# I. Top Ten Predictions for 2026

1. Institutionalization of Regulation and Trillions in Capital Influx With the implementation of the U.S. "GENIUS" and "CLARITY" acts, the crypto industry will transition from a law enforcement-led phase to a rules-driven golden era. This shift will unleash over a trillion dollars of institutional capital, driving banks to issue compliant stablecoins and RWA on public chains at scale, resulting in a 100% explosive growth in crypto asset custody compared to 2025.
2. Bitcoin Becomes a Global Strategic Reserve Asset Bitcoin will officially shed its speculative label, with volatility dropping to S&P 500 levels, evolving into a global non-sovereign reserve asset. At least five sovereign nations are expected to include it in their treasuries, with institutional holdings exceeding 15% of circulating supply, making it an indispensable digital hedge anchor in global corporate balance sheets.
3. Stablecoins Dominate the Global Digital Cash Layer The annual settlement volume of stablecoins is expected to surpass Visa's processing amount, becoming the largest 7×24-hour clearing network globally. Under regulatory benefits, interest-bearing stablecoins will be highly integrated with tokenized deposits, serving as the fiat interface of the Web3 era and providing a financial inclusion channel for global users linked to U.S. Treasury yields.
4. Leapfrog Growth of RWA and Full Asset Trading The market size of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) will surpass $500 billion, with 2% of global U.S. Treasuries circulating on public chains. Crypto exchanges will evolve into full-asset centers, allowing users to seamlessly switch between cryptocurrencies, stocks, and bonds within a unified liquidity pool, achieving millisecond cross-market allocation of assets and liquidity.
5. Birth of One-Stop "Financial Super Apps" Multiple Web3 super apps with over 100 million users will emerge, integrating spot, meme, RWA, and traditional securities under unified compliant accounts. These applications will completely bridge the gap between on-chain and off-chain, allowing users to operate without needing to understand private keys or gas fees, with the Web3 user base surpassing 20% of the global internet population, achieving large-scale seamless applications.
6. Capital Revaluation in the Era of DATs 2.0 Digital Asset Financial Companies (DATs) will evolve from passive coin hoarding to active on-chain banks, capturing excess returns through staking and restaking. The valuation of such companies will shift from net asset value to cash flow discount models, with annualized cash flow returns expected to stabilize above 8%.
7. Diversification of ETFs and the Demise of Investment Barriers Spot ETFs will explode from single-coin to strategy-enhanced and thematic index types, with over 50 products covering altcoin combinations, AI + DePIN themes, etc. The share of cryptocurrency ETFs in total assets of global exchange-traded funds will exceed 5%, completely removing the last barriers for traditional pensions and retail investors to participate in emerging tracks.
8. Prediction Markets Upgrade to Risk Pricing Centers Prediction markets will leap from native gaming tools to global risk pricing infrastructure. Through probability pricing and capital gaming mechanisms, they will become more accurate collective expectation indicators than traditional polls, with predictive accuracy for macro events consistently surpassing traditional institutions.
9. AI Intelligent Economy Takes Shape Relying on protocols like x402, AI entities will possess independent wallets and autonomously initiate transactions, with over 30% of on-chain interactions completed by AI. This machine-to-machine model will support settlements as low as $0.001, completely resolving real-time payment challenges for computing power leasing and data procurement, marking the synchronization of on-chain value flow with information flow.
10. Vertical Utility Differentiation in Public Chain Tracks Public chain competition will shift from a single performance game to a professional landscape based on demand allocation. Ethereum will dominate over 40% of institutional-level settlement and security layers; high-performance chains like Solana will support social and payment interactions; other specialized chains will delve into AI computing power and DePIN tracks, forming a differentiated competitive loop.

# II. Macroeconomic Review and Forecast

The global macroeconomic landscape in 2025 is characterized by high complexity and interwoven variables, with the core storyline revolving around the dynamic balance between inflation stickiness, economic growth resilience, and financial stability in a high-interest-rate environment.
The Federal Reserve's policy tone is situated in a rate-cutting cycle, yet remains extremely restrained. Although it supports the economy through slight rate cuts and a slowdown in balance sheet reduction (dovish), the pace of rate cuts is slower than market expectations due to factors such as a shift in the composition of voting committee members to hawkish, a rebound in inflation expectations, and tariff policy disruptions, reflecting a strong cautious stance ready to pause rate cuts to curb inflation. The Fed consistently emphasizes a data-dependent principle in its meetings and policy communications, particularly focusing on core PCE, service inflation, and labor market tightness.
At the beginning of the year, the federal funds target rate remained in a restrictive range, with the Fed repeatedly stressing that it would not easily loosen policy until inflation is "sustainably suppressed." As the year progresses, with the narrowing of the employment gap and structural slowdown in economic growth momentum, the Fed's policy focus shifts from a singular anti-inflation stance to a dual mission balance. Despite core inflation remaining sticky due to global trade policy disruptions, the Fed initiated a gradual rate-cutting process to prevent an unexpected economic stall against the backdrop of high real interest rates. This move does not signal a return to a low-interest-rate era but is a tactical adjustment to ensure inflation does not rebound while correcting excessive tightening, maintaining an overall tone still within a "restrictive range."
In 2025, the U.S. inflation process fell into a "non-symmetric retreat" stalemate. On one hand, core goods inflation continued to deflate under the combined effects of supply chain redundancy and slowing global demand, effectively offsetting some price pressures; on the other hand, service inflation, constrained by the slow transmission of housing rents and the rigidity of labor-intensive structural costs, exhibited strong downward resilience. As the second half of the year approaches, market expectations for a new round of trade tariffs and expansionary fiscal policies heat up, significantly raising the tail risk of secondary inflation. This inflation pattern leads to a plateau around 2.7% for core CPI, forcing the Fed to maintain a slow and steady rate-cutting path, ensuring inflation expectations are not anchored by maintaining a restrictive rate range.
In contrast to the slow retreat of inflation, the labor market released clearer signs of weakening in the second half of 2025. The unemployment rate has steadily climbed from a low point at the beginning of the year to 4.6%, reaching the highest threshold since 2021, marking a substantial easing of the tight labor supply situation that had been severely strained in the post-pandemic era. Although non-farm data continues to show positive growth, the internal structure has severely diverged, with hiring momentum in interest-sensitive manufacturing and finance sectors nearly stagnating. Defensive pressures on the employment front are replacing anti-inflation demands, becoming the decisive marginal variable driving the Fed to initiate a stepwise rate-cutting process by the end of the year.

Data Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. Census Bureau via FRED®
Looking ahead to 2026, the U.S. economy is expected to enter a recovery phase. Although high-interest rate pressures will still constrain the extent of consumer expansion, the structural robustness of the labor market and the repair of household balance sheets will create a solid buffer against recession. Monetary policy will maintain a neutral but cautious tone, rather than returning to an extremely low-interest-rate era.
At the same time, rising sovereign debt pressures will compel fiscal policy to shift towards precision targeting. Against the backdrop of global liquidity rebalancing, the stabilization of real interest rates will drive capital back from speculative premiums to certainty-driven growth, while the fragmentation and reorganization of geopolitical economics will lead to significant defensive differentiation in growth performance among nations.

Data Source: Federal Reserve Board, Summary of Economic Projections, December 10, 2025.
In this macro context, the external environment for the crypto market is expected to improve compared to previous cycles, reflecting more structural improvements rather than mere liquidity-driven growth. With the end of the rate hike cycle, expectations for real interest rates are stabilizing and declining, alleviating long-term valuation pressures on risk assets. Additionally, progress in stablecoin regulation and crypto ETFs in the U.S. in 2025 has gradually brought crypto assets into a clearer regulatory framework.
Entering 2026, policy focus will shift from institutional establishment to execution and coordination, further influencing institutional capital allocation methods. Overall, the impact of macro factors on the crypto market in 2026 will manifest more through policies, capital structures, and institutional behaviors, as the crypto market transitions from a cyclical, narrative-driven speculative market to an alternative asset class deeply linked with the global macro cycle.

