Here are my crypto predictions for 2026. Mostly to keep myself accountable throughout the year. Enjoy!

STABLECOINS

• A global consumer brand—Disney, Amazon, Google, or Walmart scale—launches a stablecoin for their corporate treasury and everyday consumer flows.

• Total stablecoin market cap exceeds $500B, with GENIUS-compliant supply surpassing 30% as regulatory rules become clear ahead of Jan 2027.

• Arc and Tempo both launch, with Tempo seeing strong merchant payment volume traction but neither issues a token in 2026. Arc underwhelms but Circle playing the long game. Neither are seen as "neutral".

• GENIUS rules are clarified incrementally, while the Clarity Act fails to pass due to politics.

CRYPTO MAJORS & MACRO

• Bitcoin, ETH, and SOL continue to trade as a highly correlated basket driven primarily by macro conditions.

• The market rallies if Trump juices the Fed and IPOs rip. If inflation remains persistent or wars/uncertainty, crypto trades sideways to down despite "boring" ecosystem progress.

• Democrats win the House in November, increasing gridlock. Crypto tanks 20%.

Crypto VC

• The Tokens vs. equity narrative dominates the year. If Base, Arc, Tempo, etc launch tokens, this becomes really complex and a net negative for crypto overall. Not everyone can be BNB. Crypto thinks it wants clarity but it'll squeeze out capital formation for app coins and protocol coins.

• Crypto VC continues to struggle. The old four-year cycle where rising tides lifted all alt boats is over. Done. 2025 and 2026 is the pain of everybody adjusting.

• Crypto private equity accelerates! Crypto funds with the LP flexibility will buy real businesses, move payments onto stablecoins, and automate aggressively with AI. Some will print cashflow. This is one of the most exciting trends in the market.

• Within DeFi, I'm most excited about vaults and private credit. Capital is cheaper on crypto rails, trust assumptions are super clear in reducing risk, and distribution is global by default. Expect a bunch of USD.ai-like projects for different types of credit. If stablecoins are the wedge, yield vaults and private credit will come behind it.

• Consolidation everywhere. A handful of selective IPOs for true winners and widespread M&A beneath them. TradFi scrambling to buy rather than build and startups looking for respectable exits. A few DATs blow up or get consolidated.

RWAs

• RWA market cap grows significantly and dominates crypto headlines.

• This wave mirrors the early “Enterprise Ethereum” era, with financial institutions rushing to launch tokenized treasury funds and other yield-bearing products following the success of early entrants like BUIDL.

• Tokenized stocks see heavy announcements but muted trading volumes throughout the year. The market reaches the top of the RWA hype cycle, and participants relearn a core lesson: being onchain does not automatically create liquidity.

• Despite the hype correction, RWAs are a big net positive for the year and interesting startups in RWA vaults, RWA looping, perps and "unbundled equities".

AI

• AI shifts from research breakthroughs to implementation. Headlines persist, but foundational model advances slow while real value shows up in apps and enterprises. We need AI Agents to make a BIG LEAP or another "Reasoning-level" breakthrough in AI and I currently don't see it happening. Might be wrong.

• The app and enterprise layers start winning. In AI SaaS, we see Cursor-for-everything emerge: data science, marketing, sales, finance, recruiting, etc.

• AI becomes a worker multiplier, not a worker replacement. “Agents as employees” is over hyped; accountability gaps remain, and human review/editing stays essential.

• A workforce k-shaped model begins. Employees who are AI-enabled materially outperform—and out-earn—those who are not.

OTHER

• Democrats win the House in November, increasing gridlock. Probably not the Senate. The pendulum has swung fully towards Trump and Maga populism and is swinging back Leftward. We’re now in the beginning innings of Left populism with wealth taxes being discussed in California and the warmth of collectivism in Mamdani’s NYC. Affordability and the k-shaped prosperity gap dominate politics the next few years.

• Prediction markets see crazy growth and fully merge with sports betting. Enforcement on insider info becomes a major topic. Secondary businesses around PMs emerge in trading, media, consumer, insurance, etc.

• A major crypto hack occurs, large enough to trigger sustained mainstream media scrutiny and it gets political.

• The narrative begins to emerge on whether crypto represents a systemic risk to the financial system. A foreign currency pushes back significantly against USD stablecoins.

• Banking gets innovative again and a bunch of new banks get formed. Erebor for every industry.

• A significant Western infrastructure outage (power, water, or similar) is attributed to a terrorist organization. AI tools will have been used and "AI" will be blamed.

Let's see how I do! Happy 2026!

