the concept of a tunnel with a locked door in the middle. You know the password that opens the door but don’t want to tell your friend who is asking for proof you know the password. Imagine you then walk into the tunnel and your friend shouts which exit to leave from, after repeating this many times your friend becomes convinced you know the password yet you never had to share it. This technology enables true financial privacy where transactions can be verified by those involved, without revealing sensitive information to the public – unlike Bitcoin. The launch of Greyscale’s ETF has helped propel Zcash’s market cap to almost $25bn.

Hyperliquid ($HYPE) has been another growth story this year and the cleanest example of what I would call an institutionalized crypto-native trading business for (on-chain) derivatives and listed US investment products that does not require KYC. This too has an ETF and arguably contributed to the demise of at least one major crypto exchange as liquidity for these products moved to Hyperliquid’s decentralized order book and matching platform. This helped its native coin reach a $20bn market cap.

So in a nutshell despite the setbacks mentioned, the last 12 months has seen consistent growth of the asset class and ways in which its technology is changing financial markets. The ETFs brought institutional capital in, stablecoins brought payments in, regulations including the GENIUS act brought banks in, with almost all major IBs and consumer banks now having a digital asset strategy or trading desk. Keeping up with the asset class and the pace of change is no longer the preserve of tech nerds but a mainstream part of how banking and trading, and the financial plumbing that supports that, work.