Institutional engagement with digital assets is no longer a uniform story. In recent years, major financial institutions have taken markedly different approaches to blockchain-based markets. Some have focused on tokenization, putting traditional instruments into programmable form. Banks, meanwhile, have explored tokenized deposit models and internal settlement rails as well as issuing their own digital assets like stablecoins.

Amid the growing wave of institutional capital entering digital assets, the more revealing question is not who participates, but how participation is governed inside the institution. Regulatory requirements, operational standards, and internal conviction often determine whether a strategy moves forward or stalls.

Speaking exclusively with BeInCrypto at Liquidity Summit 2026 in Hong Kong, Samar Sen, Head of International Markets at Talos, shared how those internal dynamics play out when institutions evaluate digital asset opportunities.

Adoption Requires More Than Rules

According to Sen, regulatory clarity remains the most decisive factor in institutional participation. He noted that progress across jurisdictions has helped reduce uncertainty, but clear rules remain essential for large-scale adoption.

“We’ve seen a lot of advancements in regulation all over the world,” Sen acknowledged.

While once the dominant concern, infrastructure has matured significantly. Institutional-grade custody, execution platforms, and portfolio management systems now operate across major markets, addressing many of the operational gaps that previously slowed adoption.

Yet even where regulatory frameworks have advanced, and infrastructure is in place, in many institutions, the remaining hurdle is internal. He said:

“There may be management that is still evaluating the underlying tech or still need some time to get around understanding the potential of the tech to revolutionize finance.”

That hesitation often reflects unfamiliarity rather than outright resistance, he added. For institutions built on decades of precedent, conviction takes time. As a result, digital asset initiatives can stall even when the external conditions appear favorable.

The Compliance Checklist Behind Institutional Trust

When asked what signals actually build trust for institutions evaluating crypto counterparties, Sen pushed back on the idea that visibility alone carries weight. While he acknowledged that industry gatherings and brand presence may help with awareness, institutional trust is earned differently.

“Typically, what builds trust will be, first of all, licensed or regulated entities within their jurisdictions,” Sen said.

He also added that institutions look for demonstrable internal controls, such as SOC 2 Type II certifications, audit trails, and operational safeguards. Track record also matters, particularly if leadership has experience in traditional finance and has built a reputation for delivering under regulatory scrutiny.

Peer adoption plays a role as well. Institutions often look outward, assessing who else is using the same infrastructure and how widely it has been adopted across the industry. He explained:

“If you’re a big bank, and you go to talk to a vendor to provide you with technology, if that vendor is providing that technology to some of your peers and competitors, that’s another way that can establish some kind of trust.”

Not All Institutions Move at the Same Speed

Although regulatory clarity and operational safeguards form the foundation, institutions are not entering digital assets uniformly. Sen described three distinct profiles emerging in the market.

Some organizations act as early movers. These firms understand the structural shift underway in capital markets and are willing to commit resources ahead of full certainty. They tend to invest in building internal digital asset teams and engage proactively with new infrastructure providers.

Others take a more measured approach. These fast followers prefer to wait for clearer regulatory direction or proof of concept before scaling exposure. Their risk appetite is lower, and they often rely on external validation before committing capital.

Then there are institutions that remain behind the curve. In some cases, leadership has yet to develop conviction around the underlying technology. In others, digital asset initiatives exist but lack internal coordination, resulting in fragmented or misaligned strategies.

Sen noted that institutions should not be expected to move in lockstep. He added that different risk tolerances and internal mandates shape the pace of adoption.

“And that’s okay because with digital assets and the underlying technology, there are many entry points to participate in the asset class, to get comfortable with the new providers and ecosystem participants. We are here to help navigate that.”

While regulation continues to loosen around crypto in the United States, largely thanks to a president who accepts bribes via his own meme and stablecoins, the opposite is occurring in China.

Indeed, dozens of Chinese nationals have taken to social media to report that just putting “Dogecoin” or “USDT” in the memo field of a transfer ends with the bank account being frozen — and the individuals have almost no recourse for their money getting unfrozen thereafter.

Drastic difference in banking regulations

Despite the near total normalization of buying, selling, trading, and creating cryptocurrencies in the US — including a stablecoin endorsed and partially owned by the president — China and its retail banks have taken on a much stricter set of rules and regulations.

In one instance, according to a site called Techub.info in China, two clients of China Construction Bank (the third largest bank in the world) had their accounts frozen after transferring a mere 250 yuan, or $35, between one another with the memo “Dogecoin this week.”

After sending the money the bank flagged the transfer under its virtual currency control risk management program.

Rednote users warn Chinese citizens

On Rednote, users are sharing the story with words of warning for others in China: never put bitcoin, virtual currency, any memecoin, or USDT as the reason for a fund transfer or you will absolutely face an account freeze.

Read more: China’s Regulation 42 forces Tether to kill its CNHT stablecoin

They add that the only way to get one’s bank account unfrozen is to prove to to bank officials that money wasn’t in fact used to purchase cryptocurrencies, write a statement as to why a cryptocurrency was referenced, and wait for the statements to be reviewed.

