While all of Central and Southeast Asia along with Oceania lost 6,8 % of crypto activity, Singapore increased its own by 55,4 % — to 284 billion dollars in the year ending in June 2026. According to Chainalysis, this is not just a number: almost the entire increase came from institutional platforms, whose activity jumped by 94 % and reached 60 billion dollars.
The growth is concentrated in the hands of a narrow circle of market makers, OTC desks and institutional brokers. It was they who provided the bulk of the volume, while inflows to centralized exchanges rose by 30 %, and to decentralized ones by 69 %. Singapore has once again become the region's largest crypto economy, overtaking Australia and India, whose figures fell.
Behind these statistics lies a clear regulatory strategy. In 2025, the MAS required local crypto firms serving foreign clients to obtain a license or leave the market. Speculative retail noise declined, but the major players remained — banks and corporations using blockchain in real operations. Institutions came not for hype, but for predictable rules and the opportunity to tokenize assets, stablecoins and settlements.
Interestingly, in neighboring countries — the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam — small-scale P2P traffic is growing instead: 5,4 million transfers of less than 10 thousand dollars, which accounts for 14,4 % of the global volume of such transactions. There, crypto remains a tool for everyday payments and remittances, while in Singapore it is part of the financial infrastructure of major players.
This difference shows how the same technology serves different purposes. For an ordinary person in Singapore, crypto is becoming not a way to get rich quick, but part of a broader system in which rules protect capital and reduce risks. Institutions have not simply "entered crypto" — they are reshaping it to suit their needs, making the market less volatile and more integrated into traditional finance.
For an investor or entrepreneur, the lesson is obvious: watch not only the price of an asset, but also who exactly is trading it. When volumes grow on the back of institutions, it is a signal of long-term sustainability, not short-term frenzy. Singapore demonstrates that crypto can become not an alternative to the system, but its continuation — provided the rules are strict yet transparent.
