#加密市场观察 Cryptocurrency Market 2026: Saying Goodbye to "Adolescent Turmoil," Security and Compliance as New Pillars of Industrialization Era

1. Current Market Situation: Multiple Truths Behind the Bloodbath
From late January to early February 2026, the crypto market experienced another period of intense volatility. Bitcoin briefly fell below $76,000 from $83,000, with over 410,000 traders forced to liquidate within 24 hours, incurring losses exceeding $2.5 billion. This fluctuation was not an isolated event but the result of multiple resonating factors.
Three macro-level pressures: the Trump administration's technical government shutdown, Iran's geopolitical tensions, and market panic over high leverage, collectively constituted external shocks. But deeper issues lie within the structural fragility of the crypto market itself, which was amplified under macro pressures—high leverage positions, liquidity droughts, and cross-platform risk transmission mechanisms—making a single event capable of triggering systemic chain reactions.
The long shadow of the 1011 incident: Although the market flash crash on October 11, 2025 (liquidating about $20 billion) has passed several months ago, its damaging effects on market liquidity persist. Market makers were forced to hold large amounts of tokens, liquidity dropped to its lowest since 2022, and market depth was severely impaired. More critically, this event exposed systemic risks in centralized exchanges and the lack of internal governance mechanisms within the industry.
Internal trust crisis: Public disputes over responsibility for the 1011 incident among top platforms like bn and OK, as well as conflicts involving core figures such as CZ, xumingxing, and Solana founder Toly, further eroded market confidence. When industry leaders focus on mutual accusations rather than solving problems, the trust foundation among market participants is collapsing.
2. Industry Dilemmas: Why Did We Enter the Crypto Market?
Faced with ongoing market volatility, a fundamental question emerges: what was our original intention in participating in the crypto market? If the market is now only a battleground for big players and institutional games, what is the value for ordinary participants?
The裂 between faith and reality: Early on, the crypto market was imbued with ideals of "decentralized finance" and "financial inclusion," but reality shows that the market is accelerating toward institutionalization and centralization. When prices rise, faith can mask contradictions; but during prolonged downturns, the drawbacks of lacking real application scenarios, over-reliance on leverage, and emotion-driven trading are fully exposed. As market participants often say: "No rise, no faith; no users, no future—TMD all nonsense."
The squeeze on ordinary participants' survival space: The current market shows clear "institutionalization" features—compliance funds, market makers, and large capital dominate, while ordinary participants face information asymmetry, technical barriers, and capital scale disadvantages, making fair participation difficult. Even more worrying, when internal disagreements occur, ordinary participants often become the biggest victims, while responsible parties may evade liability through technical failures or market volatility.
Imbalance in value capture mechanisms: The distribution of value in the crypto market is seriously problematic. project teams earn huge profits through token issuance; exchanges continuously extract fees, listing fees, and liquidation margins; meanwhile, developers, users, and community contributors who create real value struggle to receive fair returns. This unreasonable value distribution structure makes it difficult for ordinary participants to achieve long-term value gains in the market.
3. Responsibility Attribution: Who Should Be Accountable for Market Fluctuations?
There is fierce debate within the industry about responsibility for recent market crashes. But simply blaming a single entity (such as bn, Trump policies, or short-selling forces) is one-sided; we need a more objective view of all roles involved.
bn’s technical failures and responsibility boundaries: bn indeed experienced technical issues during the 1011 incident, such as asset transfer subsystem performance decline and index deviations. However, it’s important to clarify that these failures occurred after the market volatility, not as the root cause. As the world's largest exchange, bn’s system stability, risk control mechanisms, and user protection measures still have room for improvement. But blaming the market crash entirely on bn ignores more fundamental macro factors like high leverage, macro environment, and market sentiment.
Regulatory absence and lack of industry self-discipline: More worth reflecting on is why a market worth trillions of dollars lacks effective risk isolation, circuit breakers, and user protection mechanisms. Traditional financial markets have established relatively complete regulatory frameworks after multiple crises, but the crypto industry is still in development, with institutional frameworks lagging behind market expansion. When extreme market conditions occur, the lack of systemic safeguards leads to amplified losses. This is not only the exchange’s responsibility but also a governance issue across the entire industry.
The warning from the "Sniping Yi Lihua" incident: Discussions about Yi Lihua (E-Guardian representative) being "sniped" reflect deeper industry ecological problems. If market participants focus on mutual attacks and malicious short-selling rather than building the ecosystem together, the entire industry risks internal strife.
