Crypto companies must go beyond compliance to turn trust into a competitive edge

The next frontier to conquer in cryptocurrency isn't a new blockchain or token — it's customer trust.

A lack of consumer confidence is dampening the overall rate of crypto adoption, despite enthusiasm within a subset of the population. Research from Security.org indicates that 28% of American adults own cryptocurrencies in 2025. By the end of the year, an additional 14% of respondents without crypto plan to buy it, and 67% of those who own it already plan to buy more. At the same time, 59% of people familiar with crypto aren't confident in its security, and tellingly, even 40% of people who own cryptocurrency aren't confident that the technology is safe and secure.

“Bridging the gap to mainstream adoption requires addressing a fundamental trust deficit,” stated Brian Breslin, vice president of business development at TELUS Digital, in a recent CoinDesk article. As crypto companies vie for market share, it will be those who engender confidence from existing and would-be customers that have a distinct advantage.

To realize this advantage however, firms must go beyond compliance. While staying onside of regulatory requirements is crucial, requirements tend to lag behind the pace of innovation. As a result, regulations can fail to address the global, borderless nature of digital assets, leaving gaps that savvy crypto brands must address to truly earn customer trust.

In this article, we'll examine the crypto fraud prevention and compliance landscape — and why doing what regulators expect isn't enough to turn trust into a competitive advantage for industry brands. Read on for insights from experts and proactive trust-building measures you can apply in your digital asset business.

Safety in numbers: Trust and safety trends, 2025

Explore trust and safety trends for 2025 from a survey of 819 enterprise leaders. Gain insights on fraud detection, KYC, content moderation and ID verification.

Access the report

Crypto’s trust paradox

Crypto companies face a delicate balancing act: They must build trust to grow, yet excessive trust can leave customers vulnerable to bad actors engaging in predatory behavior. This paradox defines the current trust landscape in cryptocurrency.

Amanda Wick, author, former U.S. federal prosecutor specializing in financial crime, founder and CEO of the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency and principal at Incite Consulting, recently joined an episode of Questions for now and warned about a drop in consumers’ ability to scrutinize misinformation and disinformation about crypto.

This, Wick argued, is an issue of real consequence. “Generational wealth [is] being lost to fraud scams at a level that’s just proliferating and growing.” Data from The Motley Fool echoes this assertion. The financial services company reported that Americans lost $3.9 billion to investment fraud and scams in the first three quarters of 2024 alone.

The scale of the challenge is further highlighted in the Safety in numbers report, featuring research from Ryan Strategic Advisory sponsored by TELUS Digital. In a survey of 819 enterprise customer experience (CX) decision-makers, 34% said identifying and preventing fraud was the biggest challenge their business faces in maintaining a safe and secure digital environment for customers.

Realities for crypto brands

To navigate the current trust landscape effectively, every crypto brand must acknowledge these realities:

• Trust is difficult to win back: People tend to move on from service providers who fail to protect them. As Wick put it, “If you lose customer trust in a world where distrust is the norm, that's sometimes unrecoverable.”
• Tech can embolden bad actors: Generative AI has revolutionized social engineering, enabling fraudsters to create convincing phishing content, deepfake videos and deceptive websites at scale — making traditional red flags increasingly difficult for customers to spot.
• The regulatory environment is in constant flux: With the pace of blockchain innovation, regulators around the world are playing catch up. This has resulted in a patchwork regulatory environment in which governments have taken differing approaches. “I think people don't realize, even within the United States, it's particularly difficult because you have federal regulations and then you might have 50 different state regulations to contend with,” explained Wick.

Together, these factors make trust both more crucial and more complex to establish in the crypto industry.

Expanding on the complexity of crypto compliance solutions

The aforementioned Safety in numbers report revealed that 44% of respondents thought compliance with government regulations and industry standards was the single biggest challenge they faced in keeping their customers safe. As we’ve already alluded to, crypto compliance can be dynamic, evolving on an ongoing basis and at different rates in different geographies.

Despite these challenges, compliance is essential. A report by Social Capital Markets found that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) imposed $4.68 billion in fines against crypto companies in 2024, underscoring the high stakes of regulatory compliance.

However, even rigorous compliance doesn't guarantee protection against evolving threats. “More brands really need to be proactive about worst case scenario planning,” said Amanda Wick. She went on to explain that sometimes crypto firms can settle for thinking about “the baseline requirements,” not realizing that hackers and other financial criminals are constantly seeking to exploit vulnerabilities beyond the scope of current regulations.

To put it plainly, compliance is expected. Going above and beyond is not. And that’s exactly where crypto firms can win. As Richard Tang, CEO of Binance, noted on The Times Tech Podcast, “Compliance is a journey, not a destination.” The most successful firms understand that regulatory requirements should be viewed as a foundation to build upon, not a finish line to cross.

Proactive trust-building tactics strengthen customer trust

There are three critical ways crypto brands can build trust in a proactive and effective manner. First, they must take ownership of their role in educating the addressable market. Second, they must design their customer experiences thoughtfully, with trust and safety in mind. Third, they must leverage the latest technology to thwart those who seek to prey on their customers.

