Crypto didn’t lose its story. The story just grew up.

Crypto markets have always been driven by narratives.

A crypto narrative is a theme that tells the market where to look: what’s worth building, what’s worth buying, and what the next big opportunity is. Narratives are what turn a complicated technology into something people can actually invest in.

For years, one narrative after another has defined the market.

DeFi Summer in 2020 was built around the rapid expansion of decentralised lending, borrowing, trading, and yield farming. All of a sudden, market participants could earn interest, trade, and borrow without a bank, and token prices moved on the promise of an entirely new financial system.

Then came the NFT boom in 2021.

NFTs moved beyond a relatively narrow blockchain use case into digital art, collectibles, gaming and online communities.

During that period, buying a JPEG felt like buying into the future.

Then came a wave of newer stories:

The AI – crypto narrative that gained significant attention in 2024 focused on the potential intersection between artificial intelligence and blockchain, including decentralised computing, data, AI agents and related infrastructure.

There was also the rise of play-to-earn gaming, memecoins, restaking and numerous other themes with each one pulling in capital and attention, at least for a while.

Different assets, different years, same underlying question:

What new things can we create with crypto?

That question hasn’t gone away.

However, the market conversation appears to be changing.

From Applications to Infrastructure

Increasingly, the conversation is moving toward the infrastructure that allows digital assets to function within a broader financial system.

Liquidity, Collateral, Stablecoins, Tokenisation, Custody, Regulation, Institutional participation, On-chain financial markets.

This does not mean speculative narratives have disappeared. Memecoins can still attract enormous attention, and crypto markets remain highly speculative.

The change is more subtle.

The conversation is increasingly extending beyond what can be built on blockchain to how blockchain-based infrastructure can perform recognisable economic and financial functions.

Stablecoins are perhaps the clearest example of this.

Stablecoins Are No Longer Just a Crypto Trading Tool

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency pegged to a stable asset, for example, fiat currency – one coin is designed to maintain the value of the underlying asset.

Stablecoins initially became popular partly because they allowed crypto users to move between volatile digital assets without immediately converting back into fiat currency.

However, their role has expanded.

Stablecoins are now used for trading, collateral, remittances, payments, corporate treasury management, and settling transactions across on-chain markets.

The Federal Reserve reported that stablecoin market capitalisation grew substantially during 2025, alongside increased transaction activity and DeFi usage.

The significance of this development goes beyond market capitalisation. Stablecoin isn’t just another token competing for attention anymore – it’s becoming the plumbing that connects different parts of the crypto economy.

That changes the way the asset is understood.

That is also attracting traditional financial institutions.

A 2026 institutional investor survey by Coinbase and EY found that institutions were using stablecoins for activities including cash management, moving money and near-real-time settlement, while regulated products had become an important route into digital-asset exposure.

The important point is not that traditional finance has suddenly discovered crypto.

It is that some crypto-native infrastructure is becoming useful to traditional financial activity.

Institutional Capital Changes the Conversation

Institutional participation is another part of this shift.

The emergence of spot ETFs, asset managers, custodians, banks and digital-asset treasury companies has created new channels through which institutional capital can access digital assets. This does not make institutional investors inherently long-term, nor does it eliminate speculation.

It changes the environment in which digital assets are evaluated.

Once a digital asset becomes part of an institutional investment strategy, questions around custody, liquidity, market structure, regulatory compliance, counterparty risk and portfolio construction become increasingly important.

Now the question is:

• Can it be held safely?
• Is there enough liquidity to get in and out?
• Who’s actually providing the infrastructure behind it?
• What happens to it under market stress?
• How does regulation apply?
• What real economic activity supports its value?

Those are infrastructure questions and they matter more the more institutional money is in the room.

What Happened to DeFi?

DeFi hasn’t stopped being experimental, and it certainly hasn’t stopped being speculative.

