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Experts have identified the main areas of development for cryptocurrencies in 2026, which are expected to transition from a speculative boom to structural growth.
In 2026, the cryptocurrency market is on the verge of a qualitative leap from the experimental phase to the stage of mass adoption and structural maturity, according to a report by market maker Keyrock.
Together with the Dune analytics service team, they identified key trends to track the growth of the crypto industry and provided their forecasts for this year.
Dune is an analytics platform for creating dashboards and analyzing blockchain data that allows users to query, visualize, and share information about cryptocurrencies.
Forecast markets
Prediction markets became the main trend of 2025, with weekly volume growing 9.2 times to nearly $5 billion. Market leaders Kalshi, Polymarket, and Opinion account for more than 98% of the market share. Experts believe that they demonstrate real demand for hedging against uncertainty. Categories including sports, politics, and economics attract different audiences, indicating maturity as a financial product.
Keyrock predicts that the total volume will grow fivefold to $25 billion per week. The fastest growth will be in non-sports categories such as economics, culture, and society. Liquidity will be concentrated among the top three players.
Tokenization
The real world assets (RWA) tokenization sector showed explosive growth in 2025, indicating real interest in blockchain among traditional finance. Currently, the sector is mainly represented by stablecoins, but experts are noting interest in launching a broader range of RWA products, such as private loans or government bonds.
In 2026, experts expect growth to increase more than fourfold (excluding stablecoins), and the structure will shift to a more diversified basket of products, including tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
AI agents and x402
The x402 protocol allows AI agents (autonomous programs based on artificial intelligence) to automatically pay for services with stablecoins on the internet. It has not yet become widespread, but is considered by experts to be an indicator of the development of automated trading.
The main forecast for 2026 includes weekly volume growth exceeding $100 million, which is 10 times higher than the peak values of 2025.
Blockchain storage
Safes and vaults are the cryptocurrency version of stock structures. Keyrock highlights this sector as a separate important element of decentralized finance (DeFi), but one that is still underdeveloped. Only four representatives are included in the list of tracked projects: Morpho, Euler, Yearn, and Beefy.
The market volume in 2025 grew by 73% to almost $12 billion. This year, experts predict growth to $36 billion thanks to the influx of institutional capital, regulatory clarity, and RWA growth.
Perpetual futures
In 2025, there was explosive growth in the perpetual futures market, led by Hyperliquid. Open trading interest on such futures platforms (Perp DEX, from perpetual futures) grew to $20 billion, which is a fivefold increase from the beginning to the end of 2025.
Keyrock predicts that this year the market will scale to new asset classes (stocks, commodities). And open interest will exceed $50 billion. This type of futures will be used by default for trading any assets on the blockchain, especially RWA.
Buyback
The process of token buybacks by issuers has become the main mechanism for returning value to crypto asset holders, but experts observe inefficiencies in execution, which reduce the effectiveness of the process. The total amount of token buybacks in 2025 exceeded $1.5 billion.
The company's forecast for 2026 includes a 50-100% increase in the number of buyback programs.
Privacy
The growing interest in the privacy features of Zcash (ZEC) reflects real demand for financial privacy in blockchains, experts say. And the growth in volume in this sector creates a kind of network effect. This refers to the volume of ZEC held in a special pool (shielded pool), which ensures data privacy for its holders.
The forecast for 2026 includes growth from 5 million to more than 7 million ZEC coins held in this privacy pool. It is noted that the growth will be driven, among other things, by interest from institutional players.
Crypto cards
The volume of payments via crypto cards using stablecoins grew more than sixfold in 2025, exceeding $106 million per week. Keyrock considers this segment to be a significant catalyst for the growth of stablecoins. Despite significant growth in 2025, it is still in its early stages of development.
Experts predict that in 2026, the monthly volume will reach $500 million, along with improvements in user experience and expanded functionality.
Bitcoin ETF
Despite the volatility of capital inflows into Bitcoin ETFs, the amount of assets under management by funds increased by 25% in 2025, becoming a source of demand. Experts believe that this has changed the structure of the market. According to Sosovalue, as of January 16, the amount of assets under management by Bitcoin funds exceeds $125 billion.
Keyrock predicts that the volume of assets under management by Bitcoin ETFs will continue to grow and exceed 2.5 million BTC this year, or $237 billion (at an exchange rate of about $95,000). At the same time, net inflows will be positive in at least eight of the 12 months.
Credit rates in DeFi
The volatility of lending rates (e.g., USDC on Aave) is holding back the development of complex financial products in DeFi. In 2025, the value ranged from 2.4% to 9.8%. Analysts note that stable lending rates are key to institutional adoption.
In 2026, rate volatility will decrease significantly, with the 30-day volatility falling below 0.25 on average (compared to approximately 0.40 in 2025). Keyrock believes this will be possible thanks to deeper liquidity and effective arbitrage.
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The emergence of decentralized finance (DeFi) has raised many questions about the future of traditional banking. So, what is DeFi, and does it really have the potential to replace the banks we know?
What is decentralized finance (DeFi)?
Simply put, decentralized finance is a new financial system based on blockchain technology to reconstruct traditional banking services like lending, borrowing, and trading, but without the need for intermediaries like banks. You can think of it as an "open banking system" managed by code (smart contracts) instead of employees and institutions.