Crypto is no longer operating at the edge of the financial system. As digital assets push further into the mainstream, regulators are tightening expectations and removing what many in the industry have treated as a regulatory “free ride”.
According to AscentAI, a recent report highlighted by PYMTS suggests 2026 will bring a sharper compliance reality for exchanges and other crypto businesses, particularly around tax transparency and customer reporting.
At the heart of the shift is a growing global push to make crypto activity visible to tax authorities in the same way as traditional financial activity. PYMTS reported: “ … a Jan. 1 report reveals that tax authorities around the world are closing in on crypto tax evasion by requiring exchanges to start collecting and reporting detailed trading records for local customers in the U.K. and more than 40 other countries.” That change is not simply about capturing extra revenue. It signals a broader move to make crypto an accountable, taxable asset class that can sit inside national economic frameworks.
For many policymakers, legitimacy and integration depend on enforceable rules. If crypto cannot be taxed reliably, it cannot be fully absorbed into the everyday machinery of the economy. By pushing reporting obligations onto exchanges, governments are also changing crypto’s operating model—moving it from a largely self-policed ecosystem to one that is expected to function within public financial infrastructure.
Oddly, this is one area where crypto firms have an advantage over legacy institutions. Banks and other incumbents often carry years of fragmented controls, manual processes, and bolt-on compliance tooling. Crypto businesses—especially younger ones—can build with today’s automation first. In practice, that means setting up a single source of regulatory truth: a central hub that tracks which rules apply, what obligations follow from those rules, and which internal owners are responsible for the work.
Horizon scanning is likely to become a foundational capability. As new requirements emerge across jurisdictions, firms need tools that continuously monitor regulatory updates, trends, guidance and news, then translate that flow of information into something usable. Guidance matters because it shapes how rules are interpreted in practice, helping firms understand areas of regulatory emphasis and reducing the risk of missteps as requirements evolve.
The challenge, however, is volume. If a platform pulls in everything, teams can drown in irrelevant alerts and miss what matters. Crypto firms will need systems that isolate only the rules and communications relevant to their products, licences, jurisdictions, and customer base—otherwise compliance becomes slower, more expensive, and more error-prone.
Regulatory change management is another pressure point. The pace of rulemaking has increased, and it is already difficult for large banks to keep up. Crypto firms should assume the burden will be similar as scrutiny intensifies. The text points to AscenAI’s AscentFocus, which offers an AI-powered change management dashboard designed to surface applicable updates, provide side-by-side comparisons of old versus new rule text, and connect changes directly to updated obligations and actions required to remain compliant.
Crucially, the same workflow needs to extend into execution. From the dashboard, firms should be able to assign and track compliance tasks so the right people receive timely, current information, and decisions are made using the latest requirements. Done well, that reduces dependency on spreadsheets and scattered processes that struggle under the weight of global regulatory change.
The operational impact of this compliance-first pivot will be significant. Teams will need to scale, data systems will need to mature, and jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction differences will need careful handling.
Costs are likely to rise, particularly for smaller players. But the broader message is clear: crypto firms have an opportunity to avoid the legacy mistakes of incumbents by embedding automation and AI from the start—improving risk outcomes while building scalable, cost-effective compliance foundations.
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
