1. Headline & intro
Crypto hasn’t died; it has sobered up. At ETHDenver, the conversations weren’t about the next meme coin, but about Washington, compliance and whether stablecoins like Tether can survive sustained scrutiny. That shift matters far beyond one conference hall. It signals that we’ve entered a post‑hype crypto market where regulation, infrastructure and real revenue suddenly matter more than vibes.
In this piece, we’ll unpack what TechCrunch’s Equity podcast picked up on in Denver, why this quieter phase could be crypto’s most important yet, how it reshapes power between startups, fintechs and regulators, and what it all means for European builders and investors.
2. The news in brief
According to TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, recorded around the ETHDenver 2026 conference, the tone of crypto discussions has changed sharply. Host Rebecca Bellan spoke with Jacquelyn Melinek, CEO of Token Relations and host of Talking Tokens and Crypto in America, about how policy and regulation now dominate the conversation as much as tokens and protocols.
They describe a market where U.S. policymakers are exerting more influence, stablecoins are under pressure – with Tether frequently cited – and major fintech players like Stripe are re‑engaging with the sector after earlier exits. The show highlights how some crypto startups are finding real traction while many others have quietly disappeared as speculative capital retreated.
The core message: the explosive hype cycle has cooled, if not ended, replaced by a more cautious, regulation‑conscious environment where builders must prove durability rather than just token price action.
3. Why this matters
The post‑hype phase is uncomfortable for speculators but healthy for the ecosystem. The biggest winners are:
- Infrastructure and compliance‑first startups that help exchanges, wallets and fintech apps meet regulatory obligations.
- Serious payment and fintech firms (Stripe, PayPal, neobanks) that can now play the long game on stablecoins and on‑chain payments without competing with casino‑style yields.
- Regulators and mainstream institutions, who suddenly have more leverage to demand transparency and risk controls.
The likely losers:
- Token‑only projects whose entire value proposition was price appreciation.
- Offshore, opaque actors, especially around stablecoins and exchanges, that thrived in the regulatory grey.
The immediate effect is brutal selection. Without a rising tide of retail FOMO, projects must show real usage, unit economics and clear legal footing to raise capital. Marketing‑driven “communities” are no longer enough.
At the same time, regulation‑driven uncertainty is now the main systemic risk. If, for example, U.S. or EU authorities crack down hard on specific stablecoins or DeFi patterns, entire business models could vanish overnight.
Competitively, the center of gravity is shifting from pure crypto‑native players toward a hybrid world: crypto rails inside traditional fintech, banks and big tech. The question is no longer “crypto vs TradFi”, but “who owns the customer relationship on top of tokenized rails?”
4. The bigger picture
This “post‑hype” moment did not appear out of nowhere. It is the product of a brutal five‑year cycle:
- 2020–2021: DeFi and NFT manias drive massive retail inflows; protocols raise billions on token sales.
- 2022: Failures like Terra/Luna and FTX expose how much of the boom was leverage, fraud and poor risk management.
- 2023–2024: Regulators respond; in the U.S., enforcement actions ramp up, while the EU finalizes MiCA. In early 2024, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs bring a slice of crypto into tightly regulated capital markets.
- 2025: According to TechCrunch reporting, hackers still manage to steal over $2.7 billion in crypto, underlining that security and governance remain unresolved.
Against that backdrop, ETHDenver’s emphasis on policy and longevity is telling. Crypto is following the classic tech pattern: early chaos, speculative bubble, crash, then consolidation and professionalization.
We’ve seen this movie with the dot‑com era. After 2000, hundreds of web companies died, but the survivors – Amazon, Google, PayPal – built the real internet economy. Crypto is now in its own 2002 moment: less glamorous, more consequential.
Competitors are repositioning accordingly. Payments giants integrate stablecoins where it helps cross‑border flows. Banks experiment with tokenizing deposits and bonds. Crypto‑native firms race to become the compliant, institution‑friendly venue of choice. The future industry map will be drawn around who can operate at scale inside regulatory guardrails, not who can ship the flashiest token.
5. The European / regional angle
For Europe, the post‑hype era arrives just as the regulatory framework solidifies. The EU’s Markets in Crypto‑Assets Regulation (MiCA) and the revised Transfer of Funds rules are coming into full effect, setting strict requirements for stablecoin issuers and crypto service providers.
That is both a burden and a strategic advantage. Burden, because smaller European startups face significant legal and compliance costs. Advantage, because regulatory clarity attracts institutional money that has so far sat on the sidelines.
European‑founded players like Bitstamp or Ledger, and EU‑based neobanks integrating crypto, now have an opportunity to position themselves as the “MiCA‑native” choice for global users who care about legal certainty and consumer protection.
But there is a cultural and political tension. European policymakers are wary of financial speculation and very focused on consumer safety and AML. If they overcorrect, they risk turning Europe into a market that uses tokenized money built elsewhere, over rails controlled by U.S. fintech giants and offshore stablecoin issuers.
For European builders and investors, the strategic question is: can Europe leverage its regulatory head start into actual product leadership – in compliant stablecoins, tokenized securities, or digital‑euro‑compatible infrastructure – rather than becoming just a regulated endpoint in a global crypto network?
6. Looking ahead
Over the next 12–36 months, several trajectories are worth watching:
Stablecoin consolidation. A handful of large issuers – fully or mostly regulated – will likely dominate. If scrutiny on Tether intensifies, its market share could gradually shift toward more transparent, audit‑friendly alternatives, especially within the EU.
Fintech integration. The real adoption curve may come from boring places: payroll, B2B payments, cross‑border merchant settlements. When users send euros or pesos instantly and cheaply without realizing a stablecoin is involved, crypto will have quietly succeeded.
Regulatory arbitrage – again. As the U.S., EU and emerging markets implement diverging rules, activity will migrate. Europe could gain if MiCA proves workable in practice; it could also lose if national regulators implement it in inconsistent or overly strict ways.
Security and infrastructure. With billions still lost to hacks, demand for institutional‑grade custody, auditing, insurance and formal verification will rise. This is one of the clearest startup opportunity areas in the post‑hype phase.
Unanswered questions remain big: Will CBDCs and a digital euro crowd out private stablecoins or coexist with them? How far will DeFi bend toward KYC and identity‑linked systems? And will the next retail wave, whenever it comes, be channeled into healthier products or repeat the same speculative excesses?
7. The bottom line
Crypto’s most important phase is starting now, in the relative quiet after the hype. Regulation, not memes, will decide which projects survive, and traditional fintechs are poised to capture much of the value built on tokenized rails. For European readers, the key challenge is turning strong rules into strong products. The open question: will the next big on‑chain payment or savings app be built in Europe – or merely regulated here?