The entire process can take weeks to occur, if the account is unfrozen at all.

Needless to say, Chinese citizens are being more cautious than ever before when it comes to using their bank accounts for cryptocurrency trading.

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Check out which tokens may plummet by 90% if such a scenario unfolded.

The global geopolitical tension escalated over the weekend after the USA and Israel carried out mutual attacks on Iran, creating a sudden surge of uncertainty that quickly spread across the region and beyond.

The military operation struck many targets and eventually led to the liquidation of Ali Khamenei (the supreme leader of the Asian country). Iran retaliated against several nations in the region, including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The American president, Donald Trump, warned that the war may continue for up to four weeks, while leading European economies (some of which are nuclear powers), such as France, Germany, and the UK, have hinted that they may “defend their interest” and join the conflict soon.

Right now, the world is watching the Middle East with growing concern, as the risk of a wider conflict and even a potential World War III seems more real than it has in years. Beyond the countless human lives this devastating event would claim, it would also send shockwaves through global financial and crypto markets. To explore the potential impact, we asked four of the most popular AI-powered chatbots which digital assets would be hit the hardest if such a scenario unfolded.

Small Alts, Memes, and More

ChatGPT started with a disclaimer, stating that a world war will not be just “bad news” but cause a “systemic liquidity shock.” It predicted that such a conflict would lead to immediate market panic, with equities dumping and credit freezing. In that kind of environment, crypto would get hit just as hard as everything else.

The chatbot suggested that small-cap altcoins are at the highest risk because they have thin liquidity, few real buyers, and heavy retail exposure. It alerted that cryptocurrencies, whose market capitalization is under $100 million and whose use-cases are dubious, may collapse by up to 90% in a World War III scenario.

Another sector that may experience a real carnage is the meme coin niche. According to ChatGPT, tokens like PEPE, BONK, WIF, and FLOKI can plummet to zero since they are sentiment-driven and notorious for their enhanced volatility:

“In a true risk-off event like a global war, speculative appetite collapses first, and liquidity in meme tokens can disappear within hours.”

Google’s Gemini agreed with ChatGPT’s assumption. It forecasted that such a major conflict could have a devastating effect on small and mid-cap altcoins and meme coins due to mass panic selling and total lack of buyers.

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Perplexity focused specifically on the biggest meme coins by market cap, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), estimating they would likely suffer the most due to their “extreme sensitivity to risk-off sentiment and lack of fundamental utility.”

Grok, the chatbot integrated within X, presented a rather different thesis. It claimed that stablecoins like Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC could be among the biggest victims due to their connection to the American dollar:

“Stablecoins are pegged 1:1 to fiat currencies like the USD, backed by reserves in banks, Treasuries, or other assets. In WW3, if major economies like the US face hyperinflation, debt defaults, or banking freezes (as seen in historical wars), these reserves could become worthless or inaccessible. In a global war, peg breaks could lead to total devaluation, turning them into “digital IOUs” for a collapsing dollar.”

How About BTC?

All four chatbots we consulted argued that Bitcoin would plunge substantially immediately after a potential announcement of a global war, but would remain the most resilient asset in the crypto sector. They also suggested that, despite the initial shock, BTC could recover its losses relatively quickly compared to the rest of the market.

“BTC would likely drop sharply alongside other risk assets as investors rush to liquidity. However, if the conflict leads to monetary instability or aggressive money printing, BTC could recover faster than most altcoins as its decentralziation and “digital gold” narrative regain strength,” ChatGPT stated.

The highest level of margin utilization by US traders in history has, unfortunately, led to historic underperformance in crypto prices as speculators re-learned timeless wisdom: leverage works both ways.

After spending 2025 through January 2026 building their largest leveraged positions in history, bets on digital assets have unraveled with unnerving speed.

In January 2026, US margin debt had surged to a record $1.28 trillion — its ninth consecutive monthly increase and a 50% rise from April 2025. That financial leverage added bids to crypto assets which made new all-time highs in May, July, August, and October 2025.

Then, despite investors continuing to pile on more margin debt than ever, prices collapsed 47% and shed $2 trillion in combined market capitalization as a sector rotation to AI and precious metals ensued.

Crypto losses since October are staggering.

US margin debt increased $53 billion from December to January alone. Worse, the ratio of margin to real disposable personal income exceeded 6.0% in January for the first time on record.

That ratio measures more financial leverage in January 2026 relative to income than the dot-com mania.

Leverage-fueled demand flows into crypto instruments like bitcoin (BTC) futures, spot and leveraged ETFs, call options, and publicly traded crypto companies. Although more leverage can amplify gains, it also amplifies crashes.

Although traditional margin statistics are an incomplete measure of total systemic risk on crypto, which has vast quantities of opaque exchanges and trade data APIs controlled by offshore entities with little to no regulatory oversight, it can nonetheless inform some analysis about the causes of crypto volatility.

