🆕 How to Start a Crypto Exchange (2025 Guide)
A 2025 step‑by‑step guide to launching a crypto exchange: compliance (MiCA, Travel Rule), custody (MPC), liquidity & fiat/stablecoin ramps.
Crypto vs. Internet adoption: A year-by-year comparison to mainstream
Summary
Crypto’s adoption arc increasingly mirrors the internet’s. Focusing on a 13-year window, 1994–2006 for the internet and 2013–2025 for crypto, reveals parallel maturity beats that are easier to see in hindsight. The “iPhone moment” for crypto is effectively arriving now (2025): stablecoins have gone mainstream for settlement, and major banks are beginning to underwrite loans collateralized by BTC and ETH (with JPMorgan publicly signaling the move). Looking ahead to 2026, the base case is broader bank participation and early, practical tokenization at scale. The table below pairs each year’s key internet milestone with its crypto analogue to show how the two waves rhyme in sequence and speed.
How to read the table
Each row pairs a year in the internet ramp with the same offset year in the crypto ramp. The pattern rhymes: rails → interface → mass influx → trust layer → normalization. The gradual maturity becomes obvious as the years progress over 13 years.
Use the expanded view above for the full screen table view: pick one row for a better comprison.
The two capstones: 2006 vs 2025
2006: Why AWS S3/EC2 mattered (in hindsight)
What changed:
- Variable cost infra replaces capex boxes; startups launch without racking servers.
- Programmable infrastructure (APIs, automation) collapses time‑to‑market.
- Elastic scale makes unpredictable success survivable.
Why it still matters: Every modern product ships on this substrate. The cloud didn’t just cut costs — it compounded developer velocity and standardized reliability.
Crypto operator parallel for 2025: treat on‑chain settlement, custody, attestations, and liquidity as programmable finance infra and APIs that your product can call on demand.
2025 to 2026: Why bank crypto‑collateralized credit and stablecoins is the iPhone moment
What changed:
- Large banks begin accepting BTC/ETH as collateral for institutional loans (with third‑party custody and risk haircuts).
- Stablecoin regimes and tokenized collateral networks move from pilot to production footprints.
- Crypto assets shift from “something you hold/trade” to balance‑sheet tools that unlock credit.
- White-label crypto software becomes more commenly used. Wallets, exchange, crypto backend and UIUX, etc.
Why it’s core to finance: Collateralized lending is the root primitive of banking. Once BTC/ETH can be pledged for credit at scale, crypto becomes part of the banking core, not an edge experiment.
Operator parallel for 2026: design pledge/un‑pledge workflows, margin call automation, and LTV/haircut policies — then instrument them with auditable on‑chain proofs.
The “iPhone moment”
For the web, 2007 made the internet pocket‑native and even more prevlant in everyday life (iPhone; Android’s Open Handset Alliance). For crypto, this same privalance will likely occur starting from 2025 and 2026 makes crypto bank‑native like FV Bank a HollaEx partner (collateral at major banks). Both moments explode distribution by meeting users where they already are, their mobile phones (iPhones) and crypto in your bank, as JPMorgan Chase personal bank accounts and all other banks soon to follow in the trend of largest bank in America).
What to watch in 2026
JPMorgan is far from the only established financial firm to get into crypto, with the pro-crypto regulations as of recent. For instance, Morgan Stanley allow customers on its E*Trade platform to access to crypto next year. Others include State Street, Bank of New York Mellon and Fidelity. In addition, regulatory changes allowed BlackRock to accept Bitcoin and swap them for ETF holdings tracking the token.
In 2026, we will see more of the same, where crypto is spread through traditional finance and with the help of more accessible white-label crypto software the infrastructure to access blockchain based rails will run deep into more and more businesses looking to tap into a global financial rail that they can program business applications for.
- Credit distribution: more banks and brokers offering BTC/ETH‑backed loans with standardized LTVs.
- Increase usage of white labels: Just like how traditional finance and fintech adopted white-labels, many business will begin to use crypto white-label software
- Tokenized treasuries: tokenized money‑funds as the default corporate cash parking in some jurisdictions.
- Settlement ubiquity: stablecoin payout rails in PSPs and marketplaces as the default.
Thesis: As it was for the internet in 2006 here the cloud playbook unlocked business usability and the ease of building any web product. 2026 is unlocking the credit + tokenization playbook, and crypto white label for building programmable finance into any business or product.
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View the original comparison Google Spreadsheet here.
Looking to Start in Crypto? Start here.
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