Under Atkins’ leadership, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has undergone a near-complete reversal of the way it regulates crypto.
Powell’s decisions as Fed chair have continued to have a massive impact on bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency markets.
Peter Schiff, the outspoken gold advocate and notorious bitcoin critic, has been vindicated by the market’s performance, cementing his stance after years of skepticism towards digital assets.
Sanctions, capital controls and Russia’s improvised financial plumbing helped create A7A5, a ruble stablecoin built on a currency rarely used in global commerce, allowing it to appear legally at major events even as its presence leaves compliance teams panicked.
Young sparked a new category of digital assets, yieldcoins, that sits at the intersection of DeFi rails and TradFi basis trades.
Williams has helped cement crypto gains in Congress alongside White House allies.
The Telegram CEO may stand as the most pivotal figure in the bona fide mass adoption of cryptocurrency.
Chainlink’s co-founder spent 2025 turning oracles, cross-chain messaging and CRE into building blocks for tokenized funds and on-chain finance.
The crypto industry praised a memo signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche directing the Department of Justice to end “regulation by prosecution.”
The Tornado Cash developer’s trial this summer is evidence that the crypto industry is still severely lacking regulatory clarity.
ZachXBT still holds the crown as the crypto world’s pseudonymous Sherlock Holmes.
As institutions are laying the groundwork for wider crypto adoption from the top down, it’s being met by rising interest from football fans from the ground up.
"2026 is where we find out if crypto IPOs are a durable asset class," according to Laura Katherine Mann, a partner at global law firm White & Case.
Bailey’s Strategy-inspired bitcoin treasury company, KindlyMD, exemplified the struggles of many of its peers this year.
Zhao’s exit from Binance did little to dim his prominence.
Despite facing a year of tough conditions for bitcoin treasury companies, Michael Saylor’s Strategy developed new ways to make money — and acquire more bitcoin for its vast holdings — in 2025.
Base, the layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, exploded in popularity this year.
A longtime fixture on Wall Street, Tom Lee’s pivot to crypto comes as the traditional finance industry is increasingly embracing digital assets.
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has re-emerged in recent years as one of the industry’s most consistently influential macro thinkers.
Crypto Twitter’s social media traders turned their X dashboards into public PnL reality shows in 2025, sending billions in volume through memecoins and perp DEXs in real time.
Once mired in legal trouble that included federal probes and law enforcement raids, Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan has emerged victorious this year, casting off the yoke of regulatory scrutiny and growing the prediction market he founded into a $9 billion betting empire.
Throughout crypto’s ups and downs, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood has remained unflaggingly bullish on the industry’s future.
Lee shaped the exchange that defines Korea’s crypto market, but even after his exit this year, the country’s hyperactive retail engine will keep moving.
The platform saw massive success in 2025, with over $150 billion in cumulative volume, $138 million in monthly revenue, and a notable $500 million token sale in July.
Perpetrators use various tactics, including posing as delivery drivers or waiting at gyms, homes, or hotel rooms, to target victims and demand access to their wallets.
The Movement Labs’ co-founder’s secret dealings and subsequent scandal stoked industry-wide anxieties about opaque token allocations and insider trading.
The crypto industry’s most notorious hackers continue to break records, highlighting the importance of taking every step possible to secure wallets.
Crypto’s Gen Z supervillain may have single-handedly popped the memecoin bubble this year, exposing it as less a cultural movement and more a parasitic financial machine feeding on new entrants.
President Donald Trump tapped a former college football player to run offense on his digital assets agenda.
The CEO of Tether is turning the stablecoin into a global financial force.