The 2026 New Narrative for Crypto Assets: From Speculation to Utility, How Will the Profit Landscape of Exchanges Be Reshaped?

Year-end reports from major institutions are flooding in. CoinShares’ 77-page report, “2026 Outlook: The Year of Practicality Wins,” was released and immediately sparked widespread discussion. This established European digital asset management firm (founded in 2014, managing over $6 billion in assets) presents a core judgment in the report: 2026 will be a decisive turning point for crypto assets shifting from speculation-driven to utility-driven.

Macro Tone: Opportunity Window Under Economic Soft Landing

The economic environment in 2026 may be more fragile than expected. Although the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates, the target rate may only fall to the mid-3% range, with a slow and cautious process—remembering the surge in inflation in 2022. While inflation continues to ease, it remains insufficiently decisive, with tariffs disruptions and supply chain restructuring keeping core inflation high.

The report offers three scenario forecasts: optimistic (soft landing + productivity surprises), Bitcoin could break through $150,000; baseline (slow expansion), trading range between $110,000–$140,000; bearish (recession or stagflation), potentially dropping to $70,000–$100,000. Currently, Bitcoin is priced at $90.22K, leaving considerable room from these expected ranges.

Of particular note is the erosion of the US dollar reserve status—down from 70% in 2000 to the current mid-50%. Central banks in emerging markets are diversifying their holdings, creating structural tailwinds for Bitcoin as a non-sovereign store of value.

Mainstreaming Bitcoin: Structural Barriers Cleared, Adoption Requires Time

In 2025, the US achieved a key breakthrough: approval of spot ETFs, removal of retirement plan restrictions, application of fair value accounting rules for corporations, and the US government designating Bitcoin as strategic reserves. However, these policy benefits have not yet fully translated into actual adoption.

Wealth management channels, retirement plan providers, corporate compliance teams are still gradually adapting. But in 2026, incremental progress is expected: four major brokerages are expected to open Bitcoin ETF allocations, at least one major 401(k) provider will allow Bitcoin allocations, and at least two S&P 500 companies will hold Bitcoin.

Corporate Holding Concentration Risks Emerge

A significant hidden risk is excessive concentration of corporate holdings. Public companies’ Bitcoin holdings surged from 266,000 BTC in 2024 to 1,048,000 BTC, with total value skyrocketing from $11.7 billion to $90.7 billion. However, the top 10 companies control 84% of these holdings, indicating a high concentration.

What risks does this pose? Two major dilemmas faced by leading companies are representative: one, inability to fund sustainable debt and annual cash flow obligations (close to $680 million); two, refinancing risk (the most recent maturing bonds are due September 2028). If forced to sell Bitcoin to meet debt obligations, it could trigger a vicious cycle. The maturity of options markets also reduces volatility—while a sign of maturity, it may weaken corporate purchasing power.

Rise of Hybrid Finance: Dual Engines of Stablecoins and RWA

The stablecoin market has exceeded $300 billion, with Ethereum holding the largest share, Solana growing the fastest. The GENIUS Act requires compliant issuers to hold US Treasuries reserves, creating new demand for government bonds. The total value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) increased from $1.5 billion at the start of 2025 to $3.5 billion, with private credit and US Treasury tokenization growing the fastest.

The revenue-sharing mechanisms of stablecoins are worth in-depth exploration. Tether (USDT) accounts for 60% of the stablecoin market, Circle (USDC) for 25%. New entrants like PayPal’s PYUSD face network effects challenges. The revenue-sharing agreement between Coinbase and Circle for USDC is crucial—such profit-sharing models will directly impact the profitability structure of exchanges.

Stablecoin issuers face interest rate decline risks: if the Fed cuts rates to 3%, they would need to issue an additional $88.7 billion in stablecoins to maintain current interest income. Under this pressure, cooperation revenue sharing with exchanges will become a new income source for issuers.