But a balanced view is that markets have a natural survival-of-the-fittest mechanism; projects that cannot keep pace with the times are naturally eliminated. The key is that this淘汰 should be based on market laws, not malicious manipulation.
4. Airdrop Ecosystem: From Participation Efficiency to Value Creation Under Technological Empowerment
During the crypto market adjustment, airdrops serve as an important way for project teams to reward early users and kickstart ecosystems. The development of the airdrop ecosystem is highly regarded. Airdrops are core mechanisms of decentralized governance and community building in blockchain projects. The emergence of automation tools is driving airdrop participation from inefficient manual processes to efficient, compliant operations, helping realize the core goal of value creation in the airdrop ecosystem. This trend deserves rational understanding and positive guidance.
The essence and core value of airdrops: From the project perspective, airdrops are key tools for quickly establishing community consensus, incentivizing deep ecosystem participation, and achieving fair token distribution. In DeFi, Layer2, and infrastructure projects, they have proven to be effective growth strategies. Their core purpose is to reward early testers, ecosystem contributors, and active users, thereby building a genuine community foundation for long-term development. From the participant perspective, airdrops are important channels to access high-quality early projects, share industry dividends, and promote blockchain technology adoption.
Automation tools empowering the airdrop ecosystem: The crypto ecosystem is continuously expanding, with more high-quality airdrop projects and increasingly refined participation processes. Manual participation faces low efficiency, operational errors, and missed opportunities. The emergence of automated "grab" tools addresses these pain points, meeting real needs for efficient, compliant participation. Compliant automation tools help participants manage multiple projects systematically, standardize operations, and synchronize real-time information, greatly improving participation efficiency. This allows ordinary users to more easily engage in high-quality project ecosystems and helps project teams reach broader potential communities, increasing coverage and efficiency of airdrop distribution.
The boundary of compliant development for automation tools: Technology itself is neutral. The core value of automation "grab" tools lies in enabling compliant participation, not in rule-breaking speculation. Quality providers always prioritize compliance and project rules, using technical means to avoid violations (such as preventing mass creation of fake accounts or IP fraud), guiding users to participate within project frameworks. Additionally, through technical optimization, they help project teams identify genuine compliant participants, complementing risk control systems, and maintaining fairness in the airdrop ecosystem.
Healthy development direction for the airdrop ecosystem: The sustainable development of the airdrop ecosystem requires coordinated efforts among project teams, automation tool providers, and participants.
Project teams should optimize airdrop rules, using on-chain data and behavioral analysis to identify genuine contributors and define compliance boundaries; automation providers should uphold the original intent of technological empowerment, continuously iterate on technology, strengthen compliance and risk control features, and provide safe, compliant, efficient tools. They should also actively communicate and collaborate with project teams to align participation standards with project risk controls; participants should adhere to compliance principles, viewing airdrop participation as a way to integrate into the project ecosystem and share industry benefits, rather than short-term arbitrage. Only through tripartite cooperation can airdrops truly return to rewarding value creation and promote positive ecosystem development.
5. Future Pathways: From High-Risk Gambling to Stable Infrastructure Evolution
The crypto market is at a historic crossroads, transitioning from "adolescent turbulence" to "mature stability." Continued reliance on high leverage and narrative hype will make volatility the norm. The future of the industry lies in building a secure, compliant, and trustworthy financial infrastructure. This trend will also present significant opportunities for technology service providers focused on security, compliance, and efficiency (such as automation "grab" tool providers).
1. Privacy and Security: From Optional Features to Core Moats As institutional funds flood in and AI proxy economies rise, the demand for security and privacy in crypto will surge. Institutions cannot accept exposing business secrets on fully transparent blockchains, and interactions among AI agents require verifiable identities and permission management (e.g., "Know Your Proxy" KYA concept). This means that technologies ensuring the uniqueness of user operation environments and preventing malicious control of identities and assets will shift from "nice-to-have" to "must-have." Zero-knowledge proofs and compliant privacy solutions, along with tools that effectively isolate environments and prevent "witch attacks," will become the underlying infrastructure for next-generation DApps and on-chain services, forming core technical competitiveness for automation tool providers.
2. Upgrading the Airdrop Ecosystem: Compliance, Efficiency, and Value Under Technological Empowerment As blockchain project ecosystems evolve, the future development of airdrops will focus on compliance, efficiency, and value. Automation tools will be central to this upgrade. A healthy future airdrop ecosystem will feature three main characteristics:
Behavioral value proof: Projects will prefer to reward deep users who generate genuine interactions, provide effective feedback, and participate in governance votes, rather than relying solely on easily falsifiable metrics like transaction counts. This trend will shift airdrops from "inclusive distribution" to "value contribution-based distribution."
