What’s Next for Crypto in 2026

I really wanted to use this quote for the article, so I spent an entire night tracking it down. In my view, it perfectly captures how markets actually function. That’s also why observing behavior and analyzing market structure matters so much. And that’s exactly why this piece exists.

Back in 2017, when the ICO wave emerged, it was fair to say that as long as a project carried the blockchain label, it could raise capital and ignite FOMO. Participants at the time largely believed in ideas such as:

As the game gradually became familiar and fewer genuinely new ideas emerged to fill the massive gap between expectations priced into the market and the actual value that could be created, participants found themselves playing a game where everyone could more or less predict what everyone else would do.

→ The ICO mania came to an end.

The same behavior repeated itself during 2020–2021, when DeFi, GameFi, and NFTs took turns stirring up the market. The 2024–2025 memecoin wave followed the same path, eventually fading once there was nothing new left to sustain speculative momentum.

Amid constant shifts in market psychology, behavior, and conditions, this naturally leads me to the question:

What will Crypto 2026 look like?

To identify what is likely to take shape in the future, we first need a solid framework for evaluation.

Most things in markets follow cause-and-effect relationships, what Ray Dalio refers to as “Cause-Effect Relationships.” That’s why the foundation of this assessment starts with revisiting market structure and behavior, in order to build a holistic picture and understand the forces driving participant behavior and psychology. From there, we can trace clues that point to what may emerge next.

Looking back, 2025 is widely regarded as one of the most uncomfortable periods in the crypto market. Instead of delivering on the high expectations set at the beginning of the year under a Bitcoin-friendly U.S. president (Donald Trump), the market played out in almost the opposite way.

Many of the crowd’s long-held rules and familiar playbooks were gradually broken, including: The four-year cycle, Altcoin season, and The Fat Protocol Thesis.

Speculative mania reached an extreme and then quickly burned out. Projects that failed to live up to the expectations embedded in their FOMO-driven valuations were systematically washed out. Retail investors were exhausted and pushed to the sidelines, making room for institutions, financial entities, and even governments to step into the arena.

Two views I had previously shared, particularly early on during offline events, proved accurate in describing how 2025 unfolded: “The death of the four-year cycle” and “Crypto resembles a leaky bucket.”

In short, the state of crypto in 2025 can be summarized as follows:

→ I see 2025 as a year of capital awakening: a period of maturation and a generational reset among market participants. This, in turn, provides important clues for how I’m viewing the market going forward.

If we break the market down into its fundamental components using a First Principles Thinking approach (the same mindset that allowed Elon Musk to build rockets from scratch), we arrive at the following:

The market is ultimately shaped by capital flows ← Capital flows are determined by participant behavior and psychology ← Behavior and psychology are, in turn, influenced by broader environmental conditions and external factors.

From a high-level perspective, the crypto market today is no longer in such an early stage where genuinely new things can emerge effortlessly and in rapid succession, as they once did. This is reinforced by a growing sense of maturity after the market has been repeatedly bruised by ideas that were excessively FOMO-driven but ultimately failed to generate commensurate real value, along with the emergence of new classes of participants entering the space.

These are the key forces currently present in the market that are shaping participant behavior and psychology. Based on the chain reaction that defines the market, as broken down above, I believe this dynamic can lead to structural shifts in capital flows and pave the way for a set of opportunities, outlined below.

*Back to Fundamentals (and this is the most significant shift I see)

There is a high likelihood that crypto will no longer be purely narrative-driven.
First, it has become increasingly difficult for crypto to continuously push out fresh narratives into the market. Second, the market has already lived through many years and multiple cycles dominated by narratives, where expectations were built almost entirely on ideas. Even projects that had yet to prove Product-Market Fit were repeatedly bid far beyond reasonable expectations, fueled by FOMO, as early buyers believed someone else would come along later to pay a higher price for the same idea, only to end up falling hard after climbing too high.

