In previous articles, I mentioned that the current cryptocurrency market is policy-driven. In fact, the surge of $OKB yesterday also indirectly confirmed this conclusion.

So, which sectors will benefit from this wave of policy dividends? Let's analyze them slowly (friendly reminder: this article contains financial insights).

My personal judgment is that stablecoins, on-chain financial infrastructure, and the ZK sector driven by compliance will be the first to reap the benefits, with different rhythms in other sectors.

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Let's first review the market hot spot $OKB from yesterday.

The surge of OKB yesterday ignited Twitter and various communities. Its price soared from 46 to nearly 120, almost tripling.

This rise is not only due to OKX's one-time destruction of 65.25 million historical repurchased and reserved OKB, clearing past potential selling pressure. The X Layer upgrade also added structural changes on both supply and demand sides, with OKB becoming the only Gas Token for X Layer, directing traffic to wallets, exchanges, and payment scenarios.

Another trading variable is compliance expectations. The market has been closely watching the dynamics of 'OKX preparing to go public in the U.S.', thus holding space for imagination regarding its entry into the U.S. market, but whether it can materialize still depends on U.S. regulatory policies.

Supply contraction + concentrated demand led the market to suddenly realize that OKB's scarcity and utility value were amplified, resulting in a short-term spike driven by capital rush and emotional resonance.

My attitude towards this sector is clear: no FOMO, keep observing. ZK is likely to find its revival opportunity in the era of compliance, though it may only be a brief turnaround. Regardless, its movements are worth monitoring.

The latest U.S. digital asset report has made it clear that individuals should be allowed to conduct private transactions on public blockchains and encourages the use of self-custody and privacy-enhancing technologies to reduce the risk of on-chain data leakage. The White House's 2025 digital asset policy report also mentions that ZK is key to balancing privacy and compliance.

This change in attitude is interesting. Previously, privacy coins and mixers were on the regulatory blacklist, but now decision-makers acknowledge that to bring more traditional capital on-chain, they must address the shortcoming of 'on-chain privacy', and ZK is a ready solution.

On the enterprise application side, Google Wallet has launched a ZK age verification based on Succinct Labs: you can prove you are over 18 without revealing any identification details. It sounds very Web2, both KYC compliant and privacy-protective, but this time it's running on-chain.

The team behind @Succinctlabs has thus been pushed into the spotlight, and the token $PROVE performed quite well after its launch, essentially outpacing most altcoins during favorable market conditions. This case demonstrates one thing: when top tech companies and real business scenarios begin to use ZK, market patience will also return.

I understand the resurgence of ZK not just as an emotional rebound, but as an inevitable demand in the era of compliance. Once assets and transactions move on-chain, companies cannot accept all business details being disclosed to competitors, and individuals do not want their financial trajectories to become transparent.

The regulatory requirements are also very clear. Auditable items must be auditable, and traceable items must be traceable. This seemingly contradictory requirement is precisely the stage for ZK: 'prove legality first, then hide details'. For example, for interbank large-value settlements, ZK can verify that transactions comply with anti-money laundering regulations without disclosing who the customer is.

In the previous cycle, top ZK teams continuously raised funds, but many secondary performances were 'from kings to the dead', driving the heat of the ZK sector to freezing points. In this round, is there a chance to reverse the impression of 'ZK in the secondary market will definitely die'?

I think we can focus on two types of projects: one is teams that have not yet issued tokens but have technical reserves and implementation capabilities; the other is projects that have already issued tokens but have a healthy chip structure and are making real progress in business.

For me, this sector is worth observing in the short term. Although it’s not yet at the level where I can blindly invest heavily, I don’t rule out the emergence of a few winners riding the trend.

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Next, let's look at the direct beneficiaries of this wave of policy dividends: stablecoins.

Stablecoins are the most direct winners in this wave of U.S. regulatory dividends. The GENIUS Act effectively gives U.S. dollar stablecoins a passport: legal issuance, proper identification, and finally able to enter the main highway of the U.S. financial system legitimately. Therefore, we also see that two sons of the Trump family entered the market early through @worldlibertyfi to launch $USD1, seizing the first-mover advantage as the era of compliance begins.

On the day the policy was implemented, JPMorgan Chase officially announced the pilot issuance of JPMD deposit tokens (essentially stablecoins backed by fractional reserves) on @coinbase's Base chain.

Coinbase's own stablecoin USDC also grew rapidly under the favorable compliance environment, adding $800 million in circulation over the past week, and launched a crypto credit card backed by American Express, directly bringing USDC payments into e-commerce checkouts in collaboration with Shopify and Stripe.

The explosive scale is just the appetizer. The real change is the widening scope of use.

Payment networks like Visa and Mastercard have already incorporated stablecoins into their global networks, using them for high-frequency payments, bypassing the slow and costly charges of traditional card networks. Once compliant stablecoins enter cross-border remittances, e-commerce, and in-game transactions, the efficiency gains are immediate.

At the same time, the entry of 'regular armies' also means a steep increase in thresholds. Regulations require issuers to be subsidiaries of regulated financial institutions, licensed trust companies, etc., and must pass safety assessments by financial regulatory committees.

