In mid-January 2026, under the Eastern Eight Time Zone, the UK, the US, and India made intensive adjustments and negotiations regarding rules related to crypto assets and cross-border payments within almost the same time window: the UK Supreme Court made a key ruling on cross-border card organization fees, the US Senate Banking Committee pushed negotiations on a crypto bill involving the division of responsibilities between the CFTC and SEC into a critical stage, and India continued its tough stance under a high-pressure framework of a 30% income tax plus a 1% TDS withholding tax. This round of actions is not simply a combination of negative or positive factors, but a concentrated reflection of the tug-of-war between regulatory certainty and innovative development space, also putting the different jurisdictions' answers to "how to tame crypto and digital payments" on the table. As the UK extends its boundaries in fee regulation, Washington engages in a back-and-forth on legislative paths, and India continues to press down on local trading activity with tax tools, the divergence in policy paths among the three countries is rewriting the geographical map of global crypto capital flows and business layouts.

The Chain Reaction of Enhanced Cross-Border Fee Regulation in the UK

The UK Supreme Court has given a very strong directional signal in the field of cross-border payments: confirming that regulatory agencies have control over the fees charged by cross-border card organizations. This means that international card organizations, including Visa, will have their fee models for cross-border transactions within the UK formally included in the scope of regulation that can be directly intervened in, rather than just being commercial terms. However, the specific applicability of this ruling still needs further clarification, whether it covers specific card types, applies to certain scenarios, or affects specific types of foreign merchants; currently, publicly available information is still relatively limited, and research institutions classify it as "precise applicability pending verification." From a timeline perspective, this is not a sudden regulatory shift but another extension of the boundary expansion by the UK's Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) since its establishment in 2015. Since the PSR established its regulatory functions over payment systems and related service providers, its involvement in fee structures, market competition, and consumer protection has gradually deepened. This Supreme Court endorsement effectively draws a thicker and clearer line at the judicial level for this expansion. On a commercial level, this pressure is directly transmitted to the fee rate models of payment giants that heavily rely on cross-border settlements: once cross-border card fees are forcibly reduced, their long-term profit margins will inevitably be under pressure, especially in vertical industries where merchants have relatively strong bargaining power. The "fee space" that is squeezed out leaves room for imagination for crypto payments and on-chain settlement solutions—whether attempting to bypass traditional card organizations with on-chain clearing or deeply integrating with card networks on the user experience level, the tightening of price regulation in the UK may force more institutions to seriously assess the cost advantages of on-chain solutions. It is important to emphasize that the precise rate range for the UK cross-border card fee cap and the covered card types are currently mainly reported from a single source and are still in the verification stage; at this stage, only directional impacts can be cautiously discussed, and overly detailed extrapolations cannot be made.

The Contradictory Progress of Washington's Game and Crypto Legislation

On the other side of the Atlantic, the game surrounding the crypto bill in the US Senate Banking Committee focuses on how to delineate the jurisdictional boundaries for different types of crypto assets between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This not only involves the old question of whether mainstream assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum should be considered commodities or securities, but also relates to the specific regulatory paths for future token issuance, secondary market trading, and derivative design. In the public opinion sphere, some pro-crypto opinion leaders judge that the current bill's advancement speed and likelihood of passage are "closer than ever," citing David Sacks's relevant statements in research briefs, while clarifying that his specific title and formal position in US crypto policy remain "pending verification." Therefore, this article only regards it as a representative market viewpoint and does not extend its personal role narrative. In stark contrast to the optimistic sentiment of "legislative sprint," there is strong dissatisfaction within the industry regarding the content of the bill itself. Brian Armstrong publicly criticized certain provisions in the current version as having "fundamental flaws," especially arrangements involving a ban on tokenized stocks, which are seen as a direct kill to on-chain securitization and RWA innovation space, highlighting the regulatory intent to exclude certain innovative areas from the mainstream financial system through legislation. From a game perspective, on one hand, the advancement of legislation itself means that the compliance paths for institutional participation are becoming increasingly clear, and many waiting funds will view "whether there are federal-level rules" as a prerequisite for entry; on the other hand, the content flaws in specific provisions make it difficult for compliance costs and legal risks to drop to levels expected by the industry. This state of "having laws to follow but the laws are not satisfactory" will force institutions to more finely assess the compliance marginal benefits of different business lines, potentially increasing investment in legal advisors and compliance infrastructure, while also extending the timeline for truly large-scale entry. In this process, every minor adjustment in the division of responsibilities between the CFTC and SEC will be seen as a pre-pricing of the future market structure.

India's High-Pressure Tax System and Passive Contraction of the Local Market

Unlike the above two countries, which mainly reshape rules through regulatory boundaries and specialized legislation, India has chosen the "heavy hammer" of tax tools. According to a multi-source verified official framework, India imposes a 30% income tax on crypto asset gains, along with a 1% TDS withholding tax on each related transaction, almost placing this asset class in a similar tax rate bracket as gambling and speculative gains. Since the introduction of this policy, there is data showing its impact on local trading activity: research briefs indicate that since 2023, the trading volume of several local platforms in India has cumulatively declined by 47%, and in the absence of other significant structural negative factors, the high-pressure tax system is clearly one of the most direct explanatory variables. The combined effect of high tax rates and high-frequency withholding not only squeezes the space for short-term and market-making strategies but also drives a noticeable outflow of on-chain funds and a trend of service entities "going overseas." Some users complete transactions through decentralized protocols or overseas platforms to avoid the 1% friction taken from each transaction on local platforms; some entrepreneurial teams choose to establish entities in jurisdictions with more favorable regulations and tax systems, providing services globally. This self-rescue path of going overseas, on one hand, weakens the agglomeration effect of India's local innovation ecosystem, while on the other hand, it erodes the tax base that it hopes to gain through high tax rates, resulting in a "double loss" situation for fiscal revenue and industrial development. However, there is currently a lack of any reliable probability information supporting whether future budgets will adjust this tax system, and relevant negotiations and policy evaluations are largely in closed-door status. Based on existing information, it is impossible to provide a timeline or quantitative prediction for possible policy shifts, nor can market expectation sentiment be equated with imminent policy signals.