# III. Development of Major Public Chains

1. BTC

1.1 Market Performance

Data Source: BitMart API
In 2025, Bitcoin's price exhibited a high-level oscillation trend. At the beginning of the year, Bitcoin briefly surged to $109,000 but quickly retraced to $74,000 due to market uncertainties triggered by U.S. tariff policies. Subsequently, market narratives shifted towards the Fed's rate-cutting expectations, propelling Bitcoin into a strong upward trend from March to July, with prices climbing from around $80,000 to approximately $125,000.
However, the turning point in the second half of the year was more dramatic. Following the historic liquidation event in the crypto market on October 11 and the U.S. government shutdown, Bitcoin's price continued to decline. By December, its price closed at around $85,000, retreating nearly 33% from its peak during the year. The clear trend throughout the year indicates that Bitcoin's price fluctuations have become deeply anchored to global liquidity expectations and macroeconomic data, increasingly highlighting its attributes as a macro-sensitive asset.
1.2 On-Chain Data
Data Source: CoinGecko, DeFiLlama
On the on-chain data front, Bitcoin's market capitalization expanded rapidly in the first half of the year and maintained high levels, with high-level oscillations in the third quarter, followed by a significant decline in the fourth quarter due to systemic risk impacts, indicating that while the price center has risen, volatility has significantly increased. Trading volume was primarily concentrated at trend inflection points and during periods of sharp fluctuations, especially highlighted during rapid declines, reflecting Bitcoin's status as the core liquidity carrier of the crypto market.
TVL and active address counts rebounded during the upward phase and contracted during the correction phase, showing that on-chain participation is highly sensitive to price changes, with overall trading and speculative demand remaining dominant and limited long-term capital accumulation. Overall, Bitcoin has entered a new phase of "high market capitalization, high liquidity, and strong volatility," with structural funds like ETFs and DATs mainly reinforcing trends and providing temporary support, while their impact on on-chain activity and real usage demand remains limited. In the future, Bitcoin's core position in the global risk asset system will be further solidified, but the market is more likely to exhibit structural fluctuations within a high-level range rather than a one-sided trend.
1.3 BTC Spot ETF

Data Source: SoSoValue
From the data throughout 2025, the capital flow of the BTC spot ETF is highly correlated with tariff policies, rate-cutting expectations, fiscal uncertainties, and systemic fluctuations in the crypto market, reflecting the sensitivity of institutional capital to macro variables. At the beginning of the year, under the influence of soft landing and rate-cutting expectations, the BTC ETF experienced large-scale inflows, driving prices upward; in February and March, repeated tariff expectations put pressure on risk assets, leading to outflows from the ETF, which took on more risk-off and position adjustment functions.
In the second quarter, the macro environment improved temporarily, the rate-cutting path was repriced, and financial conditions became marginally looser, resulting in continued inflows into the BTC ETF from April to July, pushing Bitcoin prices to refresh historical highs. However, the market black swan event on October 11, combined with the U.S. government shutdown, significantly increased the ETF's sensitivity to volatility, leading to sustained rapid outflows.
Overall, the circulation changes of the BTC spot ETF in 2025 were mainly driven by the U.S. macro cycle and market fluctuations: rate-cutting expectations determined the mid-term direction, tariffs and fiscal risks amplified volatility, while extreme events accelerated risk-off, indicating that although Bitcoin has entered the institutional allocation system, it is still in a transitional phase from high-volatility assets to stable macro allocation assets.
1.4 DATs Company Holdings Value

|-----------------------------------|------------|----------------------|------------|------------------| | Company Name | Ticker | Bitcoin Holdings | In USD | BTC Supply % | | Strategy | MSTR | 671,268 | $59.20B | 3.20% | | MARA Holdings, Inc. | MARA | 53,250 | $4.70B | 0.25% | | Twenty One Capital | XXI | 43,514 | $3.84B | 0.21% | | Metaplanet Inc. | MTPLF | 30,823 | $2.72B | 0.15% | | Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company | CEPO | 30,021 | $2.65B | 0.14% | | Bullish | BLSH | 24,300 | $2.14B | 0.12% | | Riot Platforms, Inc. | RIOT | 19,324 | $1.70B | 0.09% | | Coinbase Global, Inc. | COIN | 14,548 | $1.28B | 0.07% | | Hut 8 Mining Corp | HUT | 13,696 | $1.21B | 0.07% | | CleanSpark, Inc. | CLSK | 13,011 | $1.15B | 0.06% |

Data Source: CoinGlass
The BTC DATs reserve data for 2025 shows a clear stratification in Bitcoin allocation among listed companies. Strategy ranks first with approximately 671,268 BTC, accounting for about 3.20% of circulating supply. Despite the market's deep correction, it continues to accumulate to solidify its market position. However, its stock valuation relative to Bitcoin holdings has significantly compressed, with mNAV dropping to about 1.08 times, at a near historical low, reflecting a decline in market confidence in its "Bitcoin proxy stock" attribute. Overall, leading BTC DATs companies possess strategic advantages but also face high valuation volatility risks. Relying solely on BTC reserves exhibits high beta characteristics, amplifying gains during upward cycles while exacerbating losses and valuation discount pressures during turbulent or downward phases. In contrast, diversified companies (like Coinbase) demonstrate stronger risk-buffering capabilities.
1.5 Outlook for 2026
2026 will mark the formal end of Bitcoin's "four-year cycle" theory, with its price expected to reach a historical high in the first half of 2026. With the comprehensive opening of spot ETFs in mainstream wealth management channels (such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch) and the unlocking of digital asset allocations in 401(k) retirement plans, Bitcoin will transition from a retail-driven speculative asset to an institutional-grade macro-hedging tool. Against the backdrop of rising fiat currency credit risks, Bitcoin's status as a scarce digital commodity will be further solidified, with its volatility structurally decreasing as the options market matures, gradually aligning with the pricing models of traditional macro assets.
In terms of capital structure, Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) will enter the 2.0 era, with Bitcoin becoming an important component of corporate balance sheets, but this also brings potential forced liquidation risks. If market prices experience a deep retracement, highly leveraged institutional positions may face margin pressures, triggering a more severe sell-off chain reaction than retail panic. However, from a medium to long-term perspective, with the implementation of regulatory frameworks like the "Clarity Act," Bitcoin will no longer be merely a speculative tool but will be deeply embedded in the core financial infrastructure of the U.S. and even the global financial system.

2. ETH

2.1 Market Performance

Data Source: BitMart API
Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum's price trajectory in 2025 exhibited higher volatility. The annual trend can be divided into three phases: deep correction, strong recovery, and high-level retreat. At the beginning of the year, influenced by a collective downturn in the crypto market, it fell from a high of $4,040 in 2024 to a low of $1,447 in 2025, with a decline exceeding 65%. Entering the second quarter, as market expectations for Fed rate cuts warmed, capital began to flow back.
Meanwhile, Ethereum DATs companies like Bitmine and SharpLink began to accumulate ETH in large quantities. Driven by dual favorable factors, Ethereum became a major force in the mid-year rally of 2025, with its price rising from the April low to a relative high of about $4,950, an increase of up to 242%. However, as macro uncertainties intensified in the second half of the year, leading to a deep market correction, Ethereum's price experienced a rapid decline. By December, it had fallen from the August high to $2,828, a drop of over 43%.
2.2 On-Chain Indicators