Take responsibility for educating customers

Brian Breslin, in his article for CoinDesk, stated emphatically that “the future of sustainable growth and mainstream crypto adoption hinges on a dedicated, industry-wide commitment to prioritizing the new, non-technical customer.”

As we established in the beginning of this article, it’s not only those who are already bought into decentralized finance that crypto brands must now appeal to. They must capture the attention and sell the value proposition to those yet engaged with crypto, and for many of those people, crypto can be, well, cryptic. The Motley Fool reports that non-crypto users give two main reasons for not investing in cryptocurrency: not knowing what to do with it (36%) and not understanding how to buy crypto (33%).

Crypto brands that take the initiative to educate potential customers will create clear, concise content in a range of formats and targeted at people in different life stages. “Industry jargon can sabotage the customer experience by overwhelming new users who are accustomed to more mainstream financial terms,” explained Breslin. The content that firms create should include step-by-step instructions for relevant processes, fee structures, risk disclosures, updates on emerging security threats (and accompanying preventative measures) and more. Brands that get this right will create accessible, jargon-free knowledge bases that are valuable to both existing and prospective customers.

Ultimately, people trust what they can understand, and have a tendency to reject what they can’t. It is up to the brands who seek to win new customers to present their value proposition in a way that can be understood, and to make empathetic, knowledgeable and human support available to those who seek it out.

Design experiences that safeguard trust

One of the appealing aspects of decentralized finance is the autonomy it provides to users. In many cases, users can make transactions without the same number of intermediaries as in traditional finance. While this agency might have its merits, it also puts more demands for understanding and certainty on users. Acting too hastily might lead an investor to make irreversible decisions, and in cases where they are deceived and fall victim to fraud, they might not return to the platform at all.

“Often there's a gap between what a customer is actually experiencing on a crypto or digital assets platform and what the platform itself thinks is the experience it's delivering,” noted Breslin. To bridge this gap, successful platforms are designing experiences that safeguard trust.

“I just think that anytime you can slow it down, where it's putting into place very doable protocols to either protect the consumer or to just inject like a moment. Because criminals frequently take advantage of pressure,” said Wick. Pause points and slow UX principles encourage users to think about, and confirm, their decisions and the repercussions of those decisions. This is particularly important for large transactions where a customer should have a high degree of certainty. For example, when a user attempts to transfer a significant amount of cryptocurrency to an unfamiliar wallet address, a well-designed platform might display a warning screen that shows the transaction's irreversible nature, require multiple confirmations and implement a brief waiting period. During this time, the platform can run additional security checks and prompt the user to verify the recipient's address through alternative means.

On top of this, it is on crypto exchanges to make human support available to users in the hours and languages relevant to their areas of operation. When users can connect with knowledgeable, empathetic agents who communicate clearly in their preferred language, they're better equipped to understand their options and make confident decisions.

Bolster your crypto trust and safety program with AI

TELUS Digital’s Safety in numbers report found that identifying and preventing fraud, and keeping up with technological change, are two of the biggest challenges CX leaders face right now (cited by 34% and 32% respectively). Additionally, two-thirds (66%) said they will invest more in fraud detection this year, with 69% saying it has become a higher priority in the past year as part of their CX delivery. Similar trends can be observed in Know Your Customer (KYC) processes: 60% are investing more in KYC this year, with 64% saying it has become a higher priority.

To enhance crypto fraud detection and prevention, brands are increasingly turning to advanced technological solutions. For fraud prevention, machine learning algorithms can analyze vast amounts of transaction data in real time, identifying suspicious patterns that might elude human observers. These systems can be trained to recognize new fraud tactics as they emerge, providing a dynamic defense against evolving threats. KYC processes are also being revolutionized by technology. AI-powered identity verification can quickly cross-reference user-provided information against multiple databases, while biometric authentication adds an extra layer of security. As Amanda Wick notes, “AI can do massive large-scale data analysis and do incredible things that, frankly, humans can't.”

These tech-driven approaches to fraud prevention and KYC, combined with strong Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes, create a comprehensive trust and safety framework. However, it should be noted that the most effective approach balances automation with human expertise. While AI excels at rapid data processing and pattern recognition, human analysts provide crucial context and decision-making in complex cases. This hybrid model is the optimal path forward for brands looking to earn and maintain customer trust.

Partner with TELUS Digital to manage customer trust in crypto

As crypto adoption continues to grow, so too does the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage through customer trust. Success, however, requires more than regulatory compliance — it demands a holistic approach to customer protection that leverages both advanced technology and human expertise.

Peter Ryan, president and principal analyst at Ryan Strategic Advisory, shared the following words within a press release that also included the Safety in numbers report: “Leaders are facing pressure to tighten budgets while keeping pace with evolving compliance standards. These challenges are making it harder to access the technical talent needed to deliver and maintain effective solutions. CX providers are well positioned to ease those pressures by offering the expertise, people and technology to scale trust, safety and security operations as needed.”

TELUS Digital’s ability to excel in this regard has made it so that the biggest brands in crypto partner with us for contact center outsourcing, trust and safety operations and digital solutions. Today, TELUS Digital supports more than 170 million crypto customers worldwide.

Click here for more information about how TELUS Digital helps crypto brands strengthen their crypto AML compliance, fraud prevention and risk management programs, and deliver enduring customer experiences.