Fundamentals and Product-Market Fit are likely two terms you’ll encounter far more frequently in 2026. They may become key criteria that many participants use to evaluate and question a project, especially as the market continues to attract more professional players from traditional finance.

→ I believe these two factors will become the primary drivers of capital behavior in the market going forward.

That said, a stronger focus on fundamentals does not mean crypto is running out of opportunities, that upside disappears, or that ROI will necessarily decline.

Human greed remains. The instinct for FOMO is still deeply embedded. Fundamentals, in this phase, are simply more likely to sit at the top of the evaluation framework. And if a strong speculative wave does emerge, I believe it will be far more likely to form around things that are real, tangible, and practical.

Howard Marks also makes a particularly insightful point on this topic:

“People who haven’t spent much time observing markets may believe that asset prices are driven entirely by fundamentals, but that is certainly not the case.

The price of an asset is determined by fundamentals and by how people perceive those fundamentals. Thus, changes in an asset’s price are driven by changes in the fundamentals and/or changes in how those fundamentals are perceived.

In theory, a company’s fundamentals can be analyzed and even forecast. Attitudes toward fundamentals, on the other hand, are psychological and emotional in nature, cannot be analyzed or predicted, and are capable of changing far more rapidly and dramatically.”

Because I follow a concentrated investing approach and actively seek high returns (not necessarily high risk, as there are still opportunities that offer low risk with high return), identifying fundamentals as the primary driver of capital allocation helps me clearly define my playbook for this phase of the market.

With the same objective of targeting strong ROI, I’m comfortable allocating to big-cap assets within a given sector, and equally comfortable buying assets that are misaligned with prevailing FOMO-driven narratives. I don’t feel the need to chase every narrative the market is rotating through.

Beyond that, other structural shifts may include:

→ But why these?

Breaking down each vertical in detail would make this piece far too long, so instead I’ll focus on the core logic and lay out the foundational reasoning, giving you enough context to form your own judgments and search for opportunities.

Most of the keywords above have appeared multiple times, and quite early, in the weekly reading notes throughout the past year. Heading into 2026, I still see more than enough justification for them to remain keywords of the year.

I’ll be publishing separate deep dives on each of these areas, similar to what we previously did with Solana and Hyperliquid.

*Ownership:

As speculative mania cools and attention shifts back toward fundamentals, people are starting to slow down and reassess the real value that a project creates, and more importantly, the actual value of a token.

Not all, but most tokens in the market today offer little real utility or value beyond two primary functions:

With the exception of Layer 1 blockchain coins, which retain a degree of monetary value through their use as network transaction fees, token holders are, in most cases, left with nothing of real substance beyond these two functions. They neither meaningfully own the project nor hold a claim on its underlying value.

Recent episodes have further highlighted this issue, including:

→ Token holders are left behind, consistently excluded from the real game.

These events have raised awareness and intensified demands for token holder rights. And if the current market increasingly includes institutional capital and financial organizations, tokens will need to demonstrate that they genuinely generate cash flows and represent true ownership of a business.

→ In other words, they need to provide a reason for someone to buy a token as a liquid investment.

The crypto market, and crypto businesses in particular, are maturing and moving toward the mainstream. For this growth to remain sustainable, for the idea of an internet-native equity to truly work, the demand for ownership properties similar to traditional equity is both natural and necessary.

At present, MetaDAO stands as the first, and so far the only, project attempting to address this need through an Ownership/Futarchy model combined with STAMP from Colosseum.

That said, this remains a new and experimental approach, carrying high risk and requiring time to prove its viability. Going forward, MetaDAO may not remain the only project tackling this problem.

I’m not making any definitive claims or assessments about MetaDAO’s potential. What I’m highlighting here is the rising demand for ownership, which could evolve into a broader phenomenon and eventually become an industry standard.

If that happens, the upside may not be limited to ownership platforms like MetaDAO. It could even unlock a new growth catalyst: projects transforming into ownership-based tokens.