But alongside that, it’s developed functions that look a lot like traditional finance: lending and borrowing, trading, derivatives, liquidity provision, collateral management, stablecoin settlement, on-chain credit and yield markets.

The evolution is therefore not from “speculation” to “no speculation.”

It’s a shift from an ecosystem where speculative experimentation dominated the conversation to one where the financial infrastructure itself has become part of the story.

This is an important distinction.

A lending protocol does not need to introduce a completely new concept of lending to be useful. The novelty is increasingly found in how financial functions are delivered, rather than simply in the creation of entirely new financial categories.

Tokenisation Is Part of the Same Shift

The growing interest in tokenisation reflects a similar development.

Tokenisation involves representing assets or rights digitally through blockchain or other distributed-ledger infrastructure.

The underlying asset might be a bond, fund interest, real estate interest, deposit, commodity, or another financial or real-world asset. The interesting question is whether placing these assets on the blockchain will improve their issuance, transfer, settlement, liquidity, programmability, or accessibility.

That is a different kind of narrative.

It connects blockchain technology to existing economic activity rather than creating an entirely separate digital economy.

So, What Happened to the Crypto-Native Narrative?

It did not disappear.

It fragmented, evolved and, in some cases, became infrastructure.

DeFi developed into a collection of financial functions. Stablecoins expanded from crypto trading instruments into settlement and payment infrastructure. Tokenisation began connecting blockchain infrastructure with traditional financial assets. Institutional participation created new channels through which capital could enter digital assets.

Some earlier narratives lost relevance after their speculative cycles while others continue to evolve and new narratives will undoubtedly emerge.

The difference is that the market is increasingly asking a different question.

Earlier crypto cycles often centred on:

What can blockchain enable that did not exist before?

The newer question is:

What financial functions can blockchain infrastructure perform, and does it perform them effectively?

That is a different investment narrative and it also creates a different standard for evaluating projects. A protocol promising a new financial primitive may now have to demonstrate more than technological novelty.

Investors may also look at liquidity, revenue, collateral, risk management, regulatory exposure, integration and actual economic demand. The same applies to stablecoins, tokenised assets and other forms of on-chain infrastructure.

The crypto market is still capable of producing the next meme cycle, NFT boom or speculative frenzy. However, beneath those cycles, something else is happening.

Crypto-native infrastructure is increasingly being judged by the financial functions it can perform, rather than simply by the novelty of what it can create.

Perhaps that is what happened to the crypto-native narrative.

It did not disappear.

It became part of the infrastructure.

If you enjoy analytical commentary on digital asset regulation, crypto markets, and emerging financial technologies, consider subscribing to my newsletter where I share additional research, commentary, and industry insights.

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Also, if your company, startup, or publication needs clear, well-researched content on blockchain, digital assets, fintech, or emerging technology law, my inbox is always open.

What Happened to the Crypto-Native Narrative? was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An honest look at what digital assets deliver – and what they don’t.

Digital assets are increasingly presented as a tool for financial inclusion.

A smartphone and internet connection can, in principle, give someone access to digital assets without opening a traditional bank account or visiting a bank branch. In countries where large portions of the population remain underbanked – and where access to international financial services is limited or expensive – that has obvious appeal.

However, access to a digital wallet is not the same as meaningful financial inclusion.

Digital assets can remove some traditional barriers while creating new ones. This results in a shift in where the barriers to financial participation exist.

The Financial Inclusion Promise of Digital Assets

Traditional financial systems typically require a bank account, identification documents, physical infrastructure, and access to regulated institutions. These requirements exclude a significant share of the global population – particularly in emerging markets.

Digital assets can reduce some of these friction points. A person can create a self-custodial wallet without opening a conventional bank account. Depending on the asset and network, they can receive and transfer value across borders without relying entirely on traditional correspondent banking systems that are slow, expensive, and often unavailable in lower-income regions.