Trusted participation system: Future airdrop rules will combine with verifiable real identities and compliant operational behaviors to more accurately identify genuine ecosystem contributors. Automation tools will provide compliant identity management and operation execution services, becoming an essential part of a trusted participation system.
Technical collaboration ecosystem: Project risk control systems and tool providers’ compliance technologies will deeply coordinate, forming a model of "project sets rules, tools execute, both share risk control," making airdrop distribution more efficient and fair, truly achieving the core goal of rewarding value creators.
3. Regulatory Compliance: From "Unregulated Growth" to "Framework-Based Innovation"
The implementation of global regulatory frameworks like the GENIUS Act signifies the end of the "wild growth" era of crypto markets. The industry will enter a new phase of "innovative development under regulation." This does not stifle innovation but delineates compliant pathways, allowing projects and tech providers that prioritize compliance, transparency, and user asset security to achieve long-term growth. When legal and technical frameworks align, the full potential of blockchain can be truly unleashed. For automation tool providers, clarifying product compliance boundaries, strengthening risk control tech, and guiding users to operate compliantly will be key to gaining market and regulatory trust, forming the core foundation for long-term enterprise development.
4. Value Reversion: From Narrative Hype to Genuine Utility
The value of crypto markets will ultimately return to technological innovation and real utility. Industry winners will no longer be "air coins" with only governance rights but protocols and applications generating real revenue and cash flow, along with tech service providers offering genuine value services. Whether it’s AI proxy automatic payments, RWA (real-world asset) collateralized loans, or automation tools improving airdrop efficiency and compliance, true value is rooted in "solving real industry problems, improving operational efficiency, and promoting industry positive development."

6. Advice for Market Participants: How to Survive and Thrive in the Current Market?
In the face of coexistence of adjustment and reconstruction, ordinary participants need to adjust strategies, adhere to compliance, and leverage technological tools to improve participation efficiency to achieve long-term survival and growth:
1. Prioritize security, choose compliant tech tools: When selecting on-chain tools (such as wallets, automation "grab" tools, fingerprint browsers), prioritize their reputation for security, compliance, and risk control. Choose tools that adhere to industry rules and have robust security mechanisms, ensuring they protect assets and enhance participation efficiency rather than introduce risks.
2. Focus on fundamentals, deeply participate in project ecosystems: When engaging in airdrops and similar activities, focus on understanding the project's long-term value, technological innovation, and ecosystem planning. View airdrops as a way to integrate into the project ecosystem and become a genuine contributor, not just short-term arbitrage. Use automation tools to participate more deeply in testing, governance, and ecosystem building to share in the development dividends of high-quality projects.
3. Reduce leverage, strictly control trading risks: High leverage is the main cause of liquidation. In the current high-volatility environment, it is recommended to keep leverage below 3x or adopt spot or low-leverage contracts. Never risk all funds on high-risk trades. Maintaining risk control is essential to preserve capital amid market fluctuations.
4. Diversify investments, avoid single assets and platforms: Do not concentrate all funds in a single coin or exchange. Allocate appropriately among mainstream assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and explore emerging public chains and DeFi protocols. When using tools for ecosystem activities, adopt multi-platform and multi-project diversification strategies to mitigate risks from rule changes in any single project.
5. Continuous learning, stay updated on industry compliance and technology trends: The crypto industry is rapidly evolving toward industrialization and compliance. Keeping abreast of new regulations, technological applications, and ecosystem models is essential to avoid obsolescence. Be especially cautious of "get-rich-quick" myths, maintain rational profit expectations, and establish a long-term industry participation mindset.

Conclusion: Volatility Is Not the End, But the Beginning of Industry Rebuilding and Upgrading
Short-term volatility in the crypto market has caused significant losses, but it should not negate the industry’s long-term value. From a macro perspective, the current market adjustment is a necessary phase toward maturity—bubbles are being squeezed out, low-quality projects eliminated, and short-term speculators leaving. What remains are genuine believers in blockchain technology and long-term builders and service providers. The key question is not "why did we come to the crypto market," but "how can we make this market better." If industry leaders can put aside internal conflicts and push for governance reform; if project teams return to technological fundamentals and create real ecosystem value; if tech service providers uphold compliance and enhance industry efficiency; and if regulators provide appropriate protections without stifling innovation—then the crypto market still has hope to become an essential part of the next-generation financial infrastructure. After the turbulence, it is the start of a new phase of ecological reconstruction and upgrading in the crypto industry.