Not every token should offer ownership. One scenario I’m considering is that companies may increasingly pursue IPOs, and subsequently tokenize their shares on-chain. In that case, investors would gain ownership in a real business, claims on its cash flows, and the ability to deeply integrate those assets into DeFi ecosystems. Of course, listing on U.S. exchanges is far from simple and certainly not for everyone.

*Perp DEX:

Perp DEX is probably the theme I’ve mentioned most frequently over the past year. I identified it as a potential theme of the year fairly early on, based on the following reasoning:

In an environment where innovation and creativity are scarce, and where there are fewer standout trends for participants to seek opportunities and deploy capital, the market as a whole starts to feel dull. So the question becomes:

Which environment continues to offer opportunities regardless of whether the market is going up or down?

→ The answer is perpetual trading.

In addition, Perp DEX represents one of the remaining segments from the DeFi 2021 cycle that failed to fully materialize at the time due to infrastructure and technical limitations. The emergence of Hyperliquid, widely seen as a potential “Binance of DeFi”, reignited interest in the space with a simple narrative: “It’s time.”

The wave did play out and eventually ended after the historic October 11 crash. However, that event does not mark the end of the Perp DEX trend. Why?

Because the equation still holds:

[An essential unmet demand] + [A new environment that can serve it more efficiently and optimally] = [A structural growth trend, not a temporary fad]

Looking ahead to Perp DEX in 2026, the race becomes even more compelling. The competition around trading performance may no longer be limited to specialized EVM-based blockchains, as Solana-native players enter the arena. Two of the most notable names on Solana today are Drift and Bulk, each taking a different approach and expected to roll out around Q1 2026.

Beyond liquidity and raw trading performance, competition within the Perp DEX landscape in 2026 is expanding to include two additional dimensions:

Beyond execution performance, these two factors may emerge as new sources of competitive advantage for the projects that successfully solve them.

*Neobank:

If I had to name one sector that grew strongly in 2025 but did not directly create many investable opportunities for retail investors, it would undoubtedly be stablecoins.

Stablecoins have been expanding rapidly and have received support from the U.S. government, as they further reinforce dollarization. This space is largely a game dominated by institutions and issuing or service-providing companies.

Taking a wider view, it becomes clear that stablecoins are tightly intertwined with payment activity. As stablecoin-based payments become more commonplace, they naturally encourage people to hold their financial assets within blockchain environments.

As a result, while stablecoins may not directly offer many investment opportunities for retail participants, they indirectly accelerate the rise of neobanks within crypto.

Neobanks are not a concept unique to crypto. They have long been a broader trend within fintech, referring to banks without physical branches that offer the full range of traditional banking services while focusing on delivering the best possible experience for internet and mobile-first users. Their emergence has already disrupted traditional banking.

What differentiates crypto neobanks is that users retain full self-custody of their assets. You can deposit crypto, which is automatically converted into stablecoins for spending. More broadly, these platforms aim to provide a suite of banking services comparable to traditional banks, including credit scoring.

This is a trend that, in my view, helps move crypto toward becoming “end-to-end finance,” effectively blurring the boundary between on-chain assets and real-world financial assets.

*Prediction Market:

Since gaining prominence during the U.S. election cycle, prediction markets have been widely discussed, with many believing they will become a major market trend. I share that view, largely because the surrounding context and environment also help drive the growth of perpetual trading.

Beyond that, I believe prediction markets exhibit strong product–market fit, as they address a real, practical demand in the market: risk hedging.

Options contracts are traditionally used by financial institutions and large-position holders to hedge against future price volatility. However, they come with two key issues:

This is why I view prediction markets as having strong product–market fit. They allow users to hedge risk against future events, rather than merely speculating on the price of an asset or commodity. Once a product truly scratches an existing itch, the next step is simply to make that product better and more refined.

That said, liquidity remains a critical challenge that needs to be solved more effectively. And from a retail perspective, if one recognizes this as a developing trend, there is currently no clear way to gain exposure other than grinding for airdrops.

