On February 25, 2026, Eastern Standard Time, several seemingly independent news items overlapped on the same day in the cryptocurrency market: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's sudden change of tone, 21Shares announcing the launch of the first equity-linked ETP, the South Korean police recovering 22 stolen BTC, and a U.S. senator investigating Binance for alleged sanction violations. On one side, high-level figures in traditional finance acknowledged that the "experimental phase of cryptocurrency has ended," while on the other side, regulatory and enforcement gaps and high-pressure situations were exposed. In particular, the stark contrast between the recovery of 22 stolen BTC and the investigation into approximately $1.7 billion in cross-border funds brought asset security and compliance risks into the spotlight. The main narrative connecting these events is the tentative fusion of traditional finance and cryptocurrency from opposition, while regulatory and risk management shortcomings are quickly magnified and revalued in this process.
Dimon's Change of Heart: Wall Street's New Narrative on Cryptocurrency
● Shift in Tone: After long publicly bearish and criticizing Bitcoin, Jamie Dimon is now quoted as acknowledging that the "experimental phase has ended" in the crypto space, marking a shift in Wall Street's top discourse from "denying existence" to "recognizing it as an asset class." This evolution in attitude is not just a softening of personal views but also signifies that large banks and asset management institutions have internally accepted: cryptocurrency assets will exist in the long term and need to be systematically addressed through business lines, risk models, and product forms.
● Amplifying Effects from Exchanges: Binance CEO He Yi shared and commented on Dimon's statements on February 25, using “the future and the storm are coming together. The bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish?” to amplify the emotions and opportunity expectations behind this statement. Leading exchanges are actively translating the traditional financial shift into a narrative of "price discovery + liquidity inflow," leveraging Wall Street's influence for their regulatory negotiations, institutional business expansion, and brand endorsement, reinforcing the market psychology of "we have moved from the margins to the mainstream."
● From Ideas to Capital Flow: When the leadership of systematic institutions like JPMorgan starts publicly acknowledging the existence value of cryptocurrency, institutional asset allocation committees, family offices, and actively managed funds find it easier to allocate a small percentage weight to this asset class within compliance frameworks. Subsequently, there is an expansion of ETFs, ETPs, options, and structured products, allowing traditional funds to test their exposure to cryptocurrency through familiar vehicles, gradually converting "attitude reversal" into "capital experimentation."
21Shares Bets on the Boundary Exploration of Equity-Linked ETPs
● Formation of Bridge Products: On February 25, 21Shares AG announced the launch of the “first equity-linked ETP,” packaging traditional equity and cryptocurrency assets in the same structure through exchange-traded products. Although the briefing did not disclose specific linked assets and terms, its basic framework is clearly to use the equity logic and valuation system familiar to traditional financial investors to support or hedge against price fluctuations in cryptocurrency assets, building a compliant and institutionally understandable channel between the two.
● Structural Innovation Near Regulatory Red Lines: Under current compliance requirements in Europe and the U.S., similar ETPs must meet multiple regulatory constraints including disclosure, liquidity, custody, and anti-money laundering, so the equity-linking design of 21Shares is likely finely polished on the "securities + crypto" hybrid structure to ensure it does not cross the line of unauthorized derivatives or unregistered securities. The innovative space for such products is still limited by the disclosure boundaries of the recruitment brochure, underlying asset transparency, and cross-border issuance approval, making it a "safety limit test" within regulatory permissions.
● Demonstrative Effects Reducing Institutional Barriers: The equity-linked ETP provides traditional institutions with a path that “does not require direct exposure to on-chain but allows for crypto-related returns or hedging,” significantly lowering the thresholds concerning accounting treatment, custody structures, and compliance reviews. This not only holds the promise of broadening potential buying power but also creates demonstrative pressure on competitors: the clearer, more interpretable, and risk-friendly product structures that can be designed within the regulatory framework will more easily gain allocation advantages in a new round of institutional capital experiments.
The Warning from South Korean Police Recovering 22 BTC
● Case Review and Confidence Effects: According to source A, the South Korean police recovered 22 stolen Bitcoins; although the specific timing of the theft and recovery has not been fully disclosed, the precise quantity of "22" itself holds symbolic significance. Through the effects of on-chain tracking and cross-platform collaboration, some of the stolen assets were partially recovered within a time gap, helping to convey the signal to the market that "crime is not completely safe," slightly boosting confidence among victims and regular investors while also highlighting that law enforcement capabilities are extending into the on-chain world.
● Exposure of Institutional Shortcomings in Law Enforcement: This event also exposed the institutional deficiencies of law enforcement agencies in digital asset custody and private key management—from the theft itself, it can be inferred that the relevant wallets or custody processes had issues such as lax permissions management, inadequate cold-hot separation, and absence of auditing and tracking. For other judicial jurisdictions, this case clearly indicates: if police and prosecutors themselves cannot safely store seized crypto assets, no matter how strict the crime-fighting and regulatory rules, they will still be compromised during the execution phase.