Rise of Decentralized Exchanges and Changing Trading Landscape

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) with monthly trading volumes exceeding $600 billion are eroding centralized exchange market share. Solana handles $40 billion in daily transactions, attracting institutional clients with its high efficiency.

Traditional exchanges face new competitive patterns: Morgan Stanley E*TRADE, Charles Schwab, and other traditional financial institutions are preparing to enter. In this wave of integration, profit-sharing models among exchanges are evolving—from pure transaction fees to joint income sharing with stablecoin issuers, and layered commissions in institutional brokerage. How competitors negotiate and share profits has become a new battleground.

Differentiation Competition Among Smart Contract Platforms

Ethereum expands through Rollup-centric routing, with Layer-2 throughput increasing from 200 TPS a year ago to 4,800 TPS. The US spot Ethereum ETF has attracted approximately $13 billion in capital inflows.

Solana stands out with its highly optimized single-chain execution environment, with DeFi total TVL around 7%. Stablecoin supply exceeds $12 billion (a surge from $1.8 billion in January 2024), and RWA projects are expanding. The spot ETF launched on October 28 has attracted net inflows of $382 million, with ETH trading at $3.07K.

Other high-performance chains like Sui, Aptos, Sei, Monad compete through architectural differentiation. Hyperliquid focuses on derivatives trading, accounting for over a third of blockchain total revenue. Market fragmentation is severe, and EVM compatibility has become a competitive advantage.

Miner Transformation: From Single Mining to Diversified Revenue

Public miners’ hash rate grew by 110 EH/s in 2025, but a larger shift is happening in business models. Miners announced HPC (High-Performance Computing) contracts valued at $65 billion, with Bitcoin mining revenue share expected to fall from 85% to below 20% by the end of 2026.

HPC operations achieve profit margins of 80-90%, far exceeding mining. This indicates that future mining revenue models will be diversified: ASIC manufacturers, modular mining, intermittent mining (coexisting with HPC), and sovereign nation mining. This transformation is essentially a redistribution of income sources—miners will no longer rely solely on Bitcoin block rewards but will balance and allocate resources across multiple revenue channels.

New Directions in Venture Capital

Crypto venture funding reached $18.8 billion, surpassing the total for 2024. Driven mainly by large transactions: Polymarket received $2 billion in strategic investment (ICE), Stripe’s Tempo received $500 million, Kalshi received $300 million.

In 2026, four emerging key areas: RWA tokenization, AI combined with crypto, retail investment platforms, and Bitcoin infrastructure (Layer-2 and Lightning Network).

Mainstreaming of Prediction Markets

Polymarket’s weekly trading volume during the 2024 US election exceeded $800 million, with event accuracy verified: about 60% of events with 60% probability occurred. In October 2025, ICE made a strategic investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, marking recognition from mainstream financial institutions. Weekly trading volume is expected to surpass $2 billion in 2026.

Core Insight: The Era of Practicality Arrives

The most profound point in this report is: Digital assets are abandoning the ideal of replacing traditional financial systems, instead enhancing and modernizing existing systems. 2026 will be a critical year for this transformation to accelerate.

The integration of public blockchains, institutional liquidity, regulatory market structures, and real economic use cases is advancing at an unexpected pace. Tokens are increasingly resembling equity assets, with more protocols generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue and distributing to token holders. Hyperliquid uses 99% of its revenue daily to buy back tokens; Uniswap and Lido have also launched similar mechanisms.

Improved regulatory clarity is laying the foundation for institutional adoption: the US GENIUS Act, EU MiCA, and Asian prudential regulatory frameworks are all moving in this direction.

Overall, 2026 will be a pivotal year for digital assets transitioning from the fringes to the mainstream, from speculation to practicality, and from fragmentation to integration. In this process, profit distribution among exchanges, issuers, miners, and developers will be thoroughly reshaped—those who can establish advantageous partnerships in emerging fields like stablecoins, RWA, and derivatives will control future institutional capital.