A recent survey found that 37% of respondents see the lack of regulation and protection as the biggest risk in crypto, even as more people express openness to including digital assets in long-term savings such as retirement funds. The concern is telling: interest is growing, but trust remains fragile.
If crypto is to move beyond speculation and into the mainstream, exchanges cannot remain distant, opaque, or lightly supervised. They need to be rooted locally, shaped by clear regulation, and designed to give people confidence that their money is accessible and protected.
Trust Built From the Ground Up
Building locally helps exchanges to tackle credibility sooner rather than later. In 2018, a group of students in Turin launched Young Platform with the idea of making crypto simpler and safer for non-experts. As co-founder Alexandru Stefan Gheban recalls, “Crypto felt like a closed circle: too complex, too technical, and ultimately too elitist.”
Starting in Italy, one of Europe’s most heavily regulated financial environments, made the challenge even greater. But instead of bypassing the system, they leaned into it by designing compliance structures before regulations even existed. That decision highlights why local presence matters. It pushes platforms to build for trust.
Why Regulation Matters
Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework is set to harmonize standards across the continent. The regulation alone won’t restore trust, but it provides a baseline for accountability. What matters is how exchanges respond: whether they treat oversight as a burden or as the backbone of their model.
Young Platform chose the latter, even testing its framework in France before MiCA came into effect. The move illustrates that engaging regulators early doesn’t slow growth; it can validate a model and strengthen user confidence in a space often defined by uncertainty.
Local Presence, Real Proximity
Trust isn’t only about licenses and compliance systems. It’s also about cultural proximity. Platforms that stay anchored in local markets, speak the language, work within familiar systems, and support users where they live lower the psychological barrier to adoption.
This closeness matters because people want to see crypto as part of their daily financial lives, not as an offshore product disconnected from their reality. Local exchanges are better placed to deliver that sense of accessibility.
Beyond Speculation
Speculative trading has long dominated crypto, but adoption on a larger scale will come from utility. As Gheban notes, “The next wave of adoption won’t come from traders. It will come from people who want utility… not just volatility.”
That shift requires platforms that meet users where they are: starting with education, guiding them into safe participation, and offering tools that add value beyond price swings. A layered approach that’s accessible on the surface and sophisticated underneath ensures both newcomers and advanced users feel served without compromise.
The Bigger Picture
The survey shows that more than a third of people still see the lack of regulation and protection as the main barrier to entering crypto. That concern cannot be ignored if digital assets are to move from niche speculation into long-term financial planning.
Local, regulated exchanges may not be able to solve every challenge, but they can change the narrative. They can show that crypto doesn’t have to be opaque, inaccessible, or offshore. They can demonstrate that when rooted in local systems and shaped by regulation, digital assets can feel less like a gamble and more like a tool people can trust.
Or, as Gheban put it: “Crypto doesn’t need more promises. It needs infrastructure people can trust.”