Data Source: CoinGecko, DeFiLlama
At the beginning of the year, Ethereum's market capitalization continued to decline from a high of $444 billion, reaching an annual low of about $177.4 billion in April, during which on-chain TVL and active address counts also fell, indicating insufficient market confidence and a noticeable drop in ecosystem activity. Starting in July, companies like BitMine and SharpLink began to incorporate Ethereum into their corporate strategic reserves, while Ethereum ETF funds saw significant inflows, with a net inflow of $5.43 billion in July alone, directly pushing ETH prices to an annual high of about $4,953 in August. The concentrated influx of capital brought significant wealth and siphoning effects, rapidly elevating both market capitalization and TVL, with TVL peaking at $91.2 billion in August and active address counts rising to 16.8 million, indicating that price increases had transmitted to the on-chain application layer, temporarily activating ecosystem vitality. As the second half of the year progressed, the market shifted from a previous one-sided rise to high-level oscillations and evolved into a deep correction, with Ethereum's price showing a significant decline following the historic black swan event on October 11.
By December, Ethereum's market capitalization had fallen to about $340 billion, with prices already below the main accumulation cost range of leading DATs companies, while Ethereum ETFs experienced net outflows for two consecutive months. The dual weakening of price and capital further transmitted to the on-chain level, with monthly active address counts rapidly declining to 8.34 million, nearly halving from the August peak, reflecting a significant contraction in market risk appetite, with speculative capital and some active users temporarily withdrawing, placing noticeable deleveraging and cooling pressures on the Ethereum ecosystem in the short term.
2.3 ETH Spot ETF

Data Source: SoSoValue
In 2025, the capital flow of the ETH spot ETF exhibited clear phases and high volatility characteristics. After a slight inflow at the beginning of the year, significant outflows occurred in March against the backdrop of rising market uncertainties, reflecting a cautious attitude from early capital. Entering the second quarter, inflows significantly increased in May and June, especially with a net inflow of about $1.16 billion in June, bringing the total net assets of the New York ETF back above $10 billion, indicating that institutional and long-term capital were re-adding positions during stable or rebounding price phases.
In July and August, explosive net inflows occurred, reaching approximately $5.43 billion and $3.87 billion, respectively, driving the total net assets of the ETH ETF to an annual high of about $28.58 billion, showing that institutional allocation demand significantly increased after the ETH price rebound. However, following the impact of the October 11 event, the ETF experienced substantial outflows, particularly with a net outflow of about $1.42 billion in November, lowering total net assets to about $19.15 billion.
2.4 DATs Company Holdings Value

|------------------------|------------|-----------------------|------------|------------------| | Entities | Ticker | Ethereum Holdings | In USD | ETH Supply % | | Bitmine Immersion Tech | BMNR | 4.07M | $12.12B | 3.37% | | SharpLink Gaming | SBET | 863.02K | $2.57B | 0.72% | | The Ether Machine | ETHM | 496.71K | $1.48B | 0.41% | | Ethereum Foundation | - | 229.47K | $684.17M | 0.19% | | Bit Digital | BTBT | 154.40K | $460.35M | 0.13% | | Coinbase | COIN | 148.72K | $443.41M | 0.12% | | Mantle | MNT | 101.87K | $303.73M | 0.08% | | Golem Foundation | GLM | 101.03K | $301.23M | 0.08% | | ETHZilla Corporation | ETHZ | 93.79K | $279.63M | 0.08% | | BTCS Inc. | BTCS | 70.03K | $208.80M | 0.06% |

Data Source: CoinGlass
The significant rise in ETH prices in 2025 was closely related to the large-scale accumulation of Ethereum reserves by companies like BitMine and SharpLink. These companies adopted a strategy similar to the previous asset accumulation strategy of Strategy for BTC, continuously buying ETH through directed issuance, private placements, and other financing methods. Among them, BitMine continuously expanded its ETH reserves to about 4.07 million, accounting for approximately 3.37% of the total ETH supply, with a holding value of up to $12.12 billion, far exceeding other companies. Following closely are SharpLink Gaming and The Ether Machine, holding approximately 863,020 and 496,710 ETH, respectively, to support their liquidity layouts and ecosystem participation; Coinbase's ETH holdings largely serve the operational needs of the exchange and network services rather than purely asset appreciation strategies.
Overall, the ETH holdings of listed companies include both strategic players betting on the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem and participants based on operational needs or diversified asset allocations. This differentiated layout indicates that ETH is increasingly being integrated into corporate asset-liability management frameworks, no longer merely a trading or speculative target, but a core digital asset with strategic value and ecological synergy.
This corporate accumulation behavior has produced a significant supply-demand shock effect: large-scale corporate buying not only raises market expectations for ETH's demand but also enhances institutional confidence in Ethereum as a core digital asset, leading to strong rebounds in ETH prices after multiple phase corrections, with the price even breaking historical highs in August. This surge partly reflects the market's positive response to these companies' accumulation strategies and the linkage effect between ETF capital inflows. Therefore, it can be considered that a significant driving factor for the rise in ETH prices in 2025 is the accumulation rhythm represented by institutions like BitMine and SharpLink—they not only directly boost demand through their own buying but also indirectly amplify price upward momentum through enhanced market sentiment and institutional participation willingness.
2.5 Stablecoin Circulation Volume

Data Source: Artemis
Compared to 2024, the circulation volume of stablecoins on the Ethereum chain saw a significant increase in 2025. The total circulation volume broke historical highs in the second half of the year and continued to expand, injecting unprecedented liquidity depth into the entire DeFi and trading ecosystem, directly echoing the trends of ETF capital inflows and market recovery during the same period. Structurally, a more robust dual-giant + diversified pattern emerged: USDC, with its solid compliance foundation, rebounded strongly, significantly increasing its circulation volume and reshaping its competitive balance with USDT; while USDT, with its unparalleled network effects and cross-chain penetration, continued to maintain its dominant share, with both forming the core pillars of ecological liquidity.
In terms of mechanism innovation, interest-bearing stablecoins represented by USDe, based on cash arbitrage and other new structural designs, achieved breakthroughs from non-existence to rapid growth, with circulation scales quickly rising from zero to several billion dollars, once becoming the third-largest stablecoin in the Ethereum ecosystem. However, following the price decoupling triggered by the black swan event on October 11, the stability of its underlying mechanism and risk exposure faced market scrutiny, significantly weakening its trust foundation, leading to a substantial contraction in circulation volume. Overall, Ethereum remains the most mature and liquidity-concentrated network among all public chains for DeFi ecosystems, with stablecoins still primarily issued and circulated on Ethereum. With the marginal loosening of the regulatory environment in 2025 and the gradual implementation of stablecoin-related legislation, the path for compliant capital to enter has become clearer, and it is expected that stablecoins will continue to thrive on the Ethereum network.
2.6 Layer 2 Ecosystem

Data Source: L2BEAT
Although Layer 2 remains one of the most important tracks in the Ethereum ecosystem in 2025, the TVL of Ethereum Layer 2 has decreased by about 24.6% over the past year, indicating a continued weakening of ecosystem vitality. The long-term lack of new narrative support has caused the entire Layer 2 ecosystem to show a certain degree of regression compared to 2024. Although some established projects like Linea officially launched tokens and went live this year, insufficient market confidence prevented widespread attention to the track, leading to significant price declines shortly after the launch. By December, three months after Linea's launch, its price had cumulatively dropped by over 80%, reflecting that the Layer 2 market still faces challenges of insufficient liquidity and concentrated investor wait-and-see sentiment in the short term.

