2026 is the year centralized exchanges are categorically disrupted by onchain markets (aka decentralized exchange)
Onchain market supply, liquidity and infrastructure has crossed the threshold such that anyone can spin up a production-grade exchange that competes head on with the incumbent CEX core business (e.g. fomo). Many large exchanges are aggregating markets onchain which is accelerating this trend.
What used to be a moat (kyc/licenses/regulation first) is now a competitive disadvantage against new trading apps, while value capture has moved upstream to issuance (pump, polymarket, zora, clanker etc) and the network level (solana is really an exchange disguised as an L1).
Years of infrastructure work is culminating into the most open and exciting time to build new markets and exchanges.
Centralized exchanges will need to be judicious in where they choose to compete as the barriers have come down and the nature of the game has changed. This next phase will determine Yahoo vs. Google outcomes for the largest participants today.
For the industry at large this is probably the most exciting time in a while to experiment in defining and launching new markets and exchanges onchain. What looks dumb, unserious or weird now is probably more right than wrong. Expect to see a lot more opinionated, specialized and niche markets. I am very long this trend going into 2026.
Exciting times ahead.
The level of realtime signal that geopolitical prediction markets give is pretty astounding.
These markets move instantly and can tell you major events before you see them on the timeline (this was the case for the syria strikes yesterday)
To break out of a local maximum you need enter the FAFO zone.
This means taking on a bunch of uncertainty and also usually going down/backwards for a period of time to get to the Global max (or a new higher local maximum).
It's best to have fun with it and embrace the chaos. It's part of the process.
The success of a project one year will not be determined by it's first week of the token being live and how the distribution went. Zoom out.
As a space we want to see:
+ Continuous experimentation in distributions.
+ Trader success in fair and open markets.
+ High quality projects tokenizing.
Each day and experiment brings us one step closer. Shoutout to anyone who's learning, iterating and in the arena, especially for years straight.
Random thought: In the world where age reversal and longevity gets solved you’d probably go long competitive sports.
The talent pool and market immediately expands in extremely entertaining ways.
Retired stars could re-enter leagues and prodigies get another shot now that it doesn’t require happening in a specific age window and time of life. People who can afford to spend years training and investing in their own talent can also compete.
At the same time if we’ve figured out age reversal then genetic engineering is probably quite good too so that throws a whole other dimension to it. Less about natural talent more about best physical spec for the sport.
We added $11M of liquidity onchain to the zora/usdc pool.
Deeper liquidity means better execution and more reliable interactions across all markets quoted in $ZORA.
