TL;DR:
- Stablecoins surpassed $300 billion in circulation and are consolidating as a liquidity layer independent of bitcoin’s price.
- SB Seker, Binance’s APAC director, noted that regulation, liquidity and real utility in assets like stablecoins are the three factors that will define the crypto market in 2026.
- Binance faces the rejection of its MiCA license application in Europe, which could exclude it from the EU market starting in July.
The crypto market moves between contradictory signals: institutional expansion, infrastructure maturation and regulatory setbacks that test even the largest firms in the sector. SB Seker, director of the Asia-Pacific region at Binance, summarized the current context in an interview with Business Standard. According to Seker, the coming cycle will not be driven by speculation but by concrete utility: tokenization of real-world assets, institutional adoption and stablecoins as liquidity infrastructure.
The figures he presented are central to his argument. The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies surpassed $4 trillion in 2025. Binance recorded a year-over-year increase in institutional volume and 210% growth in its fiat currency OTC operations during that same year. Tokenized real-world assets reached $19.3 billion at the close of the first quarter of 2026, more than triple compared to 2025. In that context, stablecoins occupy a primary position: their supply surpasses $300 billion, and they already function as an autonomous liquidity layer, decoupled from bitcoin’s price movements.
Stablecoins Will Be a Pillar of the Next Cycle
Seker identified three growth vectors for Asia over the next three to five years. The first is the integration of blockchain into traditional banking through tokenized assets. The second is the use of stablecoins as a settlement instrument in equity markets and cross-border payments: perpetual contracts linked to traditional assets already represent around 10% of the volume of stablecoin transactions. The third is Web3 infrastructure, including layer-2 networks that enable scalable applications at both enterprise and mass consumer levels.
Binance at Risk in Europe
The same executive who defends regulatory clarity as an institutional catalyst faces, however, a difficult situation on that front. Reuters reported that the Hellenic Capital Market Commission of Greece plans to reject Binance’s MiCA license application, which would prevent the exchange from offering services to European Union clients starting in July. Binance responded that it will work to minimize disruption for its users and that it considers itself to have met the requirements of the European framework.
The tension is evident. The central argument of Binance for the next growth cycle rests on predictable regulatory frameworks such as the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act in the United States, MiCA in Europe, and Asian licensing regimes. That the company itself could be excluded from one of the largest regulated markets in the world illustrates with precision the double edge of the institutionalization process: the rules that open the market for some can close the door for others.