Stablecoins have created a particularly meaningful form of access. A person in a country experiencing significant local-currency depreciation may use a dollar-pegged stablecoin to hold an asset whose value is linked to the US dollar. For freelancers, small businesses, and people receiving money from abroad, digital assets can also provide alternative ways to receive and transfer value.

Cross-border transactions can sometimes be faster and cheaper than traditional alternatives, particularly where stablecoins reduce the number of intermediaries involved.

These use cases help explain why digital assets have gained attention as a potential financial inclusion tool, particularly in emerging markets. However, the ability to access an asset is only the first stage.

Access to a Wallet Is Only the Starting Point

Creating a digital wallet can be relatively easy. The key consideration is whether the user can make meaningful use of what is in it.

Liquidity is one of the most immediate issues.

A person may hold cryptocurrency or a stablecoin, but that does not automatically mean they can use it to pay for everyday expenses. They may still need an exchange, payment provider or P2P market to convert the asset into local currency. If liquidity is limited, conversion is expensive, or there are few businesses willing to accept the asset, the practical value of holding it is reduced.

The same tension applies to on-ramps and off-ramps.

Digital assets can reduce dependence on traditional financial institutions for certain transactions – but users frequently still rely on intermediaries when moving between the crypto ecosystem and the conventional financial system. The intermediary hasn’t disappeared; it has just changed form.

There is also a knowledge barrier specific to digital assets – though its significance depends heavily on who is using them.

For someone already familiar with wallets, networks, transaction fees, and private keys, these are routine considerations. For an ordinary person accustomed to conventional banking, they represent a fundamentally different set of responsibilities.

A typical bank customer doesn’t need to understand payment infrastructure to send money. They select a recipient, enter an amount, and confirm. If they lose access to their banking app, there are established procedures for recovery. If a fraudulent transaction occurs, the bank may be able to investigate, freeze an account, or provide some form of dispute mechanism.

Self-custodial digital assets work differently. Users must select the correct blockchain network, verify wallet addresses carefully, account for transaction fees, and protect their private keys or seed phrases. Blockchain transactions are also generally final once confirmed – there is no equivalent of calling the bank.

A single mistake of sending an asset to the wrong address, choosing the wrong network, losing a private key, or approving a malicious transaction can result in permanent loss of funds with little or no practical recourse.

The obvious counterpoint is that crypto exchanges can remove much of this complexity.

A user can hold assets on an exchange and interact with them through an interface that resembles online banking, with the exchange managing wallets, keys, and transaction infrastructure on their behalf.

However, that solution comes with a trade-off. The more accessible the system becomes for an ordinary user, the more it depends on an intermediary. The technical risks of self-custody may fall away, but the user becomes dependent on the exchange for custody, access, withdrawals, and compliance – a different kind of trust relationship, not the absence of one.

This produces two distinct models of participation.

Self-custody shifts responsibility toward the user. Custodial platforms shift some of that responsibility back to an intermediary.

Neither eliminates the underlying knowledge and trust requirements. They distribute them differently.

For someone comfortable with crypto, these distinctions feel routine. For someone whose entire experience of financial services has involved a bank that manages the technical infrastructure and provides recovery mechanisms when things go wrong, they represent a meaningful shift in how financial responsibility is allocated – and who bears the consequences when it isn’t.

Stablecoins: Access to Dollars, But for What Purpose?

Stablecoins illustrate both the potential and the limitations of digital assets as a financial inclusion tool.

A dollar-pegged stablecoin can give individuals and businesses access to dollar-denominated value without requiring a conventional US bank account. This can be particularly useful in economies where the local currency is volatile or access to foreign currency is restricted.

However, the use case for stablecoins is still developing.

Much of their activity today is connected to trading, transfers between exchanges, cross-border payments and other digital-asset activities rather than everyday purchases.

Their broader use as a means of payment, particularly for ordinary consumer transactions, is still evolving, and understanding this distinction matters when assessing their contribution to financial inclusion.

Giving someone access to a dollar-denominated digital asset does not automatically give them access to the financial services or economic opportunities they need.

