Regulators are starting to treat crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) more like traditional financial markets, according to a new report from PwC, one of the “Big Four” accounting firms.
In its Global Crypto Regulation Report 2026, PwC said regulators are no longer treating crypto as a special case. Instead, they are starting to apply the same kinds of rules used in traditional markets, like making trading fairer, protecting everyday users, and setting clearer standards for how platforms should operate.
PwC said the change is happening across both centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized protocols. These include monitoring for bad behavior, requiring more transparency, and making sure users understand what they are buying.
“This is no longer a question of if regulation will arrive, but how quickly firms can now adapt to operating in parallel regimes,” said Elise Soucie Watts, executive director of Global Digital Finance. “Success for the digital finance industry will depend on designing products, governance, and compliance models that are robust enough to meet local requirements, yet flexible enough to scale globally.”
However, the findings come at a time when experts are greatly divided on the future of DeFi. Some argue that the push toward traditional finance (TradFi)-style rules could pull the sector away from its original vision.
“Decentralization is slowly becoming a big lie,” wrote Rishabh Anand, a growth and ecosystem contributor at LayerEdge, on X last year. “As much as decentralization attracted most of us OGs in the space, very few would agree that everything is ultimately transitioning towards centralization and hybrid solutions with aspects of centralization.”
Other crypto observers have argued that even as DeFi grows, power is concentrated in a handful of exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and major custodians, raising questions about how “decentralized” the market actually is in practice.
MastrXYZ (@MastrXYZ), a popular account that describes itself as an “OG Crypto Watchdog,” argued last week that crypto is becoming more centralized in practice, even if the underlying blockchains remain decentralized.
“My core thesis: crypto is decentralised on chain and still 100% centralised in power,” the account wrote, claiming most users don’t interact directly with blockchains, but with centralized infrastructure like exchanges, stablecoins, and custodians. “Crypto can remain mathematically decentralised while becoming economically and politically centralised,” it added.
PwC’s report also points to two areas where regulation is moving fastest: stablecoins and tokenized money. Stablecoin rules are shifting from design to implementation, as more jurisdictions begin enforcing requirements around reserves, redemption rights, governance, and disclosures, PwC said.
The report added that tokenized money is also gaining traction, with tokenized bank deposits, tokenized cash equivalents, and wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) moving from pilots to deployment.