How Capital Hedges Against Regulatory Uncertainty

Amid expectations of tightening regulation, large equity and infrastructure investments are increasingly seen by many institutions as one of the paths to hedge against policy uncertainty. Research briefs mention that Bitmine invested $200 million in Beast Industries, with a single-source report from Prnewswire stating that the funds are used for laying out crypto-related infrastructure and business expansion. Due to the information source not being widely cross-verified, little is known about the specific structure, valuation, and consideration arrangements of the transaction; it can only be regarded as a sample for observing capital behavior, without assigning it excessive interpretive power. In investment logic, as the regulation of cross-border payment fees continues to tighten in the UK, the tug-of-war over the attributes and regulation of crypto assets in the US remains unresolved, and India forcibly compresses local trading space with high-pressure tax systems, businesses directly facing end retail in multiple jurisdictions are at risk of "rules being rewritten at any time." In contrast, investing in infrastructure providers, computing power and data center operators, compliance custodians, and payment hubs—considered "underlying assets"—is seen as a way to somewhat transcend the fluctuations of single jurisdiction regulation and share industry growth dividends in the form of long-term assets. From a regional preference perspective, funds are more likely to flow to jurisdictions with relatively clear regulatory frameworks, predictable tax policies, and friendly corporate structures, while adopting a wait-and-see or even retreat strategy towards markets with regulatory ambiguity, frequent changes, or excessively high tax burdens. Regarding Bitmine's recent investment, there is currently no evidence to suggest a direct causal link with specific regulatory events; a more reasonable interpretation is that against the backdrop of a tightening global regulatory environment, it reflects a portion of capital's preference for locking in long-term chips through heavy assets or equity positions, rather than repeatedly increasing positions in business layers that are easily impacted by policies in the short term.

Global Crypto Landscape Restructuring Under Regulatory Differences

Placing the expansion of UK fee regulation, the tug-of-war of US crypto legislation, and India's high-pressure tax system on the same world map reveals a clearly stratified regulatory landscape: on one end are mature markets attempting to incorporate crypto and digital payments into the existing financial order through refined rules and extended regulatory boundaries; on the other end are emerging economies leveraging high tax rates and administrative means to "front-load" the costs of risk spillover onto practitioners and users. For exchanges, payment companies, and on-chain financial projects, this stratification directly rewrites the constraints on site selection and product design; the so-called "regulatory arbitrage" is no longer just about simply seeking low-regulation-cost areas, but about rebalancing compliance feasibility, policy stability, and tax pressure. Leading institutions, when choosing operational centers and key licensing locations, tend to place their core businesses in markets with transparent regulation and predictable enforcement, then radiate to other regions through subsidiaries and partners; in product design, they actively hedge potential compliance risks by restricting trading of specific high-sensitivity assets, adjusting leverage limits, or introducing stronger KYC/AML rules. From a capital perspective, the premium on "regulatory certainty" is being repriced: even if the rules are tight, as long as the boundaries are clear enough and the pace of changes predictable, compliant capital and infrastructure are often still willing to settle, because they can precisely calculate compliance costs in their models and design business models accordingly; conversely, markets that frequently release high-pressure signals but lack stable expectations, even if there are user dividends in the short term, are unlikely to become the preferred areas for long-term capital rooting. In the foreseeable future, global liquidity and business focus are more likely to concentrate in markets with relatively mature compliance frameworks like Europe and the US, as well as a few emerging jurisdictions that are friendly to tax systems and regulations, while markets like India, primarily driven by tax and administrative pressure, face the risk of marginalization, with their local innovation and deep industrial development continuously facing structural challenges of outflow.

Finding Regulatory Anchors Amid Uncertainty

Overall, the global regulatory adjustments that occurred around January 2026 are not isolated policy puzzles but rather explicit signals that a long-term game has entered a new phase. The UK confirmed the power boundaries of regulatory agencies in the field of cross-border fees through the Supreme Court, the US accelerated legislative attempts to delineate regulatory authority over crypto assets at the Senate level, and India continued to maintain a high-pressure stance with a combination of a 30% income tax and a 1% TDS withholding tax. These actions collectively outline a fact: the crypto industry can no longer remain outside the mainstream financial and fiscal systems. The next phase of competition will increasingly involve finding space within the regulatory frameworks of various jurisdictions. For investors and entrepreneurs, regulatory predictability is becoming a primary decision-making dimension alongside tax rates, rather than being a passive "post-compliance remedy" after product launch. Whether there is a clear licensing path, whether regulatory agencies have stable enforcement logic, and whether rule amendments follow open consultation procedures will directly impact the prioritization of capital deployment and product rollout. Looking ahead to the key variables, one is the negotiation direction of specific provisions in the US crypto bill, particularly the division of responsibilities between the CFTC and SEC and the handling of tokenized securities and RWAs; two is how the UK regulatory authorities will formulate execution details such as the cap and applicability of cross-border card fees after the Supreme Court ruling, which will determine the relative advantages between traditional payments and on-chain solutions; three is whether India will release even limited signals of policy softening, including technical adjustments to the 30% income tax or 1% TDS mechanism. The evolution around these anchor points will largely determine the direction of global crypto capital and business landscapes in the coming years.

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