Data Source: DeFiLlama
Despite the overall underperformance of Layer 2, the development of Base in 2025 remains noteworthy, as it successfully completed a leading layout in Layer 2 market share. Base is undoubtedly one of the most active Layer 2 projects this year. At the beginning of the year, with the emergence of projects like Virtual and Zora, Base attracted a large number of new users and continued to expand its ecosystem. Mid-year, Base launched the Perp Dex project Avantis and the prediction market project Litmitsless in response to market enthusiasm, followed by expectations of token issuance from Base's CEO, further boosting market confidence.
In 2025, Base remained a focal point in the crypto market, with its ecosystem development and user growth allowing its TVL share to reach 47.16%. Looking ahead, the anticipated token issuance from Base is expected to bring significant benefits to its ecosystem, users, and developers. With Coinbase's compliance advantages and mature ecosystem, Base is likely to continue attracting market focus back to the Layer 2 track.
2.7 Outlook for 2026
In 2026, Ethereum will complete its transformation into an institutional-grade financial infrastructure. With the implementation of upgrades like Fusaka and Glamsterdam, and the subsequent Hegota upgrade optimizing execution layer performance, the synergy efficiency between Ethereum's mainnet and Layer 2 will significantly improve, with L2 throughput reaching new levels. At the same time, the L2 market will enter a consolidation and reshuffling phase, with chains like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, which have strong ecological accumulation or exchange backgrounds, occupying monopolistic positions, while L2s lacking practical utility may be eliminated by the market.
In terms of value capture, Ethereum will become the preferred settlement layer for real-world assets (RWA) and institutional-grade DeFi. Projects like BlackRock's BUIDL fund and JPMorgan's JPMD have already demonstrated their composability advantages in a compliant environment. The surge in tokenized government bonds and credit scales in 2026 will bring robust demand for block space to Ethereum. Furthermore, as regulations clarify that liquid staking does not constitute securities trading, staking yields will become the default configuration mode for institutions holding ETH, further compressing circulating supply and elevating the long-term value center of assets.

3. Solana

3.1 Market Performance

Data Source: BitMart API
In 2025, Solana's price performance was relatively disappointing compared to the other two major assets. At the beginning of the year, the SOL price fell from a high of $294 and failed to return to previous highs. Unlike BTC and ETH, which benefited from new capital liquidity brought by ETFs and DATs during this cycle, Solana's ETF did not officially launch until October, resulting in a lack of stable buying support throughout the year.
At the same time, the ongoing token unlocks for Solana increased market selling pressure, exacerbating the price slump. Even in August, when both BTC and ETH refreshed their historical highs, SOL remained around $253 and subsequently fell sharply. Additionally, Solana's ecosystem primarily relies on the shrinking market capitalization of meme-related projects, and its market share has been partially eroded by competitors like BNB and Base, further suppressing SOL's price performance. Overall, Solana's price lacked external capital support, and internal ecosystem growth was constrained, leading to a significantly weaker performance compared to BTC and ETH.
3.2 On-Chain Indicators

Data Source: CoinGecko, DeFiLlama
At the beginning of 2025, SOL entered a correction phase based on high market capitalization and high activity levels, with market capitalization rapidly declining, trading volume contracting, and TVL and active address counts significantly decreasing, indicating insufficient on-chain funds and user retention after the Ai Agent meme's popularity waned. From the second quarter to the middle of the third quarter, SOL experienced a recovery trend, with market capitalization and prices rebounding, reaching annual highs from July to September, with trading volume significantly increasing and TVL rebounding to peak levels, indicating a reflow of funds into DeFi and on-chain applications. However, active address counts continued to decline, primarily due to the meme popularity being siphoned off by the BNB Chain. In the fourth quarter, SOL entered a downtrend and deleveraging phase, with market capitalization, trading volume, and TVL retreating, and active address counts dropping to annual lows, indicating weakened on-chain participation.
Overall, the Solana market in 2025 was essentially driven by price and meme narratives in a high-elasticity cycle. Its advantages lie in strong trading activity and rapid attraction of risk capital, but its shortcomings are in user retention, long-term TVL accumulation, and insufficient support from non-speculative applications for price. SOL exhibits significant amplification effects during upward phases, while also experiencing severe pullbacks during risk contraction phases. In conclusion, Solana remains one of the most trading-active and sentiment-sensitive public chains in the crypto market, but its ecosystem stability and sustainability still heavily depend on market risk appetite and the periodic influx of meme capital.
3.3 ETF Circulation Volume

Data Source: SoSoValue
The first batch of Solana spot ETFs officially launched on October 28, and by December, their managed asset scale had reached approximately $920 million. Due to the short launch time, Solana ETFs did not form a sufficiently large and sustained buying pressure in 2025, thus having a relatively limited impact on SOL's price performance that year. However, from the structural perspective of capital flows, Solana ETFs still exhibit certain positive signals: despite SOL's price weakening in the post-launch phase, ETF capital showed a counter-trend net inflow pattern of "buying more as prices fall." This indicates that some medium to long-term capital is gradually positioning itself in Solana at lower levels, laying potential groundwork for subsequent price recovery and ecosystem valuation restructuring.
3.4 Changes in Meme within the Ecosystem

Data Source: CoinMarketCap
In 2025, the meme track within the Solana ecosystem gradually cooled after experiencing explosive growth at the beginning of the year. This phenomenon was primarily caused by changes in the competitive landscape, insufficient internal ecosystem dynamics, and a lack of new meme narrative cycles. Initially, the AI Agent brought significant attention and market capitalization growth to Solana's meme track, but as the overall crypto market corrected, the market capitalization of related meme assets rapidly declined, leading to a more than 50% retracement in Solana's meme market capitalization from its peak. Subsequently, mid-year, the Solana ecosystem briefly regained some heat due to the emergence of Pumpfun and the rise of Bonkfun, driving a temporary rebound in on-chain meme trading volume and participation, but this wave of enthusiasm lacked continuity.
At the same time, significant changes occurred in the external competitive landscape. For example, the BNB Chain, through the influence of founders CZ and He Yi, continuously generated popular topics, such as Chinese memes and Binance-themed memes, successfully attracting a large amount of attention and capital. The diversity and high topicality of these tracks allowed the BNB Chain to create multiple hits in the meme sector, siphoning off meme users and hot money that might have otherwise flowed to Solana, further contributing to the decline in Solana's meme market capitalization.
3.5 Outlook for 2026
In 2026, Solana will establish its leadership position in consumer applications and the intelligent economy through a high-performance paradigm. With the comprehensive adoption of the Firedancer validator client and the completion of the Alpenglow upgrade, the network will achieve sub-second transaction confirmations (around 100 milliseconds) and the potential for millions of TPS, eliminating throughput bottlenecks for high-frequency applications. Solana will no longer rely solely on meme-driven narratives but will shift towards a diversified on-chain economy composed of high-performance decentralized exchanges, cross-border payments, and DePIN projects. In the payment sector, Solana is rapidly penetrating traditional financial tracks, with the involvement of giants like PayPal and Western Union making it a global settlement hub for dollar stablecoins. Particularly, the development based on protocols like x402 will support a vast machine-native financial system, allowing low-cost, instant micropayments between AI agents. Although the inflation proposal (SIMD-0411) may face withdrawal risks, its strong network effects and increasingly mature market microstructure will attract more professional market makers to migrate from centralized exchanges to Solana DEX.

4. BNB

4.1 Market Performance

Data Source: BitMart API
2025 was a strong year for BNB. Its price rose sharply after hitting a low of about $509 in April, breaking historical highs on October 13, reaching $1,370, with a phase increase of over 169%. This round of growth was primarily driven by the continuous development of the Binance ecosystem and effective market operations: the launch of Binance Alpha attracted a large number of user participants, while founder CZ and co-founder He Yi actively created topics on Twitter, successfully boosting the activity of the meme sector on the BNB Chain—such as "Chinese memes" and "Binance-themed memes," which emerged as hot topics, significantly enhancing the market's attention and capital participation in the chain.
Although BNB's price subsequently retreated under the overall correction of the crypto market, its adjustment was relatively limited, with the current price remaining stable near the levels at the beginning of the upward cycle in August, demonstrating strong resilience and ecological support.
4.2 On-Chain Indicators