For example, a user may be able to acquire USDT or USDC but still depend on an exchange, P2P market or other intermediary to convert it into local currency. If local liquidity is limited or there are few practical ways to spend the asset, its usefulness outside the digital-asset ecosystem may be restricted.

This does not undermine the financial inclusion potential of stablecoins. It simply means that their impact should be assessed against their actual and emerging use cases rather than assuming that access to a stablecoin is equivalent to access to a dollar bank account or a conventional payment system.

Stablecoin adoption is expanding beyond trading and into payments, remittances, and other financial activities, their contribution to financial inclusion may become more significant. For now, the extent of that contribution depends heavily on whether users can move between the digital-asset ecosystem and the wider economy.

Regulation Can Create Another Divide

Regulation affects who can participate and on what terms. Clear rules can provide consumer protection, establish standards for service providers and give legitimate businesses greater certainty.

Poorly designed regulation can have the opposite effect. Rules that are unclear, excessively restrictive or disproportionately expensive to comply with may reduce the number of regulated providers serving ordinary users. At the same time, weak regulation can expose users to fraud, poor custody practices and other forms of abuse.

In either case, the people with the fewest alternatives may bear the greatest consequences.

The regulatory challenge is whether regulation can provide protection without making legitimate access unnecessarily difficult.

What Financial Inclusion Actually Requires

Creating access is only the first step.

For digital assets to contribute meaningfully to financial inclusion, users must also be able to make practical use of them.

That means looking beyond wallet creation and considering several dimensions that determine whether participation is real:

Usability – can ordinary users understand and operate the technology without taking on risks they don’t fully understand?

Liquidity – can they convert or spend their assets when they need to, at a cost that makes sense for their circumstances?

Consumer protection – what recourse exists when an exchange fails, an account is compromised, or a transaction goes wrong?

Regulatory clarity – can legitimate users and businesses operate within a predictable legal framework, or does uncertainty push activity into poorly regulated channels?

These question also reveal an important distinction between access and inclusion.

A person may be able to open a wallet and receive cryptocurrency but if they cannot easily convert it, don’t understand the risks involved, have limited recourse when something goes wrong, or operate in a market without regulatory clarity, that access has limited practical value.

Digital assets can reduce certain traditional barriers to financial participation but they don’t eliminate barriers altogether. They move them – and in some cases, they create new ones for the people least equipped to navigate them.

It’s important to explore where the remaining barriers exist, who is affected by them, and how effectively the system facilitates meaningful financial participation for the people it aims to serve.

My Honest Assessment

Digital assets have genuine potential to promote financial inclusion. They offer alternative payment channels, facilitate cross-border transfers, provide access to dollar-denominated value, and allow people to participate in financial networks without depending entirely on traditional banking infrastructure.

However, they do not eliminate financial barriers. They redistribute them.

The traditional financial system places barriers around bank accounts, documentation, physical branches, and financial intermediaries. Digital assets can shift those barriers toward digital literacy, liquidity, on- and off-ramp access, consumer protection, and regulatory clarity.

That distinction matters when evaluating whether digital assets are actually advancing financial inclusion.

The number of wallets created is not, by itself, a meaningful measure of inclusion. A more useful measure is whether people can access digital assets, understand how they work, use them effectively, convert or spend them when necessary, and have meaningful protection when things go wrong.

Digital assets can contribute to financial inclusion. However, the effectiveness of access depends on the surrounding ecosystem, which includes regulation, infrastructure, education, liquidity, and consumer protections that facilitate meaningful participation.

If you enjoy analytical commentary on digital asset regulation, crypto markets, and emerging financial technologies, consider subscribing to my newsletter where I share additional research, commentary, and industry insights.

https://samuel-ayodeji.kit.com/profile

Also, if your company, startup, or publication needs clear, well-researched content on blockchain, digital assets, fintech, or emerging technology law, my inbox is always open.