● Discrepancies with Traditional Custody Standards: In traditional finance, custodians and clearing institutions must adhere to clear capital adequacy, operational risk control, and auditing standards; however, this case shows that official institutions in the crypto space have yet to fully align with these requirements. If issues with custody and holding systems are not resolved, even if legislation continues to promote so-called "compliance," systemic risks could be triggered in critical scenarios such as asset seizures, bankruptcy liquidations, and customer asset segregation, forming structural discounts on regulatory credibility and judicial integrity.
Chain Reactions from Binance's Involvement in $1.7 Billion Sanction Investigation
● Background of Investigation and Digital Focus: According to source A, U.S. senators are investigating Binance for alleged sanction violations, focusing one of their key concerns on the flow and compliance of approximately $1.7 billion in cross-border funds. While the specific transaction paths and counterparties have not yet been fully disclosed, this figure is already sufficient to trigger Washington's political sensitivity regarding "whether exchanges have become avenues for evading sanctions," elevating a single platform issue to a discussion dimension of national security and financial weaponization.
● Industry Standard Recalibration Under a Specific Case: Placed in the long context of Binance's global compliance adjustments over the past few years, this investigation appears more like a "demonstration-style" calibration by American political and regulatory entities using an important case to calibrate the entire industry. By requiring supplementary documentation, tracing historical transactions, and reinforcing KYC/AML standards, regulators, under the guise of factual investigation, are effectively pushing for the establishment of a unified high-pressure standard across all cross-border trading platforms, using Binance's scale and influence to "redraw the lines" of the entire cryptocurrency trading ecosystem.
● Compliance Costs and Cooperation Prospects: Such investigations will inevitably drive up the compliance costs and time costs for global exchanges; from license acquisition and auditing cooperation to clearing collaboration with banks, all conditions will be reassessed and intensified. For trading platforms that aim to interface with Wall Street's banks, custodians, and payment networks, U.S. sanctions and investigation records will become critical due diligence variables. In the short term, this may compress some platforms' business space; in the medium to long term, it could accelerate the industry's concentration towards a few strong compliance capabilities, high transparency, and traditional finance-friendly leaders.
From Storm to Pricing Power: The Tug of War Between Institutions and Regulation
● Waves and Risk Premiums: He Yi's statement, “the future and the storm are coming together, the bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish?,” essentially emphasizes the repricing relationship between volatility and risk premiums. When regulatory storms and public pressure surge toward the cryptocurrency market, short-term price volatility is often accompanied by a liquidity retreat, but the scarcity of surviving assets and platforms actually increases, leading to higher valuation premiums for "assets capable of safely fulfilling institutional demand" in the mid to long term. The market is learning to view regulatory risks as a new factor that is also tradable and hedgeable.
● Concentrated Presentation of Contradictions: A series of events on February 25 created a stark contrast—Dimon's change in attitude and 21Shares' ETP innovation represent the capital and product-side impulse to enter, while South Korean law enforcement errors and U.S. investigations into Binance reflect the tightening on regulatory and enforcement levels. The desire for funds to enter through ETFs, ETPs, and structured products is pitted against the necessity for crypto infrastructure and compliance frameworks to accelerate their adjustments under high pressure; this "capital pushing forward while regulation pulls back" misalignment is the underlying contradiction of the current market volatility.
● Data-Driven Trading and Allocation Strategies: At the operational level, it's important to view regulatory and law enforcement news flows as key volatility driving factors in the short term, making position adjustments and volatility strategy arrangements around major investigations, hearings, and product approval nodes. In the medium term, focus more on the timing of institutional product launches and the progress of compliance frameworks being formed, such as growth in ETP/ETF scale and the number of custody and license approvals, using these indicators to judge the real entry speed of traditional funds and accordingly reallocating weights among leading platform tokens, on-chain blue chips, and compliance-friendly assets.
After the Experiment: Chip Competition in the Next Stage of the Cryptocurrency Market
● New Distribution of Discourse Power: The multiple events concentrated on February 25 collectively convey one signal: after the "experimental phase has ended," the discourse power in the cryptocurrency market is being redistributed between Wall Street and regulatory agencies. On one hand, traditional financial executives are shifting from skepticism to acknowledgment and actively seeking investable paths, while on the other hand, regulatory and enforcement actions reshape the behavior boundaries and survival space of the industry through case investigations, custody errors, and sanction storms; the interplay between these two forces is defining the rules of the game for the next cycle.
● Three Key Infrastructures: To withstand this dual pressure from capital and regulation, the industry must strengthen three key infrastructures: first is custodial security, including the private key management, asset isolation, and auditing capacities of law enforcement agencies and commercial custodians; second is compliance transparency, covering KYC/AML, on-chain tracking cooperation, and information disclosure quality; third is product structures understandable by traditional funds, such as ETFs, ETPs, and distinctly structured notes, to reduce communication costs and risk control resistance.
● The Main Line in the Next Cycle: In the coming complete cycle, the core line will be: who can effectively meet institutional demand under the premise of fulfilling regulatory requirements will have the opportunity to capture more market premiums. This pertains not only to individual projects or platforms but encompasses the repricing process across the entire value chain including compliant exchanges, on-chain infrastructure, custodial services, and data providers. For investors, identifying participants capable of continuously obtaining licenses, expanding institutional cooperation, and launching compliance-friendly products under regulatory pressure may become key to sharing in the "volatile premium" of this new phase.
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