The six major tracks of the 2026 crypto market: from stablecoins to AI data, mining opportunities are here

Messari recently released a 100,000-word annual report that provides an in-depth analysis of 60 key trends in the crypto market for 2026. If you only have 10 minutes to read, check out this condensed interpretation—divided into six major tracks to help you quickly grasp market directions.

Track 1: Stablecoins Evolve from Tools to Strategic Weapons

Stablecoins are completing their identity shift. From initially serving as trading pair means, they are gradually evolving into the United States’ “monetary policy tool.” The GENIUS Act is expected to pass in 2025, marking the first time the US regulates stablecoins at the federal level, officially upgrading them from crypto toys to national financial infrastructure.

Supporting data: Tether still dominates emerging markets, with a valuation approaching $50 billion and annual revenue exceeding $500 million. Meanwhile, traditional financial giants like JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citibank are also building their own stablecoins or payment infrastructure. Cloudflare and Google have even jointly developed stablecoin and payment protocols designed specifically for AI agent trading.

Key observation: High-yield stablecoins (like USDe) will explode in 2026. As interest rates decline, stablecoins based on real-world cash flows—such as private credit, infrastructure, and tokenized real estate—will become the main collateral and savings tools in DeFi. USDe’s locked amount has surpassed $670 million, with a yield of 9.7%; Maple’s USD product is locked at $4.5 billion, yielding 5.5%.

Track 2: Increasing Differentiation in L1/L2 Ecosystems, Each Showing Off

Bitcoin remains the strongest magnet for capital. In the face of no real growth in L1s, crypto funds continue to flow into Bitcoin. Ethereum’s role has evolved into an “institutional-grade settlement hub”—not a standalone leader, but a platform providing on-chain infrastructure for traditional finance. 64% of RWA deployments are on Ethereum, confirming this.

On the L2 layer, clear differentiation is evident. Base leads with 62% of L2 revenue share, thanks to institutional backing; Arbitrum is strongest in DeFi; Solana continues to dominate retail and memecoin trading.

New opportunities also emerge for smaller chains: Stellar will focus on stablecoins and payment applications in 2026, with transaction fees as low as $0.00055, already equipped with ready wallets and global fiat channels; TRON continues to dominate USDT transfers in emerging markets, with annual revenue over $500 million and a deep moat; Ripple plans to turn XRPL into an “institution-friendly DeFi chain,” adding compliance features at the base layer.

Track 3: RWA From Concept to Trillion-Asset On-Chain

Tokenization of real-world assets is entering an acceleration phase. By 2025, RWA scale has reached $1.8 billion, mostly government bonds and credit instruments. The DTCC, the US securities clearinghouse, has received SEC approval to tokenize US securities, marking a move from experimentation to mainstream.

RWA lending becomes a new hot spot. Active loans on the Figure platform have reached $14.1 billion, mainly from home equity credit. Merchant credit is another direction—on-chain credit utilizing transparent cash flows for automatic evaluation and lending, serving small and medium-sized merchants worldwide, a blue ocean traditional finance struggles to cover.

Future directions: upgrading from simple RWA trading to “RWA collateralized lending,” then to “training proprietary physical AI models with RWA.” Companies with exclusive data will see significant revenue increases.

Track 4: DeFi Moving Toward Institutionalization and Compositing

The era of single lending protocols is over. Modular lending (like Morpho) will erode the market share of monolithic lending. Why? Morpho can open dedicated vaults for long-tail assets (small tokens, RWA), supporting risk isolation and custom parameters—precisely what institutions and new banks need. Morpho has established partnerships with a major exchange, bringing nearly $1 billion in deposits.

New profit streams are emerging:

• Wallet business: Phantom wallet earned $9.46 million in November, surpassing most DEXs despite not reaching $1 billion in trading volume
• Trading bots: Axiom earns $18.74 million monthly at a 1.15% fee rate
• Asset issuance (LaunchPad): pump.fun earns $34.92 million monthly at a 0.51% fee rate

In 2026, DEXs will integrate wallets, bots, and LaunchPads to achieve full trading process control. New revenue sources include subscriptions and premium execution fees.

Perpetual contracts (Perps) are this year’s dark horse. Hyperliquid’s trading volume has exceeded $28 trillion, and HIP-3 proposes allowing any assets to be listed. Stock perpetuals are especially attractive—high leverage trading across time zones, avoiding offline regulation, simple operation—potentially becoming the strongest killer app in crypto in 2026.

Track 5: AI and Crypto Empower Each Other

DePIN and AI data are a perfect match. The biggest gap in AI isn’t algorithms but real-world data (robots, autonomous driving, physical interactions), still 2-4 orders of magnitude away. Grass has collected multimodal data through idle bandwidth, earning $12.8 million in 2025. More “data factories” focusing on boundary applications (not just collection but also reinforcement learning environments and new benchmarks) will emerge in 2026.

Three routes for DeAI:

• Vertical integration: One-stop platforms (research + trading + yield + management), like Bloomberg Terminal
• Embedded AI: Large interfaces integrating optimal systems (Phantom, Axiom, etc.)
• Modular coordination: Aggregation platforms coordinating hundreds of specialized agents, routing users through a “main agent” to the best expert

Bittensor is a dominant player in this field, attracting top AI talent worldwide through competitive incentives. Its ecosystem consists of multiple independent subnetworks, each focusing on a specific AI task.

AI also introduces security challenges. While AI can help developers quickly deploy DeFi applications, it also provides hackers with powerful tools to find vulnerabilities. Defensive measures have shifted from “pre-launch audits” to “continuous active defense,” requiring high-trust environments—static audits are no longer enough.

Track 6: Consumer-Grade Crypto and Prediction Markets’ New Wave

Memecoin, NFT, social, wallets, and gaming are becoming the five pillars of consumer crypto. The best applications will embed a “market” concept—integrating memecoin/NFT culture, prediction market info, social content, and collectibles trading to form a complete ecosystem.

Prediction markets surged due to the US elections. Trading volume jumped from a low of $1.7 billion after the election to $9.2 billion in November, with sports and cultural categories growing fastest. The future of prediction markets: becoming direct risk pricing, hedging, and real-time information markets for institutions and users.

Social tokenization has promising prospects. Social is the biggest slice of consumer tech; creator economy will reach $48 billion by 2027. Crypto is turning content, creators, and interactions into tradable markets. Zora is more optimistic in 2026, supported by traffic from a major exchange.

“Strange RWAs” are emerging: trading cards, sports cards, TCG cards, whiskey, clothing, CS skins, collectibles, and figurines will become on-chain hotspots in 2026.

Wallets are the biggest winners. All paths point to wallets—from trading to lending to prediction markets—being integrated into wallet apps. By 2026, more traditional financial tools will be added to wallets, making them the primary interface for most people’s financial activities.

Final Judgment for 2026

Stablecoin supply is expected to double and surpass $600 billion, with retail platforms (Remitly, Western Union, etc.) launching their own stablecoins. Dozens of platform-level tokens (USDH, CASH, PYUSD) will compete, and stablecoins will become part of daily life for billions.

Capital flow reorganization: Solid small tokens will see reversal opportunities; L1 tokens will no longer be “high-leverage versions of Bitcoin” but more like high-growth tech stocks, depending on adoption, fees, and applications; many will fall to reasonable valuations.

New playbook for Smart Money: Lock-in + hedging strategies will become standard. For example, locking veAERO on Aerodrome to earn 31% weekly yield, while opening equivalent perpetual shorts on Hyperliquid to hedge price fluctuations, with total returns exceeding 40%—not a directional gamble, but a cash flow engineering.

Four acceleration tracks: More real-world finance (payments, lending, settlement) embedded into on-chain infrastructure; traditional asset tokenization blurs asset class boundaries; more crypto companies will IPO; financial super apps (wallets + on-chain rails integrating stocks, payments, and credit) will mature.

Overall sentiment is positive: Bitcoin remains “digital gold,” with its price positively correlated with total stablecoin supply; Ethereum continues to serve as an institutional settlement hub; the entire market is shifting from speculation to building financial infrastructure.

By 2026, crypto will no longer be a niche game but an essential part of the financial system.