Here are my crypto predictions for 2026. Mostly to keep myself accountable throughout the year. Enjoy!

STABLECOINS

• A global consumer brand—Disney, Amazon, Google, or Walmart scale—launches a stablecoin for their corporate treasury and everyday consumer flows.

• Total stablecoin market cap exceeds $500B, with GENIUS-compliant supply surpassing 30% as regulatory rules become clear ahead of Jan 2027.

• Arc and Tempo both launch, with Tempo seeing strong merchant payment volume traction but neither issues a token in 2026. Arc underwhelms but Circle playing the long game. Neither are seen as "neutral".

• GENIUS rules are clarified incrementally, while the Clarity Act fails to pass due to politics.

CRYPTO MAJORS & MACRO

• Bitcoin, ETH, and SOL continue to trade as a highly correlated basket driven primarily by macro conditions.

• The market rallies if Trump juices the Fed and IPOs rip. If inflation remains persistent or wars/uncertainty, crypto trades sideways to down despite "boring" ecosystem progress.

• Democrats win the House in November, increasing gridlock. Crypto tanks 20%.

Crypto VC

• The Tokens vs. equity narrative dominates the year. If Base, Arc, Tempo, etc launch tokens, this becomes really complex and a net negative for crypto overall. Not everyone can be BNB. Crypto thinks it wants clarity but it'll squeeze out capital formation for app coins and protocol coins.

• Crypto VC continues to struggle. The old four-year cycle where rising tides lifted all alt boats is over. Done. 2025 and 2026 is the pain of everybody adjusting.

• Crypto private equity accelerates! Crypto funds with the LP flexibility will buy real businesses, move payments onto stablecoins, and automate aggressively with AI. Some will print cashflow. This is one of the most exciting trends in the market.

• Within DeFi, I'm most excited about vaults and private credit. Capital is cheaper on crypto rails, trust assumptions are super clear in reducing risk, and distribution is global by default. Expect a bunch of USD.ai-like projects for different types of credit. If stablecoins are the wedge, yield vaults and private credit will come behind it.

• Consolidation everywhere. A handful of selective IPOs for true winners and widespread M&A beneath them. TradFi scrambling to buy rather than build and startups looking for respectable exits. A few DATs blow up or get consolidated.

RWAs

• RWA market cap grows significantly and dominates crypto headlines.

• This wave mirrors the early “Enterprise Ethereum” era, with financial institutions rushing to launch tokenized treasury funds and other yield-bearing products following the success of early entrants like BUIDL.

• Tokenized stocks see heavy announcements but muted trading volumes throughout the year. The market reaches the top of the RWA hype cycle, and participants relearn a core lesson: being onchain does not automatically create liquidity.

• Despite the hype correction, RWAs are a big net positive for the year and interesting startups in RWA vaults, RWA looping, perps and "unbundled equities".

AI

• AI shifts from research breakthroughs to implementation. Headlines persist, but foundational model advances slow while real value shows up in apps and enterprises. We need AI Agents to make a BIG LEAP or another "Reasoning-level" breakthrough in AI and I currently don't see it happening. Might be wrong.

• The app and enterprise layers start winning. In AI SaaS, we see Cursor-for-everything emerge: data science, marketing, sales, finance, recruiting, etc.

• AI becomes a worker multiplier, not a worker replacement. “Agents as employees” is over hyped; accountability gaps remain, and human review/editing stays essential.

• A workforce k-shaped model begins. Employees who are AI-enabled materially outperform—and out-earn—those who are not.

OTHER

• Democrats win the House in November, increasing gridlock. Probably not the Senate. The pendulum has swung fully towards Trump and Maga populism and is swinging back Leftward. We’re now in the beginning innings of Left populism with wealth taxes being discussed in California and the warmth of collectivism in Mamdani’s NYC. Affordability and the k-shaped prosperity gap dominate politics the next few years.

• Prediction markets see crazy growth and fully merge with sports betting. Enforcement on insider info becomes a major topic. Secondary businesses around PMs emerge in trading, media, consumer, insurance, etc.

• A major crypto hack occurs, large enough to trigger sustained mainstream media scrutiny and it gets political.

• The narrative begins to emerge on whether crypto represents a systemic risk to the financial system. A foreign currency pushes back significantly against USD stablecoins.

• Banking gets innovative again and a bunch of new banks get formed. Erebor for every industry.

• A significant Western infrastructure outage (power, water, or similar) is attributed to a terrorist organization. AI tools will have been used and "AI" will be blamed.

Let's see how I do! Happy 2026!