This is a sector I’ll continue to watch very closely.

*De-Exchange:

De-Exchange, as I’m using the term here, refers to the on-chain asset trading environment. It’s not limited to individual DEX platforms, but can extend to an entire trading-centric ecosystem, with Solana being a prime example.

In June, the ratio of DEX trading volume relative to CEX volume continued to hit a new yearly all-time high. There are two main reasons behind this:

The second factor, in particular, can be seen as a key driver behind the onboarding of more users into on-chain environments. In addition, newer generations of AMMs, such as PropAMM, are becoming a critical lever in improving price competitiveness for on-chain trading, especially on Solana.

PropAMM is bringing a highly competitive spot trading environment to Solana and has proven to be especially effective for top-tier assets, offering better optimization than legacy AMM models.

Combined with the rise of neobanks, this evolution could further enhance user acquisition through improved on-ramp and off-ramp pathways, a role that has traditionally been dominated by centralized exchanges.

As a result, the trend from PropAMMs to fully integrated on-chain trading platforms is one of the key developments worth watching this year.

On the sidelines of this growth, I’ve been forming a rough trade idea, still under observation as I evaluate its validity. The underlying assumption is as follows:

If the pace of new asset launches in crypto continues to slow, AMMs, whose core strength lies in serving newly launched assets with shallow liquidity and limited oracle price feeds (an area where PropAMMs are less effective), may face inevitable revenue shortfalls. If that’s the case, could this mark the beginning of a significant downturn for pure-play AMM projects?

*Creative Idea:

The final keyword I want to highlight for Crypto 2026 is Creative Idea.

This is intentionally an open-ended lens. The term is broad enough to keep me constantly observing potential developments that I may not be able to foresee until clear signals begin to emerge.

I’m not trying to define exactly what it will be. Broadly speaking, whether it’s a new and unconventional idea, an improvement on an existing problem, or a way of making something old feel interesting again, these are all experiments worth paying attention to.

One example is Ore, which emerged on Solana with the idea of Solana’s version of Bitcoin or digital gold, something I’ve mentioned before. (The price has gone up. This is not an investment call.)

Speculation is born from FOMO, and FOMO runs deep in human nature. As long as markets exist, speculation will never disappear. The only thing that changes is where speculative waves form and how intense they become for different asset groups across different market phases.

You can never be certain about what will happen in an environment where nothing is inherently certain. The keywords outlined above may encounter unforeseen variables that cause them to fade or prevent them from fully materializing in 2026.

Everything analyzed in this piece is an effort to break down and deeply understand the market’s underlying mechanics, and from there, to outline scenarios that carry a higher probability of playing out over time. Consistently observing the market remains the most effective way to stay aligned with it and capture opportunities as they arise.

Don’t miss the weekly market observation pieces on IVY Newsletter.

I didn’t. And in fact, I never have. Macro is undeniably an important force that can reshape the entire market structure in an instant. That said, I choose to pay attention to it at a measured level, rather than living and breathing every political headline, economic data point, or interest-rate move.

I became even more confident in this approach after reading a memo by Howard Marks, which I believe you should read at least once: Thinking About Macro.

This article has already run long, so I’ll save a more detailed discussion on the macro backdrop and the most effective way to live with it for a separate piece.

Instead, I’ll close with a quote from Thinking About Macro:

As Warren Buffett once said:

“We believe that the macro future is unknowable. Or more precisely, macro forecasting is an area where, much like investing in general, it’s easy to be right with the crowd, but extremely difficult to be right more than the crowd.

Consensus forecasts offer no advantage; advantage only arises when you are more right than others, when you possess information or insight that allows you to earn consistently above-average returns.”

Many investors believe that their job requires forming a macro view and investing in line with that outlook. Successful stock pickers or skilled real estate investors often express strong opinions about macro prospects, even when there is no evidence that their investment success stems from accurate macro forecasting. Still, because macro developments can have such a large impact, many argue that ignoring them altogether is irresponsible.

But in reality: