2026 Crypto Trends

This article summarizes from Messari's 100,000-word annual report, combining AI and human insights to outline the following 10 trends for Crypto in 2026.

1. If L1 does not experience real growth, crypto funds will increasingly flow towards Bitcoin.

2. ETH is still Bitcoin's "younger brother" and not an independent leader. ETH has institutional and corporate support, can profit alongside Bitcoin, but cannot yet stand completely on its own.

3. The correlation of ZEC with Bitcoin has dropped to 0.24, serving as a privacy hedge against Bitcoin.

4. Application-specific currencies (such as Virtuals Protocol, Zora) will emerge as a trend in 2026.

Taking Virtuals Protocol as an example to introduce application-specific currencies: When users create AI agents, a dedicated token for the agent will be issued.

All agent tokens are paired with the platform token VIRTUAL (to buy agent tokens, VIRTUAL must be used, providing liquidity).

The hotter the platform and the more useful the AI agents, the greater the demand for VIRTUAL, making it the "dedicated currency" of this ecosystem.

5. Stablecoins: Transitioning from speculative tools to America's "currency weapon." The GENIUS Act (passed in 2025) introduces the first federal stablecoin regulations in the U.S., transforming stablecoins from crypto toys into tools of U.S. monetary policy.

6. Tether may continue to dominate the stablecoin market in developing countries, while developed countries' markets are snatched by large institutions. Tether's profits soar, with its valuation approaching $500 billion. Major players like JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citibank, PayPal, Visa, and Google are all entering the stablecoin space or building infrastructure.

7. Cloudflare and Google are creating stablecoins and payment protocols specifically for AI agent transactions, preparing for a future where AI spends automatically.

8. Interest rates will decline in 2026, and yield-generating stablecoins (such as lending interest spreads, arbitrage, GPU collateral loans) will explode (like Ethena's USDe).

9. Tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) will see trillions of assets on-chain in the future. By 2025, the total scale of RWA will reach $18 billion, mainly consisting of government bonds and credit. DTCC (the U.S. securities clearing giant) has received SEC approval to tokenize U.S. securities. Most deployments are on Ethereum (64%), but institutions may use private chains.

10. Ethereum: The "settlement hub" for institutions and big money. Ethereum remains the most reliable "settlement layer."