A Look Back At A Year That Moved An Entire Industry Forward

Some years pass without leaving a trace. And then there are years that shift the center of gravity—years that force an industry to rethink what’s possible, what’s next, and who’s leading. For Anchorage Digital, 2025 was unmistakably the latter. A year when the hard, unglamorous, deeply disciplined work of building finally broke the surface.

It didn’t happen with fanfare or fireworks—just a hearing room, fluorescent lights, and a microphone bolted into a podium in Washington, D.C.’s Dirksen Senate Office Building. But when Anchorage Digital Co-Founder and CEO, Nathan McCauley, testified before the Senate Banking Committee, it became one of those rare moments of real clarity. On February 5, 2025, he laid out Anchorage Digital’s story: how we fought to become a federally chartered bank, how rigorous regulation is our foundation, and how despite that, we were cut off from banking access. In his testimony, Nathan reminded the Committee—and the country—that our mission has always been to bridge traditional finance and the digital-asset economy. Debanking wasn’t just a business problem for us; it was a broader crypto industry challenge to economic inclusion and fairness. 

That hearing was more than a moment—it was a signal marking Nathan as a founder who isn’t afraid to press for a clearer, more open path forward. He called on Congress to rethink how banking access is extended to new industries, especially ones rooted in innovation. And for Anchorage Digital, it underscored a truth we’ve always believed: regulatory clarity isn’t the enemy of innovation—it’s the fuel.

But 2025 wasn’t just symbolic. It was structural.

Following that, one of the boldest financial moves in modern American policy was instituted: the bipartisan passage of the GENIUS Act. Long before that clarity arrived, Anchorage Digital anticipated that stablecoins would become foundational to the next era of financial infrastructure—which is why, in May 2025, we acquired Mountain Protocol to build our issuance capabilities from the ground up. When the GENIUS Act ultimately established a federal framework, it paved the way for Anchorage Digital to become America’s first federally regulated stablecoin issuer under the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Interpretive Letter 1174. The Act didn’t just create a legal pathway; it created a mandate for responsible innovation. Policymakers wanted to know whether industry would rise to meet the moment—whether anyone would take these new standards and operationalize them in practice. In 2025, Anchorage Digital did.

By issuing the first OCC-supervised stablecoin, USDtb in partnership with Ethena Labs, under the GENIUS framework, we turned legislation into real infrastructure. We showed that stablecoins could be both programmable and prudential, both fast and federally accountable. And we did it in a way that reinforces exactly what Congress intended: a future where digital dollars strengthen—not threaten—U.S. dollar leadership. What we launched this year wasn’t just a stablecoin. It was America’s blueprint for how the dollar competes—and wins—in a digital world.

The formal lifting of our consent order in August—an achievement that took discipline, commitment, and the full weight of our team’s expertise—marked a turning point. There are milestones that feel good and milestones that prove something. This one proved that federally regulated crypto isn’t hypothetical; it’s operational, audited, and resilient. It cemented our role as the pioneer for what safe, compliant, institutional digital asset infrastructure looks like in practice.

Momentum attracts momentum, and the world noticed. This year, BlackRock named us as one of its eligible digital asset custodians, recognizing the high standards Anchorage Digital brings to institutional infrastructure. That confidence extended across the market: every spot crypto ETF that came to market onboarded with Anchorage Digital, underscoring what issuers prioritize when the bar is highest—security, regulatory rigor, and operational resilience at scale. When the world’s largest asset managers entrust live, regulated products to the platform we’ve spent years building, it confirms that institutional crypto isn’t a future concept—it’s a present reality, and Anchorage Digital is where it happens safely.

To serve that growing institutional appetite, we broadened our product universe in ways that set the foundation for the decade to come. The launch of Anchorage Digital Prime brought our full-stack offerings front and center, built for institutions that expect the same sophistication they get in traditional finance. It gave clients access, execution, and financing under a single, trusted roof, solving one of the industry’s most persistent missing pieces.

Anchorage Digital also expanded its platform through the acquisitions of Securitize for Advisors (SFA) and Hedgey, reflecting our approach of building ahead of client demand, not reacting to it. SFA accelerated our ability to serve wealth managers seeking regulated, institutional-grade access to digital assets within traditional portfolios. Hedgey strengthened our support for protocols by bringing best-in-class tooling for token vesting, distribution, and lifecycle management—critical infrastructure as the sector matures. Together, these acquisitions extend Anchorage Digital’s reach across both institutional and protocol clients, deepening our end-to-end capabilities. 

And because institutions aren’t the only ones shaping the future, we also launched our inaugural  Ventures program—a commitment to support the protocols building tomorrow’s financial infrastructure. For years, protocols have asked for something they rarely get: not just capital, but partnership from a federally regulated custodian who understands what it takes to scale and TGE safely. Ventures gives them exactly that. It’s our long-term bet on the builders pushing boundaries the right way.

By the time we reached the final months of 2025, something extraordinary had happened. What used to be called “the crypto industry” had matured into an ecosystem with federal oversight, institutional adoption, policy alignment, and global credibility. And Anchorage Digital wasn’t just part of the story—we were one of the forces turning the page.

If this was the year the industry grew up, it was also the year Anchorage Digital stepped fully into the role we were built for: the trusted financial institution powering digital assets at scale.

We’re proud of the ground we broke, but we’re even prouder of what it means next. Because the story of 2025 wasn’t ultimately about regulation, partnerships, or product launches. It was about proving that the future of finance can be both innovative and safe; cutting-edge and federally supervised; global and distinctly American.

And this is just the beginning.