Data Source: CoinGecko, DeFiLlama
The growth of the BNB Chain in 2025 was not driven by short-term sentiment or speculation but by a positive feedback loop formed by "increased user activity—amplified trading volume—expansion of TVL and market capitalization." Although there was a phase correction after October, the user scale, trading frequency, and foundational liquidity center have clearly shifted upward, laying a higher starting point for subsequent ecosystem and capital reflows.
From a market performance perspective, BNB's market capitalization exhibited a structure of "initial oscillation, followed by acceleration, and then retreat": hovering around $100 billion at the beginning of the year, it fell to the $80-90 billion range from February to April; starting in June, as on-chain activity increased, it entered an upward channel, surging to about $180 billion in early October against a backdrop of significantly increased trading volume, before retreating to around $120 billion. Trading volume and meme activity, along with on-chain interactions, expanded simultaneously, indicating that the rise was driven by genuine trading demand.
In terms of on-chain fundamentals, TVL peaked at about $8.36 billion in October before retreating, while the number of active addresses reached a high of about 82.85 million during the same period, significantly higher than Solana's at that time. Although TVL fell to about $6.5 billion in December and activity cooled somewhat, it remained significantly higher than mid-year levels, indicating that the BNB Chain has completed an overall elevation of its user and liquidity base.
4.3 Comparison of BNB Meme and Solana Meme

Data Source: Dune
At the beginning of the year, Pump.fun on the Solana chain dominated, but starting in the second quarter, the share of the FourMeme platform within the BNB Chain ecosystem steadily increased, surpassing Solana in the second half of the year and establishing a leading position. This change directly corresponds to the intertwined fates of Solana and BNB Chain in 2025: Solana exposed its issues of insufficient on-chain funds and user retention after the decline of the Ai Agent meme's popularity, with active address counts continuously decreasing and capital and attention being captured by BNB Chain; meanwhile, BNB Chain successfully attracted a large number of new users and trading volume through various Binance-themed memes, achieving a historic leap in on-chain activity.
4.4 BNB Ecosystem
The BNB Chain has built a highly collaborative composite ecosystem around DeFi, AI, RWA, and memes, forming a positive feedback growth flywheel through the mutual reinforcement of capital, users, and narratives, transitioning from phase-based explosions to more sustainable long-term growth under the impetus of deflationary mechanisms and community consensus.
Among these, memes became the most critical growth engine in 2025. The trading activity of memes on the BNB Chain in the first half of the year surpassed that of Solana and Ethereum, becoming an important on-chain traffic entry point. Projects like "Binance Life" exemplified the power of co-creation and social fission within the Chinese community, with their success not being incidental but rather a concentrated reflection of the low-threshold trading environment and content dissemination mechanisms. The BNB Chain further facilitated the issuance, trading, and liquidity migration paths of memes through tools like Four.Meme and Binance Wallet Meme Rush, establishing a standardized meme incubation and amplification mechanism. In terms of liquidity and project supply, Binance provided comprehensive support for ecological projects through its Alpha program, forming a robust liquidity closed-loop system that enables quality projects to gain considerable trading depth and user exposure early on.
During Binance Wallet activities, the Alpha program reached 396 projects, including 46 exclusive TGE tokens and 14 Booster projects, forming a highly dense asset supply pool. The Alpha program created a clear asset growth channel: from on-chain testing, DEX trading to futures and mainboard spot trading, significantly reducing the friction costs for new assets entering mainstream markets and strengthening the BNB Chain's advantages in new asset discovery and pricing efficiency.
Additionally, the BNB Chain's focus is also expanding towards institutional tracks such as RWA and derivatives. It has attracted institutions like BUIDL, Ondo, and China Merchants International, gradually forming a one-stop tokenization solution; at the same time, perpetual contract protocols represented by Aster are rapidly scaling, making derivatives the third core narrative after memes and stablecoins.
4.5 Outlook for 2026
Looking ahead to 2026, the BNB Chain will drive its critical transition from a single high-performance trading chain to a "comprehensive on-chain asset platform." Leveraging deep collaboration with the Binance ecosystem, its closed-loop advantages in traffic, capital, and application scenarios will be further strengthened, enabling the network to efficiently accommodate meme assets, mature DeFi applications, and the continuously expanding real-world asset (RWA) sector. As one of the important infrastructures for the distributed RWA market, the BNB Chain is expected to attract higher-grade, scaled assets onto the chain, thanks to its robust liquidity foundation.
At the same time, with the accelerated integration of AI and crypto technologies, the BNB Chain will increase its layout for AI-friendly infrastructure, focusing on building low-cost payment and settlement networks suitable for AI applications, leveraging its cost advantages and high compatibility to capture key traffic and settlement entry points in the AI-driven on-chain economy. By 2026, the BNB Chain's ecological focus is expected to further extend towards RWA tokenization and institutional-level services, gradually establishing its pivotal role in connecting traditional financial assets with the crypto world.

# IV. Review and Forecast of Popular Tracks

1. Meme: From P/E to P/A: Restructuring the Valuation Model of Meme
Entering 2025, the meme track underwent a historic transformation, evolving from a speculative symbol at the end of the bull market to a core investment line throughout the year. The fundamental reason lies in the migration of capital structure and asset pricing logic—under the widespread overvaluation of VC coins and unlocking pressures, capital systematically flowed towards meme assets with strong dissemination attributes and fair launch mechanisms, forming a new consensus that "attention equals liquidity."
At the beginning of the year, breakthroughs in AI Agent technology propelled meme projects like ai16z to combine technical narratives with viral dissemination, achieving a collective explosion of on-chain AI themes; mid-year, cultural assets represented by Binance Life and other Chinese community memes experienced concentrated explosions, indicating that Eastern communities regained some pricing power. By the end of the year, the x402 protocol, aimed at building a self-sustaining payment network for the AI Agent economy, saw its concept-related meme coins (like PING) gain market favor. The valuation model of the meme track also completed a paradigm shift, transitioning from the traditional P/E logic to the P/A (Price/Attention) model, with attention becoming the core value carrier.
2. Perp DEX: From Application Optimization to Infrastructure Competition
In 2025, the Perp DEX track completed a return to valuation and competitive logic. The market gradually downplayed passive liquidity indicators like TVL, shifting focus to OI (open interest) and fee income to reflect trading activity and commercialization capabilities accurately. High OI represents sustained gaming demand, while stable fee income indicates the protocol's long-term survival capability in weak incentive environments. This indicates that Perp DEX has transitioned from a narrative-driven phase to a mature competitive stage centered on trading depth, execution quality, and commercial closed loops.
On-chain transparency further productized in 2025, giving rise to advantages distinct from CEX—whale monitoring and follow trading. Leading DEXs integrated "smart money tracking" and "one-click follow trading" into their interfaces, enhancing user stickiness and trading frequency, forming a long-term moat against centralized exchanges. The differentiation among projects in the track is no longer "whether it is a DEX," but rather reflected in the underlying execution architecture, target user groups, and ecological closed-loop capabilities.

|-------------|--------------------|-----------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------|----------------------| | Project | Core Position | Underlying Architecture | Core Advantages | Main Users | Key Risks | | Hyperliquid | Absolute leader in the track, trading + asset issuance closed loop | Self-developed high-performance L1 + full-chain order book | Extreme performance, HIP-1 token auction, HLP mixed vault, ecological closed loop | Professional traders, ecological project parties | High concentration risk of HLP, centralized governance of validators | | Aster | On-chain contract layer of the BSC ecosystem | Multi-chain deployment, deeply bound to BSC | Extremely high leverage, privacy orders, cross-chain collateral | High-risk retail investors | Dependent on ecological traffic, long-term moat still to be verified | | Lighter | ZK-driven zero-fee order book DEX | Customized ZK Rollup (Lighter Core) | Zero fees, strong MEV protection, CEX-level fair matching | Retail + high-frequency traders | Business model not fully validated, not yet tokenized | | EdgeX | High-performance parallel execution layer explorer | Modular multi-VM + parallel execution | Parallel matching, FlashLane low-latency channel | Market makers, professional institutions | High technical complexity, ecosystem still in early stages |

Hyperliquid, with its self-developed high-performance L1, full-chain order book, asset issuance closed loop, and HLP mechanism, remains the strongest project in the track, suitable for professional users seeking depth and efficiency, but its structural concentration brings systemic risks. Aster relies on BSC ecosystem dividends, showing strong short- to medium-term explosive potential but limited long-term independent competitiveness. Lighter represents a technical ceiling route, excelling in fairness and anti-MEV capabilities, but its business model is still under validation. EdgeX leans towards optimizing underlying infrastructure, providing performance potential for high-frequency and professional trading, but market acceptance and ecosystem development will require time.
Overall, the competition in Perp DEX in 2025 has transitioned from application function optimization to a full-scale arms race in underlying infrastructure. Future core variables include the maturity of sovereign underlying layers, the construction of global liquidity networks, adaptation to institutional and professional traders, and contributor economic design. The era of simple DeFi protocols has ended, and Perp DEX is accelerating its evolution into vertical integrated on-chain financial infrastructure, with the RWA track expected to become an important source of asset increments for these high-performance platforms.
3. Real World Assets (RWA): From Asset Tokenization to Financial Composability Evolution

Data Source: RWA.xyz
In 2025, the RWA track completed a critical leap from narrative to scaled implementation, becoming the most certain growth engine in the Web3 domain. Data shows that its total market value achieved leapfrog growth, marking that the industry has completely exited the concept validation stage and entered an explosive period driven by institutional capital and clear regulation. This explosion fundamentally stems from RWA's unique positioning: in the global growth narrative, it has become a rare value consensus intersection between traditional capital (Old Money) and crypto capital (New Money), with both forming a synergy under clear regulatory pilots and yield demands, driving rapid market expansion.
The asset structure of the market presents a "one super, many strong" diversified healthy pattern. Among them, tokenized U.S. Treasuries (approximately $8.7 billion) serve as the absolute leader, acting as the on-chain "risk-free interest rate" anchor and the core entry point for institutional entry. Meanwhile, private credit, institutional alternative funds (each around $2.5-2.6 billion), and commodities (around $3.3 billion) also show significant scales, indicating that RWA is successfully penetrating from standardized public market assets into non-standard and alternative investment fields that address liquidity pain points, proving the universality of its technology. More importantly, the surge in on-chain active addresses and holders indicates that RWA assets have transformed from static allocations to active financial elements frequently combined and traded in DeFi, achieving a paradigm shift from "asset tokenization" to "asset utilization."

|-------------------|--------------------------|---------------|------------------------|-------------------|---------------| | Project | Core Position | Main Asset Types | Key Advantages | Core Users | Main Risks | | Ondo Finance | RWA asset leader / TradFi liquidity pipeline | U.S. Treasuries, yield-bearing dollar assets | Strong compliance, high asset quality, provides on-chain "risk-free interest rate" | Institutions, conservative DeFi users | Highly sensitive to U.S. interest rate cycles | | Plume Network | RWA native infrastructure / RWAfi marketplace | Private credit, real estate, alternative assets | RWA dedicated chain, strong composability, addresses non-liquidity pain points | Asset issuers, RWA DeFi users | Asset quality and risk control depend on ecological governance |

The core driving force behind this transformation is the investment logic of "yield stacking." Market focus has shifted from "can it be tokenized" to "how to efficiently combine after tokenization." By combining RWA assets (such as the inherent yields of U.S. Treasuries) with DeFi protocols (like lending and staking), a dual-driven model of "real-world native yields + on-chain financial yields" has been achieved, significantly enhancing capital efficiency.
In this logic, the track has evolved two complementary core players: asset-side representatives like Ondo Finance, focusing on providing compliant, secure standardized yield assets (like tokenized government bonds) and acting as traditional liquidity entry points; and infrastructure-side representatives like Plume Network, dedicated to building RWA-native execution environments, integrating issuance, trading, and DeFi combinations to solve liquidity and composability issues for non-standard assets.
Together, they are driving RWA towards a "Web3 Wall Street" that combines institutional-grade quality with on-chain programmability. Looking ahead, as regulatory frameworks mature further, the RWA track is expected to deeply integrate with high-performance DeFi platforms, becoming its most important asset source and nurturing more complex on-chain derivatives and structured products.
4. Stablecoin Track: Differentiation and Functional Evolution under Compliance

Data Source: Artemis
2025 marks a historic watershed for the stablecoin track. With the implementation of key regulatory frameworks like the U.S. "GENIUS Act" and the EU's MiCA, stablecoins have completely shed their identity as "gray financial tools," entering a new era of highly compliant and institutionalized competition. Their role has fundamentally evolved: from a trading medium within the crypto market to the foundational currency layer of the entire on-chain financial system.
In this context, the stablecoin market in 2025 exhibited dual characteristics of total volume leap and structural reshaping. In terms of total volume, circulation saw significant growth compared to 2024. This is certainly aided by the global monetary policy shift towards easing, but the most direct driving force is the regulatory thaw. The clear legal framework has eliminated compliance concerns for traditional financial institutions, attracting large-scale institutional capital to enter.

|---------------------|-----------------------|-----------------|----------------|---------------| | Project | Core Position | Main Advantages | Target Users | Core Risks | | Circle (USDC) | Leading compliant stablecoin / TradFi settlement layer | Strong regulatory compliance, transparent reserves, institutional trust | Institutional capital, compliant DeFi | Growth elasticity limited, high centralization | | Ethena (USDe) | Yield-bearing stablecoin / High-yield on-chain dollar | High yields, strong capital attraction | Risk-tolerant capital, DeFi players | Highly dependent on market conditions, pressured in bear markets | | Plasma (XPL) | USDT native payment chain | Ultra-low cost, high TPS, payment-friendly | Emerging market payment users | Technical and regulatory uncertainties | | Stable Protocol | Stablecoin payment experience layer | Gas abstraction, Web2-level experience | Non-crypto native users | Business model still under validation | | Wlfi (USD1) | Politically narrative-driven stablecoin | Strong traffic distribution, narrative conversion ability | Political user groups | Highly dependent on political cycles |

Structurally, the market competition logic has clearly differentiated into three paths, forming a complete picture of competition:

• Compliance Trust: Represented by Circle (USDC). Its core is to build institutional trust, serving as a compliant bridge for traditional capital to enter the chain. The strong recovery of USDC in 2025 and the completion of its IPO mark its elevation to a financial infrastructure priced by traditional capital markets. Its planned Arc chain further highlights its ambition to build "currency-level cloud services."
• Yield-Driven: Represented by Ethena (USDe). Its essence is to tokenize basis trading strategies, providing on-chain yields far exceeding traditional government bonds in bull markets and high-volatility environments, making it the "engine asset" of DeFi. However, its model is highly sensitive to market conditions, exhibiting volatility characterized by "initial gains followed by suppression," making it a high-elasticity cyclical tool.
• Application Experience: Represented by payment infrastructures like Plasma and Stable Protocol. They do not attempt to redefine currency but focus on solving the "last mile" of user experience issues, such as promoting stablecoin penetration in emerging market payments and everyday scenarios through ultra-low costs or gas abstraction.

