Crypto Regulation: National Strategy and Market Evolution

In 2026, EastPoint opens a second round of dialogue. In last year's EastPoint report, Hashed Open Research warned that unless Korea's policymakers and industry leaders achieved unlearning and relearning, the country could fail to achieve a competitive digital transformation or run into problems it could not resolve. Unlearning does not mean discarding accumulated experience. It means revising premises that were once sound but have lost their explanatory power in a new environment. EastPoint:Seoul 2026 brings together policy officials, financial practitioners, entrepreneurs, technologists, and academics to examine those premises together. The shared learning EastPoint aims for begins with examining problems from many angles, drawing on different kinds of expertise. For this gathering to carry expert discussion through to execution, a next step must remain at the end of the debate. What is the problem to be solved? Does it call for amending the law, is clarifying supervisory interpretation enough, or is private-sector technical connection needed? Who will verify the outcome, and by what criteria will success or failure be judged? Making clear what has been agreed and where disagreement remains is itself enough to change where execution begins. Rather than hastily merging differing positions into one, EastPoint seeks a dialogue that turns disagreement into verifiable tasks. This report is the groundwork for that dialogue. It analyzes the digital asset policies of major countries and regions, including the United States, the European Union, Japan, and China, and compares the paths by which each translates its policy objectives into law, administration, and practice in the market. Each jurisdiction has defined differently what it seeks from the digital order and has deployed regulation as a means to that end. These differences offer a basis for understanding where major economies are heading and for reflecting in depth on Korea's own choices. The 2025 policy shift in the United States removed administrative barriers and brought bank custody and dollar token business within ordinary financial activity. The European Union has succeeded in setting rules and fostering its payments industry, but its settlement assets remain heavily dependent on the dollar, and it is seeking to strengthen its framework through the MiCA review. Japan has used Web3 as a means of circulating capital and has built a feedback loop in which policy recommendations, legislation, and market response reinforce one another, though the task of building back-office infrastructure remains. China prohibits virtual asset trading outright on the mainland while using Hong Kong, with its licensing regime, as a gateway to global markets. It is now Korea's turn. Enacting the Framework Act on Digital Assets cannot be an end in itself. The first questions are what policy purpose it is meant to serve and by what path that purpose will be carried out. We hope this report helps participants in EastPoint:Seoul 2026, and all who follow this debate, to assess national policies from a strategic standpoint and to understand how the market is evolving.