Financial Inclusion or Exclusion? Are Digital Assets Solving or Creating New Divides? was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Regulators keep saying crypto is not legal tender. That statement is technically true and almost beside the point.

Crypto has outgrown the point where governments can ignore it.

What started as a technological experiment is now a global market spanning cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, tokenized assets, decentralised finance, and an increasingly sophisticated payments infrastructure.

Yet, every time a central bank or regulator addresses the topic, one line shows up almost on cue:

“Cryptocurrency is not legal tender.”

At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut statement. But look deeper, and you’ll find it falls short of addressing the real question on everyone’s minds:

Does it even matter?

Bitcoin doesn’t need legal-tender status for people to trade it. A stablecoin can move money across borders without being legal tender. Two parties can settle a deal in crypto even when their government refuses to recognise it as official money.

So what is legal tender actually for, and why do regulators keep reaching for it?

What Legal Tender Actually Means

Legal tender is a narrow legal concept.

It describes money the law recognises for settling debts and monetary obligations.

The exact mechanics differ by country, but the core idea holds everywhere: legal tender is a legal status, not a description of what people happen to use as money.

That distinction does a lot of work.

Something can function as a payment method without ever acquiring legal-tender status. A freelancer can invoice in Bitcoin. A retailer can accept a stablecoin. Two companies can settle a contract in a digital asset.

None of that makes the asset legal tender.

Legal tender tells you about legal recognition, it does not by itself, say anything about whether an asset works as a medium of exchange in practice.

Not Legal Tender Does Not Mean Not Legal

This is where most of the public conversation goes sideways. When a central bank says Bitcoin isn’t legal tender, it is not saying Bitcoin is illegal.

Those are different claims entirely.

A cryptocurrency can be legal to own, legal to trade, taxable, regulated as a financial or digital asset, usable for certain transactions, and still not be legal tender – all at once.

This has become more relevant, not less, as governments build dedicated digital-asset frameworks instead of outright bans. Regulators are licensing exchanges, custodians, stablecoin issuers, and brokers. The asset itself can sit outside the legal-tender system while operating firmly inside the regulatory one.

Not legal tender does not mean not legal.

Why Regulators Keep Repeating the Disclaimer

If crypto can be legal without being legal tender, why the constant reminder?

Three reasons stand out.

• Monetary sovereignty

States guard control over their national currencies. A privately issued or decentralised asset that becomes widely used as money starts to compete with that currency.

The disclaimer draws a line: the state has not adopted this asset as its official monetary instrument. People can use it voluntarily, but the government isn’t backing its value.

• Consumer protection

Someone unfamiliar with crypto might assume that because an asset trades widely, it carries some form of government guarantee. Saying Bitcoin isn’t legal tender is partly a way of saying: the state isn’t standing behind this the way it stands behind the national currency.

• Payment obligations

Legal tender also matters when determining how monetary obligations can be discharged.

If an asset has legal-tender status, its legal treatment in relation to debts and payment obligations can be different from an asset that parties merely agree to accept. This isn’t really about buying coffee with Bitcoin – it’s about what the law will treat as valid settlement of a debt.

Does Crypto Actually Need Legal-Tender Status?

For most digital assets, No.

Bitcoin doesn’t need legal-tender status for people to hold it as an investment.

A governance token doesn’t need it for people to use a protocol. An NFT doesn’t need it to represent a digital asset. Even a stablecoin can function as a payment and settlement tool without it.

The better question is what function the asset is actually performing. An investment asset barely needs the legal-tender conversation.

A medium of exchange raises it.

Something functioning as widely used money raises the stakes considerably.

Money, Medium of Exchange, and Legal Tender Are Not the Same Thing

These three terms get used interchangeably, and that’s part of the confusion.

Money performs several functions – medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value.

A medium of exchange is simply whatever people use to transact.

Legal tender is a legal designation layered on top of all that.