In summary, the core logic of stablecoin growth in 2025 has shifted from serving crypto trading to meeting the "institutional demand" for compliant settlement tools in the traditional world. The market has evolved from a contest of "who can issue dollar tokens" to a long-term track war of "who can define the ultimate form of dollars on-chain." Compliance assets determine the capital entry points, yield assets determine liquidity vitality, while application facilities determine user retention. The outcome of this war may not be a single winner but rather an ecological system that achieves a dynamic balance between compliance, yield, and experience. This lays a solid capital and institutional foundation for stablecoins to embed deeper into global trade, payments, and DeFi in 2026.
5. Privacy Track: Revaluation of Defensive Assets in the Era of Transparency
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the privacy track experienced a historic awakening. Marked by Zcash ($ZEC) rising from a low of about $35 to a peak of $750 in November (an increase of over 2200%), the market completed a thorough revaluation of privacy assets. In a context of highly industrialized on-chain monitoring, address profiling, and fund tracing, privacy is no longer a "tool for evasion" in the black and gray industries but is redefined as a scarce defensive foundational asset in the Web3 system, used to hedge against regulatory, censorship, and information exposure risks.
The essence of this market movement is not merely a simple rebound but a gradual realization that fully transparent blockchains are not suitable for all financial and commercial scenarios, with privacy becoming a necessary patch for the on-chain transition to the "real economy."
Core Game: Differentiation of Privacy Coin Paths

|---------------------|-----------|--------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------| | Project | Core Philosophy | Technology/Mechanism | Market Positioning and Prospects | | Zcash ($ZEC) | Pragmatic compliance bridge | Optional privacy (Shielded / Transparent Address), Viewing Key selective disclosure | Expected to become the main entry point for institutions and compliant capital into privacy assets, enjoying "regulatory premiums" | | Monero ($XMR) | Fundamentalist extreme privacy | Default strong privacy, ring signatures + stealth addresses | Main force for censorship-resistant payments, but liquidity is limited due to exchange delistings and regulatory restrictions |

In 2025, a clear route differentiation emerged within the privacy track, with two major privacy coins represented by Zcash and Monero moving towards completely different ecological niches. Zcash's advantage lies in its "auditability," sacrificing some purity for survival space within the system; Monero's advantage lies in its "uncensorability," but the compliant market is almost closed, leading to highly restricted liquidity. The competition among privacy coins has evolved from a technical contest to a survival strategy contest.
Rise of ZK Privacy Infrastructure

|-----------------------------|-------------|----------------------------|----------------------| | Project | Track Positioning | Core Capabilities | Token Logic | | Aztec | Privacy smart contract public chain | ZK Rollup + Privacy DeFi / Enterprise Contracts | Token priced based on infrastructure premiums, long-term value dependent on ecosystem development | | Aleph Zero (AZERO) | Enterprise-grade privacy public chain | ZK + Privacy Computing + Compliance Interfaces | Public chain valuation, narrative leans towards B-end | | Secret Network (SCRT) | Privacy computing network | TEE + Privacy Contracts | Technically mature, but TEE trust assumptions are slightly weak | | Mina (MINA) | Light nodes + ZK verification | ZK-SNARK recursive proofs | Focused on foundational layer, emphasizing scalability and on-chain verification |

If privacy coins primarily address "personal transfer privacy," the real breakthrough in 2025 came from the zero-knowledge proof (ZK)-driven privacy infrastructure track. This branch does not emphasize complete anonymity but rather focuses on "verifiable but invisible," making it more suitable for institutional, RWA, and enterprise-level financial scenarios. The core advantage of the ZK privacy route lies in its non-confrontational stance with regulators, serving RWA, enterprise settlements, and privacy DeFi, making it more easily accepted by TradFi, institutions, and government systems. However, its disadvantages include high technical complexity, large development costs, and user experience still lagging behind traditional chains, with token value capture paths still in early stages.
The future of the privacy track will be defined by regulation and real financial demand. The EU's Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) in 2027 will pose a significant challenge to strong anonymity coins like Monero, while Zcash and ZK (zero-knowledge proof) infrastructures that allow auditing are expected to become compliance standards. Therefore, the core value of this track will no longer be anonymous transfers but rather providing privacy protection for real-world assets (RWA) and enterprise-level finance. ZK technology can verify transactions without disclosing commercial secrets, thus becoming the "productivity layer" supporting the development of on-chain finance, while traditional privacy coins may play more of a value storage role in specific scenarios.
2026 Popular Track Predictions
1. Real World Assets (RWA)
By 2026, tokenized U.S. Treasuries and money market funds will establish their core positions as the "low-risk anchor" and "on-chain cash" of the on-chain financial system, becoming the preferred tools for institutions to compliantly obtain on-chain yields and connect traditional finance with DeFi, driving RWA into a phase of scaling and mainstreaming.
On this basis, the structure of RWA assets will expand from single government bonds to private credit, tokenized stocks, and alternative assets, technically shifting from "off-chain packaging" to native on-chain issuance and automated settlement, while synthetic perpetual contracts will accelerate development, providing higher liquidity and leveraged exposure for assets like stocks, interest rates, and commodities. The integration of stocks and crypto-native derivatives will give rise to a new track of stock perpetual contracts. With 7×24-hour trading, high leverage, and greater liquidity, it is gradually evolving from a niche product of DeFi to a mainstream trading tool for institutions and retail investors. However, due to its high dependence on funding rate mechanisms and price oracles, there remain potential risks of cost control failure and concentrated liquidation in extreme market conditions.
Additionally, as regulatory frameworks like the "CLARITY Act" gradually clarify, banks and asset management institutions will systematically issue and use RWA on public chains. Ethereum will leverage its compliance and liquidity advantages to become the core settlement layer for institutional-grade transactions, while high-performance chains like Solana will accelerate their catch-up in stock tokenization and high-frequency trading, with RWA assets widely embedded in DeFi and exchange margin systems, pushing on-chain finance towards a more complete global asset market.
2. Prediction Markets
Prediction markets in 2026 will surpass mere information aggregation, evolving into a real-time, investable "social consensus sensor," with their core shifting from betting on events to pricing risks for any uncertainties. AI Agents will become direct participants, automatically creating and trading micro-narrative markets by scanning multi-source data, while their combination with Perp DEX may give rise to "prediction perpetual contracts," achieving continuous and efficient capital utilization. Their outputs will profoundly impact traditional fields: enterprises can use them as "decentralized advisors" to optimize decision-making, while the predicted probabilities generated by the market will itself become high-value "alternative data assets," purchased by hedge funds, insurance companies, and others, expanding the industry's revenue sources from trading fees to data value capture. Of course, how regulators define their attributes (as information platforms, data services, or derivatives) will be a key challenge. Ultimately, prediction markets are expected to become on-chain infrastructure connecting uncertainty, collective wisdom, and financial capital, blurring the traditional boundaries between investment, insurance, and research.
3. Perp DEX
By 2026, decentralized perpetual contract exchanges (Perp DEX) will complete their transition from CEX auxiliary tools to the main battleground for derivatives trading and the core of global asset pricing. As execution efficiency, liquidity depth, and certainty in extreme market conditions continue to approach or even partially surpass leading CEXs, perpetual contract trading volumes will continue to migrate on-chain. The competitive landscape will exhibit characteristics of "head concentration and multi-dimensional competition": platforms like Hyperliquid will occupy the minds of professional traders with dedicated execution environments and deep liquidity, while new entrants will compete for users through capital, fees, and ecological integration, and protocols in high-performance ecosystems like Solana will form differentiations in speed and specific scenarios. More critically, as traditional assets like stock indices and commodities become perpetual contracts, Perp DEX will begin to possess continuous trading and high capital efficiency pricing advantages, gradually challenging the price discovery status of traditional exchanges.
In terms of products and structures, the Perp DEX of 2026 will become the fastest channel for RWA and synthetic assets to go on-chain, igniting a wave of "perpetualization of everything"—from macro indicators, commodities, stocks to private equity, all can achieve 7×24-hour global liquidity through synthetic perpetual contracts. At the same time, Perp DEX will deeply integrate with lending protocols and margin systems, significantly enhancing capital efficiency; AI agents will also become important trading entities, undertaking tasks such as high-frequency arbitrage, market making, and risk hedging.
4. Artificial Intelligence
As autonomous intelligent agent (AI Agent) technology matures, AI is evolving from a passive tool into an economic entity capable of setting goals, making independent decisions, and taking continuous actions, while crypto networks will become the underlying infrastructure supporting this "intelligent economy." A large number of AI agents will directly participate in on-chain activities, forming rigid demands for decentralized identities, permissionless micropayments, verifiable execution environments, and trusted settlement systems, upgrading blockchains from mere value transfer tools to operating systems for agent collaboration and settlement. The market focus will also shift from "AI empowering crypto applications" to "crypto infrastructure designed for AI," including public chains and L2s adapted for high-concurrency agents, decentralized computing power and data markets, and certification mechanisms ensuring the traceability and trustworthiness of AI decisions. On this basis, AI will deeply integrate with mainstream tracks like RWA, prediction markets, and DeFi, promoting the implementation of new models like intelligent asset management and automated trading. Overall, the core of the crypto AI track in 2026 will not lie in the model's capabilities itself, but in whether it can construct rules and networks that allow AI to safely, efficiently, and reliably participate in the decentralized economy, thus evolving crypto technology into the trust and coordination hub of the future intelligent digital economy.
5. Stablecoins
Stablecoins will further break through the realm of crypto trading mediums in 2026, evolving into a global "digital cash layer." Driven by the implementation of regulatory frameworks like the U.S. "GENIUS Act" and the EU's MiCA, compliant stablecoins (like USDC) will become the preferred channel for large-scale compliant settlements between traditional financial systems and the on-chain world, deeply embedding themselves in cross-border payments, corporate treasury management, and supply chain finance. Yield-bearing stablecoins (like Ethena/USDe) will continue to serve as "yield engines" in volatile markets, but the tests of stability will be more severe. Payment-specific chains (like Plasma) and experience optimization protocols (like Stable) will focus on solving the "last mile" of stablecoin applications in everyday scenarios. At the same time, the trend of stablecoin issuers building their own public chains to control full-stack infrastructure will become more pronounced, forming a "track war" around the definition of currency forms.
6. Meme
The meme track will passively evolve in 2026, exhibiting trends of "institutionalization, practicality, and cultural diversification." In terms of financial productization, more meme ETFs may emerge after the Doge ETF, opening doors for institutional capital. In terms of value practicality, the market will lean towards meme projects that combine large ecosystems or payment scenarios rather than purely cultural symbols. In terms of cultural diversification, various public chains will continue to incubate locally distinctive memes, competing for market attention and traffic, resulting in a more decentralized and diversified cultural landscape within the track. The P/A (Price/Attention) logic will continue to dominate the valuation model, but meme assets will gradually be incorporated into structured investment products and portfolio strategies.

