WalletConnect Report: Global Cryptocurrency Regulation Enters Implementation Stage, DeFi Remains the Largest Unresolved Area
WalletConnect released a 68-page report titled "Current Status of Policy, Compliance, and Regulation," outlining global regulatory progress in areas such as payments, DeFi, trading, custody, and tokenization. The report indicates that discussions on cryptocurrency regulation in major markets have shifted from "whether to regulate" to "how to implement," with relevant frameworks transitioning from legislation to actual enforcement at different speeds, but cross-border rules remain highly fragmented.The report points out that the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) will be fully applicable from December 2024, with the national transition period ending on July 1, 2026; currently, there are about 330 authorized crypto asset service providers in the ESMA temporary register, and over 1,000 companies that were reported to have failed to obtain authorization before the deadline prior to MiCA's implementation. Hong Kong will issue the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses in April 2026, and Japan's revised Payment Services Act will take effect in June of the same year. Although the U.S. GENIUS Act has become law, the relevant system will not be fully effective until January 18, 2027, and broader market structure legislation is still pending.WalletConnect states that jurisdictions are increasingly adopting a "regulated touchpoint responsibility" model, meaning that issuers and service providers must still fulfill anti-money laundering, sanctions screening, travel rule, and record-keeping obligations when interacting with self-custody addresses. Tools such as sanctions screening, on-chain analysis, address control verification, and reusable identity credentials have been used in some businesses, demonstrating that compliance and self-custody are not mutually exclusive; however, how to regulate decentralized software and protocols remains unresolved, and DeFi continues to be a major frontier issue for global regulation.