Two parties can agree to trade goods for Bitcoin without Bitcoin ever needing legal-tender status – their agreement is what gives the transaction its commercial footing.

That’s why the absence of legal-tender status doesn’t stop crypto from being used in payments. It just means the asset hasn’t been granted the specific legal status reserved for official money.

The Question Gets Sharper When Crypto Starts Acting Like Money

This is where things get genuinely interesting. Stablecoins are the clearest case.

Unlike Bitcoin, which has no issuer maintaining a fixed value, most major stablecoins are issued by identifiable companies and backed by reserves. They’re used for cross-border payments, remittances, trading, settlement, digital commerce, and DeFi.

That creates a different kind of regulatory problem. A stablecoin used at scale for payments starts to resemble privately issued digital money.

The question stops being “is this legal tender?” and becomes “can privately issued digital money coexist with sovereign money?”

That question touches monetary policy, banking liquidity, payment systems, and financial stability – which is exactly why stablecoins have drawn so much more regulatory attention than crypto generally.

How Countries Are Actually Handling This

There’s no single global playbook, but three broad approaches have emerged.

• Crypto Is Not Legal Tender, But It Is Regulated

This is becoming the default model. A country declines to recognise crypto as legal tender while building rules for exchanges, custodians, brokers, and stablecoin issuers. The national currency stays sovereign; digital assets get regulated according to their actual function and risk.

• Crypto Is Restricted Because of Monetary or Financial Risks

Some jurisdictions take a harder line – not necessarily because the technology is illegal, but because of concerns around capital flows, monetary policy, financial stability, or illicit finance. Here, the legal-tender distinction is one piece of a broader effort to protect the domestic monetary system.

• A Cryptocurrency Receives Legal-Tender Status

El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin alongside the US dollar remains the standout example.

It proves legal-tender status is ultimately a political decision – a government can grant monetary recognition to an asset it didn’t create.

However, it also raises hard questions: what happens to monetary policy, how is volatility managed, how do businesses account for it, and – maybe most importantly – what does legal-tender status actually achieve if people don’t choose to use the asset anyway?

The Real Issue: What Happens When Crypto Competes With Money

The legal-tender debate matters most when digital assets start competing directly with sovereign currencies. Picture an economy where businesses routinely accept dollar-backed stablecoins, workers get paid partly in them, and consumers use them for everyday purchases. The stablecoin still isn’t legal tender – but it’s doing most of what money does.

That’s the real regulatory challenge:

a government can technically preserve its national currency’s legal-tender status while a privately issued digital instrument quietly becomes central to everyday economic life.

The question now is whether private digital money can operate at scale alongside sovereign money.

The Bottom Line

I think the legal-tender debate around crypto is often given more importance than it deserves.

For most digital assets, legal-tender status is not the issue.

The questions should focus on :

What is the asset legally?

What rights does the holder have?

Can it legally be used for payment?

Can businesses accept it?

What happens when a transaction goes wrong?

How is it treated for tax purposes?

What happens if the intermediary holding it becomes insolvent?

Who regulates the issuer or service provider?

Where the asset is used as money:

What happens when it begins competing with sovereign currency?

These questions tell us much more about the relationship between crypto and the financial system than simply asking whether Bitcoin or another digital asset is legal tender.

Legal-tender status is only one point on a much larger spectrum.

A digital asset can move from being an investment, to a medium of exchange, to a payment instrument, and potentially toward functioning as money without necessarily passing through a formal legal-tender designation.

That is why regulation should not stop at the question of whether an asset is legal tender.

If you enjoy analytical commentary on digital asset regulation, crypto markets, and emerging financial technologies, consider subscribing to my newsletter where I share additional research, commentary, and industry insights.

https://samuel-ayodeji.kit.com/profile

Also, if your company, startup, or publication needs clear, well-researched content on blockchain, digital assets, fintech, or emerging technology law, my inbox is always open.

Does Crypto Really Need to Be Legal Tender? was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.