Crypto is increasingly being treated like a mainstream asset class, and with that shift comes a tougher, more formal approach to regulatory compliance.
According to AscentAI, as digital assets move into everyday finance, the industry’s long-standing “free ride” on lighter oversight is ending. In 2026, regulators are tightening requirements that push crypto further into the same compliance expectations faced by banks and other established financial firms.
One of the most telling changes is in tax reporting. PYMTS magazine recently highlighted a January 1 report indicating that tax authorities worldwide are closing in on crypto tax evasion by requiring exchanges to collect and report detailed trading records for local customers in the UK and more than 40 other countries. The message is clear: if crypto wants full legitimacy, it must be trackable, reportable, and taxable in the same way as other financial activity.
That tax focus is not only about raising revenue. It is also about embedding crypto into national financial infrastructure. Asset classes that cannot be reliably taxed struggle to become fully integrated into modern economies. By moving reporting responsibilities onto exchanges, governments are steering crypto away from a self-policed model and towards a system that is monitored, standardised, and enforceable.
In an odd twist, crypto firms have an advantage that legacy financial institutions often lack. Banks and insurers have spent years dealing with fragmented compliance operations, layered systems, and manual processes built up over decades. Crypto businesses, by contrast, can design compliance operations from the ground up. That creates a chance to adopt modern automation and AI tools early, building efficient processes that reduce cost while lowering regulatory and operational risk.
This “clean start” makes it possible to build a single source of regulatory truth across the firm—a central hub that captures the regulations that apply, the obligations those rules create, and the internal tasks needed to stay compliant. Rather than scattering information across spreadsheets, inboxes, and disconnected platforms, crypto firms can structure compliance as a core operating function.
Horizon scanning is likely to become a priority capability. These tools are designed to monitor regulatory developments globally and flag new rules, trends, guidance, and relevant news. As regulatory expectations increase, guidance and interpretation from authorities can become just as important as the rules themselves, helping firms understand where regulators are focusing and how new requirements are likely to be enforced.
The enforcement environment has already been aggressive. “In 2025] The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for example, brought more than 30 crypto-related enforcement actions, resulting in $2.6 billion in penalties and restitution—the highest total ever for the sector.*” The direction of travel suggests that crypto firms will face rising scrutiny across multiple jurisdictions, not only in the US.
However, not all compliance data is helpful. Firms must be careful to isolate what is relevant, otherwise teams can lose time sifting through large volumes of irrelevant updates. That noise can create its own risk—misidentifying a key obligation, missing a deadline, or failing to interpret a change correctly because critical information is buried.
Regulatory change management is another pressure point that is intensifying. The volume and velocity of regulatory change have been rising for years and show little sign of slowing. Keeping up is challenging even for the largest banks with mature teams and budgets. Crypto firms should assume they will face the same problem, particularly as they expand across markets with different rules and timelines.
This is where structured tools and workflows matter. The text points to AscenAI’s AscentFocus, which provides an AI-powered Change Management Dashboard designed to surface applicable new and updated rules, show side-by-side comparisons of old versus new text, and highlight what has changed. It also links to full regulations and summarises how changes affect obligations, helping compliance teams quickly identify what they must do and who must do it.
Beyond identifying change, the operational piece is crucial. From the same dashboard, AscentFocus supports the management of compliance-based tasks so the right people receive the right information at the right time. For crypto firms trying to scale responsibly, that combination—visibility into change plus execution controls—can be the difference between proactive compliance and constant firefighting.
As crypto enters a more compliance-first era, the operational implications are substantial. Teams will need to grow, data systems will need to mature, and cross-border complexity will have to be managed carefully. Costs will rise, and smaller firms may feel the strain first as fixed compliance requirements become unavoidable.
The core lesson is that crypto firms should not repeat the mistakes of legacy institutions that relied on manual and disjointed processes for too long. With international regulatory change accelerating, it is unrealistic to manage compliance with spreadsheets and fragmented workflows. Automation and AI tools now offer a practical way to build scalable compliance operations from day one—improving resilience, reducing risk, and supporting long-term growth as crypto becomes fully embedded in the regulated financial system.
Copyright © 2026 FinTech Global
