As crypto transitions from speculative asset to everyday financial infrastructure, the expectations placed on platforms are shifting in kind. Users who once tolerated friction during occasional trades now demand the reliability, transparency, and accountability they associate with regulated financial services. When those standards fall short, the consequences are immediate and personal.
To explore what this maturation means for platforms operating at the intersection of crypto and regulated payments, we spoke with Innokenty Isers, co-founder and CEO of Paybis, a global crypto exchange serving more than seven million customers across 180 countries. Drawing on proprietary user research and operational data, Innokenty Isers examines why brand trust has overtaken fees and speed as the primary factor in platform selection, what MiCA and PSD2 licensing actually require of a company in practice, and why activity volumes recovering post-FTX does not mean trust has recovered in parallel. The conversation also addresses fee transparency, including why hidden costs persist, who benefits from them in the short term, and what it would take to make upfront disclosure an industry standard.
Crypto has moved from a speculative asset into people’s daily money management. When users depend on a platform for their daily finances rather than occasional investment? What do they start demanding from it that held less importance before?
Once crypto becomes part of someone’s everyday finances, service failures have a direct impact. A delayed transaction can hold up a payment. An account review can restrict access to funds. In those situations, the platform has to explain what is happening and give the customer a realistic timeline.
Users want to see the full price before committing their money. We asked a cross-section of our 7 million customers across 180+ countries what matters most when choosing a crypto platform. Almost half (46.7%) selected brand trust, ahead of fees and transaction speed as individual factors, which numbered just 21.7% and 17.7% respectively.
People still compare fees and transaction speed. Once they start relying on crypto more regularly, they want to know who is behind the service and who they can turn to if something goes wrong.
Research shows brand trust is now the single biggest reason users choose a platform, ahead of fees, speed, and transparency as individual factors. What does a platform need to do to earn it?
A platform has to make its regulatory status easy to verify and then prove through its day-to-day conduct that those standards are real.
Licensing is important because it gives users something they can verify independently. At Paybis, we have secured both a MiCA crypto-asset services license and a PSD2 payment institution license in Latvia. Securing them required strong operational controls and clear accountability across the company, and those requirements continue to shape how we manage risk and make decisions every day.
People check independent reviews before they trust us with their money. Paybis is one of the highest-rated crypto companies on Trustpilot, which gives users another way to assess us independently. They can see how we respond to complaints and resolve problems over time.
Every major exchange collapse raised the same question: who controls the assets. Is the industry closer to an answer to that, or are users still carrying the same risk they always were?
The industry has made progress. In Europe, MiCA authorization goes much further than the earlier national VASP registration regimes. It asks who controls client assets and who owns risk inside the company. Firms also have to show what happens after a compliance breach and prove that their procedures are followed in practice. Earlier VASP regimes were applied unevenly across Europe and did not always provide that level of scrutiny.
Users still need a clear answer from each provider. At Paybis, our MiCA license gives our EU entity a regulated basis for crypto-asset services, while our payment institution license provides the regulated basis for stablecoin-related services. Together, those licenses allow us to connect crypto services with regulated payment flows. Users should be able to verify that structure before they deposit funds.
Regulation can force companies to answer the right questions. Without those answers, users cannot assess the risk before depositing funds.
After FTX, trust in the sector collapsed. Volumes have recovered, institutions are arriving, new users are entering. Yet compliance frameworks and proof-of-reserves all existed before that incident. Has the industry rebuilt trust, or rebuilt activity?
Activity has recovered faster than trust. At Paybis, B2B customers accounted for 96.9% of stablecoin volume in 2025 and 97.8% in the first four months of 2026. That level of business activity shows how far crypto has moved into real payment operations. User trust still requires a much longer operating record, especially when companies are responsible for holding customer assets.
Regulatory frameworks are continuing to develop as the market matures. MiCA is raising the standard in Europe, while the GENIUS Act forms part of the evolving regulatory framework in the US.
A license marks the start of ongoing supervision. Proof of reserves gives users evidence about reported holdings. The real test is whether the company keeps operating under the same controls after approval and whether senior management remains accountable for risk.
Regulation also has to keep pace with the market. MiCA is already being reviewed to build out a framework encompassing stablecoins and further financial services. Trust will be rebuilt through a longer record of consistent conduct under that supervision.
The tools to verify a platform now exist, MiCA licenses are public, compliance status is on record, yet 7 in 10 European users do not know whether their exchange can legally operate. If verification is possible but users are not doing it, whose responsibility is it to address that?
Platforms have the primary responsibility here. A company should state its legal entity, operating jurisdiction and license status clearly. Users should be able to confirm that information through an official register without digging through terms and conditions. Regulators should make public databases easier to use. Platforms should place the same information inside the product and link directly to the relevant register.
When seven in ten users (Paybis research data) do not know whether their exchange can legally operate, the disclosure is failing. Platforms know where people make decisions inside the product. Licensing information should appear during sign-up and before a user deposits or buys. Users should be able to verify the firm’s status through a direct link to the official register.
The official record should identify the licensed entity, the regulator and the services covered. Users can then see exactly what the company is allowed to do.
Nearly half of crypto users cite high fees as their primary frustration, and more than a quarter say fees are hidden or unclear. Is that a design flaw or a deliberate strategy?
Showing the full cost only late in the purchase process may begin as poor design. Once a platform knows users cannot see the full cost and leaves the process unchanged, it becomes a deliberate business decision.
Crypto pricing can include network charges, payment-provider costs and an exchange-rate spread. The final amount may also vary according to the payment method or blockchain being used. The issue is whether the customer sees the effective price before committing.
Our approach is to show full fees upfront. We are constantly exploring more ways to demonstrate fee transparency and clarity.
Most platforms do not show the full cost of a transaction at the point a user decides to buy. Does that opacity benefit individual platforms in the short term while eroding trust across the sector? What would it take to make upfront fee disclosure the industry standard?
Opacity can help a platform look cheaper when a customer is deciding where to buy. The user sees an attractive price at the start and discovers the full cost later. That presentation may help secure one transaction. The customer remembers discovering the real price late, and the loss of trust affects the wider sector.
The disclosure standard should apply at the moment the user decides whether to proceed. Before confirmation, the platform should show the total fiat amount that will be charged, the amount of crypto the customer will receive and the crypto-to-fiat exchange rate used. If any of those figures change before execution, the platform should present the updated quote and ask the customer to confirm it again.
Upfront disclosure becomes the industry standard when regulators define the minimum information every provider must show and the point in the purchase process where it must appear. Platforms can adopt that format now.
New users are the most vulnerable to unclear fees and confusing processes, as well as the ones platforms most aggressively compete to acquire. Yet trust concerns remain the primary barrier to entry for those who have not joined yet. How does a platform resolve that contradiction?
The contradiction comes from measuring acquisition too narrowly. A completed sign-up or first purchase does not mean the platform has earned a customer.
New users need a predictable first experience. They should understand who they are dealing with and what steps they will go through before the transaction is complete. Trust, as we have seen with the hard data, is the number one determinant of whether someone new to crypto or new to a platform stays.
The product should explain each step in plain language. A beginner should be able to follow the transaction and reach support without specialist knowledge.
The real acquisition test is whether the customer returns after the first transaction. New users come back when the process is easy to follow and support is easy to reach.
The post Brand Trust Beats Fees For 46% Of Crypto Users, And Paybis CEO Innokenty Isers Says Platforms Must Lead With Licensing Transparency To Earn It appeared first on Metaverse Post.
