How to invest in crypto now the rules have changed

The Clarity Act failed its Senate vote on September 15, the next day the Fed hiked rates. The bears had their moment, push for a new cycle low. Instead the market took another leg higher. This cycle is different.

Instead of selling the market waited for the SEC and CFTC to deliver on their promise, Clarity or not rules, a regulatory framework with new token offering exemptions, an investment contract safe harbour, and a clear pathway for projects to operate without triggering securities law.  CFTC Chair Michael Selig stood up on September 23 and told markets to prepare for "mass tokenisation, 24/7 trading, and agentic finance." The destination is confirmed. The road has been built and the regulators just licensed everyone to drive on it.

But the real unlock is for investors, something more fundamental has shifted. Crypto protocols have always generating real revenue, but for the first time, that revenue can flow directly to token holders. That changes everything about how to invest in this cycle.

New Tokenomics

For most of crypto's history, owning a token meant owning governance rights and not much else. You could vote on proposals, signal preferences, and watch inflation dilute your position as new tokens were emitted to reward liquidity providers and maybe get a staking yield. The economics were, to put it generously, tied to a promise.

The post-Gensler era changes that. With the SEC's interim framework now distinguishing between token types and creating safe harbours for revenue distribution, protocols can do something they previously avoided for regulatory reasons: share revenue with the people holding their tokens.  Historically this would have any protocol that even considered sharing revenue with token holders would have had a Wells notice on its doorstep before the governance vote closed.

Post Gensler but pre explicit rules, Hyperliquid showed the industry what that looks like. $429 million in revenue in 2026, leading every protocol on earth. Ninety-nine percent of fees flow to HYPE holders through an automated buyback and burn, $65 million a month in continuous buy pressure on the token. No venture capital allocation. No insider unlocks. Built during the bear market, but up around 230% YTD. It is the clearest proof yet that on-chain financial infrastructure can generate the kind of cash flows that would make a traditional exchange envious and that revenue accruing to token holder will perform well no matter the prevailing trend for Bitcoin.

The old guard took note. Uniswap's governance approved its fee switch in late 2025, UNI holders now receive buybacks funded by 17% of swap fees. Aave passed its "Aave Will Win" proposal in February: 100% of product revenue directed to the DAO treasury, a permanent $50 million annual buyback budget, 94,000 AAVE tokens already retired. These aren't new experiments. They're decade-old protocols repricing themselves as cash flow instruments.

The filter for this cycle is simple: does this protocol generate real revenue, and does it flow to token holders? If the answer is no, governance alone won't be enough.

Revenue Leaders - Trading Venues

If the new tokenomics filter is revenue that flows to holders, trading venues are where that thesis is most obvious, and most proven.

On-chain spot and perpetual DEXs sit at the intersection of every tailwind in this cycle. Tokenised equities going mainstream. The DTCC's October production rollout bringing institutional settlement on-chain. The CFTC pushing 24/7 trading. Regulatory frameworks that now permit fee distribution to token holders. The venues processing that volume, and returning the economics to their communities, are the structural winners.

The ARK chart below makes the competitive picture clear. Hyperliquid and Uniswap are the leaders capturing that trading volume, and the volume is growing rapidly, along with the associated revenue. 

The DEX/CEX (Decentralised Exchange / Centralised Exchange) ratio tells the structural story. From effectively zero in 2019, on-chain spot volume now represents 27% of centralised exchange volume. That shift isn't cyclical, it doesn't reverse when the market turns. Each cycle, more volume migrates on-chain and doesn't come back. The next leg of institutional adoption, driven by tokenised equities and 24/7 settlement will accelerate that trend.

Narrative Two - Privacy

The privacy narrative was easy to dismiss two years ago. Privacy coins carried regulatory baggage, exchange delistings, and an association with illicit use that made mainstream investors uncomfortable. That's changed, and the NEAR Intents chart below shows why.

$306 million in daily total value locked across NEAR's intent architecture as of late September. The more telling number: $187 million of that is confidential, outpacing the $118 million sitting in public transactions. More capital is flowing into private transactions than public ones. That's not a speculative signal, it's revealed preference from people actually moving money.

The demand is real and the reasons aren't hard to find. Enough governments are creeping toward capital controls that financial privacy has moved from ideological preference to practical necessity. Businesses don't want competitors reading their treasury movements, supplier payments, or M&A activity on a public ledger. Journalists, activists, and NGO workers in hostile jurisdictions need financial separation that transparent chains can't provide. And as AI agents begin transacting at scale, the case for privacy rails becomes structural.

ZCash +137% YTD and through a psychological  $1,000 barrier this cycle. NEAR's confidential TVL parabolic into September. These aren't coincidences, they're the same macro force expressing itself across two different technical approaches to the same problem. We hold both.

Investment Principles for this Cycle

The filter for this cycle is straightforward. Does this protocol generate real revenue? Does that revenue flow to token holders? Can this outpace token inflation? Does it sit in the path of on-chain trading volume, tokenised asset growth, or privacy demand?

That wasn't a question worth asking in previous cycles, because the answer was almost always no, and part of BTCs relative strength, a store of value doesn't have to generate revenue. Governance tokens governed, inflation diluted, and retail held the bag when the hype unwound. The post-Gensler regulatory environment, combined with protocols like Hyperliquid proving the model works, has changed the calculus permanently.

There are now 3 clear investment types within the sector; store of value, infrastructure, and revenue generating protocols. A balanced portfolio should include all 3.

The MTC Digital Asset Fund holds UNI, ZEC, HYPE, and NEAR. This article is general information only and does not constitute financial advice.