Opinion by: Eran Barak, CEO in shielded technologies
For more than a decade, crypto in the US has existed in a legal color -out zone. Regulators are skeptical between silence and sudden cracking, leaving developers, investors and institutions paralyzed by doubt.
In 2025, it began to change. SEC has lowered it Case Against Binance, citing the need for clearer policies. The Senate passed the Genius Actintroducing a federal framework for stablecoins. The odds of The Clarity Act signed by law are high.
Although the White House has changed its stance, the return of the guide that bothers employers from increasing crypto to retirement portfolios. Now allowed an executive order 401 (k) In digital assets-a signal that Washington no longer sees them as a natural risk but as a market asset. Institutions pay attention.
Lawmakers may open the door, but institutions will remain hesitant unless the infrastructure is emerging in parallel, and the blockchain will remain confined to the speculation-driven retailer.
Infrastructure along with other intentions
Financial policies are now being drafted for some time, and they struggle to adapt to this digital age. Blockchains are designed to promote confidence and prevent censorship through radical transparency, but this design is now quarreling with modern expectations around privacy, selective accessing and compliance.
It is difficult for most blockchains to adhere to management frameworks born of political processes or to handle specific legal requirements of sectors such as health care management, health care or business.
The general data protection regulation of the European Union (GDPR), for example, gives users the right to forget, but the data cannot be changed once published in blockchains.
The US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) requires strict care for health notes, but no hospital can store patient data in a system where each access point can be seen. Meanwhile, financial institutions, require selective disclosure – data shared with some parties but not all.
Markets where each transaction is completely transparent is ineffective, as fund movements can be monitored in real time and counterparts can trade against those prompts.
Most blockchains are not ready for the fact of regulation
To make the regulation significant, these systems are meant to rule is capable of compliance. There is the real gap now.
Web3 promise is control, privacy and owner. Architecture, however, often turns those ideas into tradeoffs: private but not compatible with regulation, or open and transparent at the expense of user compliance and confidence.
Related: Privacy will open the Blockchain business potential
This problem is beyond the transaction data. The metadata surrounding each transaction – which accesss it, when and under what conditions – can be as revealed as the data itself. Most chains ignore this layer, dangerous exposure of developers and institutions when compliance and auditing standards are met.
This needs to change if we want the blockchain to serve rather than early use and retail cases. In traditional markets such as Nasdaq and the NYSE, about 80% of trading comes from institutions, while in crypto it is almost oppositewith a retail still dominant.
Unless the infrastructure adapts, new laws will only take crypto to this day. Institutions may accept clarity, but they will not create significant capital until the systems they rely on to address regulated operational, legal and risk standards.
The path forward
Blockchain has shown that programmable assets and global regulations can work in training. The challenge today is to scale them for institutional use. This means developing infrastructure that can reconcile blockchain transparency with privacy requirements, selective disclosure and compliance – making it possible to meet regulated legal and operational standards.
A decade ago, early cloud platforms face similar security, auditing and obedience to obstacles. It took years of engineering, setting and iteration criteria before the systems support the most dangerously sensitive worldwide. When they did, the adoption followed, and the blockchain is now standing at the same threshold.
Fortunately, the new frameworks are emerging. Zero-Knowledge proofs, the selective disclosure and designs of the tokenomic novel give developers building blocks for privacy and compliance with disrespect for centralized gatekeepers. These tools will come to focus as regulation begins to be serious.
If the two change together, the blockchain will not only be a tool for imagination or fringe use cases.
It can be a trusted platform for the next generation of financial and data infrastructure, which drives the global economy.
Opinion by: Eran Barak, CEO in shielded technologies.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be done as legal or investment advice. The views, attitudes, and opinions expressed here are unique and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of the cointelegraph.
