Over the past decade, global cryptocurrency regulation has roughly gone through three stages: "rejection and prohibition, cautious exploration, and standardized development." The shift in regulatory attitudes has been closely aligned with the expansion of the industry scale.

At the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, its decentralized nature kept it outside the traditional financial regulatory system. Most regions worldwide remained silent on this emerging phenomenon, while a few regarded it as a "speculative tool" or a "vehicle for crime."

Before 2015, the crypto market size was less than $10 billion. Global regulation mainly focused on bans and warnings. In 2013, the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks," clarifying its non-monetary nature; in 2014, Russia classified crypto transactions as illegal; the US SEC only regarded it as a "warning-worthy investment tool."

At this time, the industry was in a complete regulatory vacuum, with most transactions conducted through third-party platforms, and frequent hacking and scam incidents. From 2017 to 2022, with the rise of the DeFi ecosystem and the explosion of the DeFi wave, the crypto market cap surpassed $2 trillion, and regulation entered a cautious exploration phase.

Japan became the first country to attempt to regulate crypto trading, revising the "Fund Settlement Law" in 2017 to issue licenses to crypto exchanges. Switzerland, through its "Crypto Valley" strategy, built an inclusive regulatory framework that allows banks to engage in crypto custody services.