This almost directly blocks small innovators from the door, leading the stablecoin market to move more quickly towards oligopoly, with the confrontation between the three major camps of Circle, Coinbase, and traditional banking becoming increasingly evident. Moreover, regulations prohibit paying interest to holders, and the positioning of stablecoins will revert to payments and value storage itself, no longer having the illusion of algorithmic coins that yield excessively high annualized returns.

So how can ordinary users participate in this wave of dividends?

There are indeed pathways. For example, multiple compliant platforms have offered reasonable returns on USDC, providing safer paths, strong liquidity, and being more suitable for conservative funds: @Coinbase offers about a 4.1% APY reward for holding USDC. @Binance has also recently launched flexible deposit products for USDC, where each account can enjoy up to 12% APR on a maximum of 100,000 USDC, with funds available for withdrawal at any time.

From an investment perspective, these returns are not low at all, and they offer stability, safety, and liquidity, far more practical than leaving funds in exchanges without investing. Particularly for cross-border users, holding stablecoins not only earns interest but also avoids exchange rate fluctuations and the complexities of traditional channels.

To summarize my judgment: this wave of policies is clearing the runway for stablecoins that are compliant and stable. In the short term, U.S. dollar stablecoins and their payment applications will welcome capital inflows; in the long run, they will become the ballast of on-chain finance, serving as the core bridge for the digitization of fiat currencies.

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The clarity of U.S. regulations is actually paving the way for the entire localized financial economy.
The so-called 'localization' fundamentally refers to compliant public chains and protocols accommodating more business from U.S. institutions, with traditional finance also more actively integrating these underlying chains, treating them as new infrastructure.

The most intuitive example is Base, which, relying on Coinbase's compliance advantages and seamless integration with the exchange, has successfully accommodated more and more U.S. institutions and enterprises' on-chain business, linking multiple sectors including payments, applications, and asset circulation.

In this trend, I am optimistic about the ecological extensibility of the Base system. Besides promoting tokenized securities, it also fills applications with partners, such as doing on-chain stablecoin payments with Stripe, making Base the central hub for payment innovation; it also provides underlying settlement facilities for PayPal, JPMorgan Chase, and others.

In the future, U.S. payment companies, banks, and brokerages will obviously prefer to choose a local, communicative network that can address issues promptly, rather than using an overseas anonymous chain. Localization is essentially a compliance moat.

Base itself does not issue tokens; its traffic, value, and imagination are all realized through the unique channel B3. B3 is built on Base, and its founding team hails from @coinbase, inheriting the compliance system and user economic entry advantages of Base, which means whether it’s U.S. dollar stablecoin payments, institutional settlements, or compliant narratives for entering the North American market, B3 has unparalleled first-mover advantages.

This type of on-chain financial underlying infrastructure, after bridging the loop of scenario-based and personalized applications, will have a huge attraction for high-quality assets that want to go on-chain and operate efficiently on-chain for the long term.

When Base experiences a surge in large-scale applications, B3 will become the first choice for the direct landing and scaling of these applications, serving as the true super application承接层与链上经济入口.

Additionally, I have a good understanding of the B3 team; they operate very steadily, focusing on product refinement while continuously expanding outward. I’ll leave a teaser here. What is certain is that after the announcement of heavyweight collaborations, B3's position in the industry will become clearer.

Looking ahead, I don't think this is just an isolated case. As regulations continue to improve, more traditional giants will follow the path of JPMorgan Chase and Coinbase, and we may see many large banks issuing on-chain bonds, insurance companies managing policies on-chain, and tech giants issuing corporate stablecoins for internal settlements... After all, every major client is a stable cash flow source for on-chain infrastructure.

Of course, this will also raise the requirements: performance must withstand massive transactions, privacy must protect enterprise data, and compliance must incorporate auditing and risk control into the system.

In simple terms, this wave of U.S. policies is pushing on-chain infrastructure from the past 'international barbaric growth' towards 'localized meticulous cultivation'. In this round of upgrades, localized compliant chains and modular innovation networks will be the biggest beneficiaries.

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As an investor looking at the sector long-term, I am very clear: once the regulatory shoe drops, structural opportunities in the market will begin to be rearranged. The clarity of this round of U.S. policies is genuinely changing the flow of funds and the order of the industry.

In the short term, the capital inflows and bullish sentiments brought about by favorable compliance have already allowed some sectors to outperform the market, with stablecoin issuers and tokenized market caps providing the market with very intuitive feedback on price and trading volume. This is just the first wave of capital testing.

More importantly, it is the reshaping of the long-term landscape. When the rules are clear and the thresholds are defined, only truly valuable sectors will solidify. Conversely, those that are detached from real demand and rely solely on speculative games will find it increasingly difficult to survive in a strong regulatory environment, leading industry resources to flow towards more meaningful directions.

I firmly believe that the real opportunity lies in adapting to structural changes: in the short term, observe policies and capital flows to find the right entry points; in the long term, identify which sectors can resonate with the future of finance and technology.

I view this round as the 'fourth phase moment of the Internet' for the crypto industry; those interested can check out my previous article on the development path of the web3 industry: back then, the Internet had rule establishment and technological transformation, with short-term pains but ultimately leading to a larger, healthier ecosystem.

The current cryptocurrency industry is bidding farewell to the barbaric era of disorderly growth and moving towards a mature phase with rules to follow. Those who can seize policy dividends during this window will have a better chance of solidifying their position in the next phase's landscape.

New paths have been laid out, and those who sail with the wind will reach the future faster.