A supernova of crypto leverage that wiped out $2 trillion

Some crypto derivatives traders spent mid-2025 building their largest leveraged positions in history, then watched all of their paper gains evaporate.

Aggregate crypto futures open interest peaked above $220 billion on October 6, 2025. Within a week, the industry began to crash and never looked back.

October 10 produced more than $19 billion in total liquidations across exchanges, according to CoinGlass data — the single largest day of forced closures in crypto history.

Many saw Binance as a convenient scapegoat.

In a closely watched governance decision for one of DeFi’s largest protocols, the “Aave Will Win” framework has passed its initial Temp Check vote, moving the proposal forward in Aave DAO’s multi-stage governance process.

The off-chain Snapshot vote, designed to gauge community sentiment ahead of more binding stages, closed with approximately 52.58% in favor, 42% against, and roughly 5% abstaining. This approval clears the first formal hurdle and advances the framework to the Aave Request for Final Comment (ARFC) phase, where structural and implementation details will be refined based on community feedback before any on-chain vote occurs.

A Token-Centric Model

The “Aave Will Win” framework proposes a fundamental shift in how Aave’s economic value is distributed and how Aave Labs is funded: it would direct 100% of product revenue generated by Aave products to the AAVE token and DAO treasury, aligning incentives between token holders and the protocol’s builders.

Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave and long-time steward of the protocol, confirmed the result on social media shortly after the vote closed, framing the outcome as a step toward a fully token-centric model for the ecosystem.

“Temp Check for the Aave Will Win proposal has passed,” Kulechov wrote. “This brings Aave Labs closer to a fully token-centric model, directing 100% of product revenue to the $AAVE token,” he wrote, underscoring the strategic shift.”

Kulechov followed up with additional remarks reaffirming the protocol’s direction and the DAO’s role in shaping the final structure as the proposal progresses.

Governance Debate and Split Vote

Despite the ultimate approval, the vote exposed ongoing tensions within Aave’s governance community. The margin was relatively narrow, and earlier debate on the forums and in governance reports highlighted deep divisions over funding levels, the size of token allocations to Aave Labs, and how decentralized authority should evolve.

Following the vote, Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave Chan Initiative, published a detailed post-mortem analyzing the Temp Check results, noting that when excluding votes from several large Aave Labs–linked addresses, the broader community actually tilted against the proposal.

Zeller’s analysis argued that while many delegates support the general direction of “Aave Will Win,” concerns remain about fiscal guardrails, capital deployment phases, and independence from Labs’ influence.

What Comes Next

With the Temp Check cleared, the Aave Will Win proposal now enters the ARFC stage, where community feedback will be folded into a more detailed governance proposal that may ultimately be put to an on-chain Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) vote. Only through an AIP vote would any commitments become binding.

If the framework ultimately garners approval in that final vote, it could reshape Aave’s economic and governance model, formalizing revenue alignment with token holders and setting V4 as the long-term technical foundation for future growth.

With the proposal’s advancement, the focus now shifts to the ARFC stage, where further community input will shape the final outcome. The proposal’s progress is a testament to the robust governance framework that empowers Aave’s community to steer its future direction.

This article was generated with the assistance of AI workflows.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public holder of Bitcoin, completed its 101st Bitcoin purchase, pushing its total holdings above 720,000 BTC.

The company acquired 3,015 Bitcoin (BTC) for $204.1 million last week, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday.

The average buy price of its latest purchase was $67,700 per BTC, marking another purchase well below the company’s average acquisition price of $75,985.

The purchase brings its holdings to 720,737 BTC, acquired for a total cost of about $54.8 billion, the company disclosed.

Another buy below Strategy’s cost basis

The latest buy is one of a small number of Strategy purchases made below the company’s average cost basis, according to data compiled by SaylorTracker, a website that tracks Strategy’s bitcoin acquisitions.

The first such purchase occurred on Feb. 9, when the company bought 1,142 BTC as market prices dipped below $76,051 during the week. Strategy reported the average acquisition price of that batch at $78,815, above the market price at the time.

Strategy encountered a similar situation around 2022-2023, when BTC price dipped below its cost basis of around $30,600. The company completed a total of seven purchases of 28,560 BTC during that below-cost period.

MSTR shares rise modestly while Bitcoin trades near $65,800

Strategy (MSTR) shares saw some upward momentum last week, rising from around $125 on Monday to nearly $130 by Friday, according to TradingView.

Bitcoin, however, remained largely flat over the same period. The crypto asset started the week near $65,000, briefly surged above $69,000 on Wednesday, and dipped below $64,000 before stabilizing. At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at $65,834, according to TradingView.

Related: Strategy yield wrapper lands in Europe as 21Shares lists STRC ETP

The news came after Strategy chairman Saylor announced on Sunday that the company is raising the dividend on its STRC preferred stock, also known as “Stretch,” to 11.50% for March 2026, from the previous 11.25%.

The capital raised through the stock can be used for corporate purposes, including potential Bitcoin acquisitions.

Magazine: 6 massive challenges Bitcoin faces on the road to quantum security