# V. Entry of Traditional Financial Institutions

2025 marks a structural turning point in the relationship between traditional finance and crypto finance. Compared to the previous phase dominated by small-scale allocations, peripheral services, or policy watchfulness, traditional financial institutions are beginning to enter crypto assets and their underlying infrastructure in a more systematic, long-term, and institutionalized manner, resulting in a clear acceleration of financialization and institutionalization in the crypto market. This change is not driven by a single policy or product breakthrough but is a phased result of the simultaneous maturation of capital return logic, financial product forms, and global regulatory frameworks.
In terms of participation methods, traditional finance in 2025 has clearly broken through the single logic of buying coins, gradually forming a multi-layered participation structure covering financial products, balance sheets, on-chain infrastructure, and tokenization of real-world assets. On the product level, Bitcoin spot ETFs entered a structural deepening phase in 2025 after completing market education in 2024, with continuous launches of products around crypto asset yield enhancement, options coverage, and derivatives linkage, making it no longer just a high-volatility risk asset but included in institutions' yield management, volatility management, and portfolio allocation frameworks.
More significantly, the banking system and large asset management institutions began to directly participate in on-chain activities within a compliant framework. Regulatory agencies clarified that banks could pay on-chain network fees and hold related crypto assets within reasonable business needs, gradually incorporating blockchain into usable financial infrastructure. On this basis, asset tokenization entered a substantive promotion phase in 2025, with low-risk assets like money market funds, government bonds, and commercial papers beginning to be issued in native on-chain forms, used for collateral management, trading margins, and cross-platform settlement scenarios, marking the first large-scale coupling of on-chain finance and traditional finance.
Alongside capital entry, global regulation concentrated on implementation in 2025: the U.S. institutionalization of stablecoin regulation, the comprehensive implementation of the EU's MiCA, and Hong Kong's completion of the stablecoin licensing system transition, with the regulatory focus shifting from "whether to allow" to "how to regulate operations." Looking ahead to 2026, traditional finance's participation in crypto will deepen further, with the core issue no longer being whether to enter but rather the depth of participation and regulatory boundaries. Asset tokenization is expected to expand towards repurchase agreements, structured notes, and some private assets, while banks and large financial intermediaries may also participate more systematically in on-chain clearing and settlement, compliant stablecoin channels, and institutional-level DeFi interface construction. Regulatory concerns will shift towards execution, auditing, and prevention of systemic risks across markets, laying an institutional foundation for the long-term integration of crypto and traditional finance.

# VI. Conclusion

From 2025 to 2026, the global crypto market will undergo a profound structural transformation, with the core storyline evolving from a high-volatility speculative market driven by cyclical narratives and retail sentiment to an "institutionalized" and "regulated" market deeply engaged and led by traditional financial institutions under a clear regulatory framework.
2025 is a critical turning and foundational year. In a complex macro environment characterized by high interest rates and sticky inflation, the market experienced a process of retreating from bull market peaks and seeking new balances amid volatility. The fundamental change this year lies in the shift of driving forces: marked by large-scale capital inflows into Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, institutional capital has officially replaced retail as the dominant force in the market. This transformation is accompanied by a historic shift in global regulatory thinking, particularly as the U.S. begins to transition from "enforcement regulation" to "legislative construction," with key legislations like the "GENIUS Act" providing preliminary compliance paths for activities like stablecoins, clearing obstacles for traditional finance's large-scale entry.
As a result, traditional financial institutions are no longer merely tentative but are engaging in multidimensional, systematic layouts: not only allocating assets through products like ETFs but also directly holding Bitcoin and Ethereum by forming "Digital Asset Treasuries" (DATs) through listed companies, with giants like BlackRock even beginning to explore the tokenization of RWA assets as the next generation of financial infrastructure. The internal market is also undergoing intense evolution, with public chain tracks initially showing positioning differentiation, and the competitive logic of tracks like RWA and Perp DEX shifting from superficial functions to underlying performance and compliance.
Entering 2026, the seeds sown in 2025 will fully grow, ushering the market into a new phase of "rule implementation" and "deep integration." The core feature will be a deterministic institutional environment fostering specialized competition. With the full effectiveness of regulatory frameworks like the U.S. "GENIUS Act" and the anticipated passage of the "CLARITY Act," the boundaries between securities and commodities for digital assets will be clarified, and a clearly defined federal regulatory system will officially operate, providing unprecedented stability for the market.
In this context, the market will undergo a brutal process from explosion to reshuffling: crypto spot ETF products will welcome diverse explosions sourced from the regulatory "fast track," but will then face fierce fee wars and tail-end eliminations; DATs companies will upgrade from simple "coin holders" to professional operating institutions actively capturing value through staking, credit, and other means. More importantly, the entire crypto ecosystem will undergo vertical integration and construction around clear positioning: public chain tracks will completely bid farewell to the fantasy of "universal chains," entering an era of "specialized survival," with Ethereum focusing on DeFi and RWA, stablecoin-specific chains optimizing global payments, Solana becoming the center of high-frequency consumption and meme culture, and AI chains serving the intelligent economy.
At the same time, RWA will experience an explosion of asset categories and financial models under a compliant framework, transitioning from static tokenization to composable and derivable "financial primitives"; while stablecoins will further integrate into global payment networks, becoming a true "digital cash layer."
Additionally, the integration of artificial intelligence and crypto technology will move from concept to substance, with blockchain-based payment, identity, and data protocols becoming indispensable trust and settlement foundations for the "AI intelligent economy."
Overall, the crypto market in 2026 will be a new ecology characterized by sound regulation, institutional dominance, and clear division of labor among various tracks. The overall volatility of the market may ease due to institutionalization, but the inherent competition will become more intense, with success hinging on building genuine commercial value and ecological barriers in specific vertical fields within a compliant framework.