Crypto Regulation: National Strategy and Market Evolution

Having the law in place and getting the market to move are two different matters. The digitalization of the economy is expanding beyond recording and transmitting information into representing rights to assets and executing transactions, and the emergence of AI agents is linking decision-making, trading, and payment ever more closely. Whether this shift raises productivity and access or entrenches existing monopolies and inequalities depends on the institutions through which rights and responsibilities are allocated. This report compares how five jurisdictions, the United States, the European Union, Japan, China, and Korea, are incorporating digital assets into their respective economic orders. The aim is not to rank their frameworks. It is to distinguish what is institutionally permitted from what actually works, and to identify which problems each jurisdiction is trying to solve and what accelerates or delays the transition. The United States is extending its vast capital markets and the international standing of the dollar into the digital environment. What stands out in the U.S. case is not the intensity of regulation but the way it clarifies the public interests to be protected while widening the lawful pathways that businesses can use. The European Union has established common rules and a licensing regime through MiCA. Yet it faces the challenge that growth in the payments industry does not automatically translate into greater influence for the euro. Japan has set out a national strategy linking Web3 and tokenization to financial innovation, industrial competitiveness, and the distribution of content and intellectual property, and it now stands at the threshold of moving from issuance to real-world use. China tightly controls financial activity through private virtual assets on the mainland while using blockchain as infrastructure for the real economy, and it relies on Hong Kong, with its separate legal and supervisory system, as its gateway to international financial markets. Although the four jurisdictions take different approaches, they share one feature: a national vision for digital assets comes first, and policies and agendas are aligned beneath it. Korea combines extensive experience with digital services, strong manufacturing, trade, and content industries, and well-developed financial infrastructure, yet these capabilities have not translated into institutional and market change. It is caught in a structure of high capability and low conversion. Korea's problem is not simply the absence of regulation. It is the combined absence of a national vision, a control tower to coordinate competing interests, and a process for bringing expertise into policymaking. Enacting the Digital Asset Basic Act cannot be an end in itself. The questions of what it is meant to achieve and through what path that purpose will be carried out must be answered first. Drawing on insights from the comparison of the five jurisdictions, this report explores a path for Korea to connect its accumulated capabilities to services and markets that actually work. *This report was distributed as a resource for on-site attendees of EastPoint:Seoul 2026.