Crypto no longer lingers at the margins of financial discourse. It now dominates its own gatherings while continuing to assert itself at traditional financial events. As institutional interest grows and infrastructure matures, dedicated summits like Fintech Unplugged reflect a market that is no longer speculative but operational.
Fintech Unplugged, hosted by Finery Markets, is one such event. Designed as a high-level gathering of brokers, market makers, banks, payment providers, and stablecoin issuers, it focuses on the transactional architecture that supports crypto in everyday markets. The agenda underscored how digital assets are now baked into payment rails, custody systems, and trading flows.
Crypto has become embedded in trading infrastructure, brokerage portfolios, and regulatory frameworks. From liquidity providers to exchanges and custodians, everyone at the expo acknowledged that digital assets are now firmly part of the financial establishment.
Where do you see the biggest risk to crypto right now?
This new maturity has arrived alongside a wave of international regulatory and technological developments. In the European Union, MiCA has come into force, providing rules on stablecoins, licensing for crypto-asset service providers, and a passporting regime. Meanwhile, the United States passed the GENIUS Act just after the event, a sweeping bill that legalizes and defines stablecoins while encouraging banks to issue tokenized dollars. Both frameworks seek to bring legal clarity, but concerns remain. The Bank for International Settlements has repeatedly warned about crypto’s potential for systemic contagion, and major central banks continue to raise alarms on interconnected risks. Security threats persist, hacks have not disappeared, and the long-term implications of quantum computing raise existential questions. Some have warned that quantum capabilities could one day break the very cryptography underpinning Bitcoin itself.
Against this backdrop, Nikolai Isayev, Editor-in-Chief at FinanceFeeds, posed a direct question to five senior crypto executives during the event: “Where do you see the biggest risk to crypto right now?” Their answers spanned regulation, market structure, compliance fatigue, and long-term competitiveness, each reflecting the complexity of a sector caught between its disruptive origins and its institutional future.
Regulation: Tectonic Shift Ahead
Alexey Martynishin, COO and Co-founder of FF Digital, pointed to the regulatory transformation now underway as the most consequential force shaping the future of crypto. “I believe that the biggest challenge would be the regulation, which is coming into play. And because it’s going to change the landscape, right? It’s going to be a tectonic shift. And the industry as we know it now will be totally different in five years time.”
He added that new entrants from traditional finance will increase pressure on crypto-native companies. “The existing players need to learn how to do things in a very regulated environment, and the new players from TradFi who have dozens of years of experience dealing with regulators, with clients, they’re gonna be entering the place and competing big time.”
Competitive Pressures and Market Commoditization
Oisín Murphy O’Kane, COO of OneAlpha, highlighted the increasing commoditization of crypto trading as a structural challenge for brokers and market makers. “So for us as a crypto broker and market maker, the challenge that’s happening for us right now in the market is that it’s getting increasingly commoditized. You have more traffic players coming into play.”
The outcome, he said, is a market where speed, cost, and execution quality matter more than ever. “It’s getting more and more competitive, so you need to optimize your system. Get faster, get tighter. Yeah, it’s becoming more competitive, but overall, it’s positive for the industry, and it’s going to lead to broader adoption.”
Compliance Stress from Suspicious Transaction Reports
Torben Friis, Managing Director at Match Liquidity DMCC, described the operational overload caused by waves of compliance alerts and unclear thresholds for suspicious activity. “The single biggest challenge in crypto right now, in my opinion, is this total tsunami of KYT suspicious transaction reports that are coming, things which are not okay today, then they’re okay tomorrow.”
This unpredictability is undermining risk frameworks across exchanges, he said. “If you look at crypto exchanges, anybody at the compliance side there will tell you that they are getting tens of thousands of transactions every day, and they don’t know how to handle it. So that’s definitely something that has to be changed.”
The Risk of Overregulation
Sam Buxton, Co-founder and CEO of DAMEX, warned that regulation must not overreach to the point of strangling innovation. “The biggest challenge in crypto is overregulation, too much red tape. We all want regulation. It’s needed.”
He noted improvements in governance and structure, but cautioned against burdensome oversight. “There has been better governance, better just corporate structure, accountability, but you don’t want to overdo that and stifle innovation, and that’s my opinion, the biggest threat to crypto right now: overregulations.”
Regulatory Ambiguity Still Lingers
Stan Bublik, Chief Product Officer at Finyard, drew attention to the difficulty of interpreting and applying emerging regulatory frameworks. “There is one big challenge that is certain regulatory uncertainty. On the one hand, there is already a regulatory framework. On the other hand, not everyone is sure how to properly apply it or how to implement it the best possible way.”
He suggested that the industry is progressing but still navigating blind spots. “We are already getting out of the woods, but we are not yet sure in terms of the trajectory that is the right one.”
At Fintech Unplugged, it became clear that the industry is shifting from a survivalist mode to one of structured expansion, where those who adapt to regulation, complexity, and scale will shape what crypto becomes in its next phase.
