9 Themes Shaping 2026

From prediction markets to public markets, here are the nine themes our investment team believes will shape digital assets in 2026.

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Forecasting starts to shape reality

Matt Zhang, Founder & Managing Partner

Prediction markets have quietly become one of the most liquid places to trade information, and that shift is only accelerating. What people underestimate is how meaningfully this can reshape behavior. Once real capital sits behind an outcome, participants don’t just forecast events - they may try to influence them. That’s when the line between predicting and participating starts to blur, and the feedback loop becomes very real. Prices shape expectations, expectations drive actions, and actions can tilt the outcome itself.

The second-order effect is just as important: this will disrupt the media landscape in a material way. As prediction markets gain credibility and liquidity, they become a real-time signal for where truth may be heading - often faster and more reliably than traditional news cycles. If enough people treat market pricing as a form of verified information, you could see audiences shifting from “reading the news” to “watching the odds,” or at minimum, using markets as a filter to assess the noise. In some cases, the pricing may matter more than the reporting.

The question for 2026 isn’t whether prediction markets continue to grow. They will. The real question is whether they remain informational tools or start becoming performative infrastructure that shapes narratives, influences media coverage, and pressures real-world decision making. Understanding this reflexive loop, and who has the incentives to move it, will be one of the most important themes in the year ahead.

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Rise of the AI Virtual Cloud

Emmanuel Vallod, Partner & Head of Venture

Whether AI is in a bubble or not, the infrastructure fabric that powers it will continue to scale, given the wide-ranging usefulness of this technology. This growth increasingly puts energy, hardware, and data bottlenecks in the spotlight.

• Global electricity demand from data centers is projected to more than double by 2030, driven largely by AI. In the U.S., data centers account for nearly half of demand growth—an outlook already reflected in grid bottlenecks and long interconnection timelines in major markets. Analysts and operators have grown wary of multi-year grid constraints, with projects deferred for years and site power becoming the gating factor.‍
• On the hardware side, substantial vendor and chip-model dependency is increasingly top of mind, particularly for enterprises concerned about implications for business resilience and operational continuity. Concurrently, dominant chip architectures are no longer keeping pace with Moore’s Law and are nearing the single-atom limit.‍
• Data-wise, there simply isn’t enough high-quality, domain-specific, privacy-preserving data to satisfy the deepening use of Enterprise AI across sectors.

The answer to these bottlenecks is what I call the AI Virtual Cloud: a co-designed hardware and software fabric that abstracts away the technical and operational overhead of accessing and maintaining best-in-class AI infrastructure, while easing corresponding systems and architecture requirements.

• Low-Energy HPC progressively displacing legacy chips without requiring a re-architecting of the application layer‍
• General Heterogeneous Compute becoming the foundation of modern data centers and compute systems‍
• Synthetic Data moving mainstream to overcome privacy, scarcity, and bias‍
• Blockchain × AI Middleware sitting atop the previous three pillars, delivering scalable, efficient, and trustworthy memory and compute attestations, data and model lineages, federated intelligence, and auditable decisions—addressing enterprise realities in cloud and edge deployments

I couldn’t be more excited for what’s coming. ¹

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Leveling Up Institutional Infrastructure

Kayla Phillips, Senior Investment Principal

‘There are decades when nothing happens, and there are years when decades happen.’ 2025 was the year when the crypto industry institutionalized at 10x speed. Clearer regulations in the US and around the world drove significant capital inflows on-chain.

As we enter 2026, compounding institutional capital and demand for digital assets and blockchain technology has revealed gaps in the market. Solutions are needed that bring on-chain markets and market infrastructure to parity with tradfi and that seamlessly merge tradfi and defi as these worlds become increasingly intertwined. Opportunities exist to: 1) improve on-chain capital efficiency, liquidity, privacy, and interoperability, 2) level up asset allocation, portfolio management, risk management, compliance, and insurance, 3) create liquid markets for tokenized asset classes and funds, and 4) create new products that offer enhanced diversification, hedging, and risk tranching.

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Digital Art: Achieving Permanence

Michael Davison, Trader

After the formative period of 2017-2025 - defined by on-chain experimentation, verifiable ownership, and early cultural development - digital art enters 2026 with clearer signals of permanence. Institutions that once observed from the sidelines are now participating directly, treating digital art as central to contemporary art rather than adjacent to it, evidenced through initiatives such as Art Basel Miami’s Zero 10 section and Toledo Museum of Art’s Infinite Images.

With this recognition as a backdrop, collector allocation is becoming more deliberate. Name alone no longer guarantees attention; value increasingly reflects how a work advances an artist’s broader progression and how clearly it demonstrates what digital art uniquely enables. Within individual practices, definitive works and series are beginning to stand out from less impactful releases. As that separation compounds, the distinction between historically significant artworks and broader output will widen, providing clearer orientation for newer participants.

Importantly, greater discernment does not centralize judgment or restrict participation - cultural relevance remains determined publicly. The works that endure will be those that accrue meaning over time, sustain collector engagement, and remain critical to an artist’s evolution. Buy the strongest work you can from the artists you believe in most; history ultimately rewards conviction.

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Assets Go Onchain at Scale

Stanley Huo, Partner & Head of Asia

Going into 2026, the anticipated issuance of stablecoin licenses and supportive securities regulatory regimes in regions like the US and Hong Kong provide a positive macro backdrop for increased RWA adoption. As a result, I expect to see more corporates explore moving assets onchain, ranging from traditional financial assets such as funds, public stocks, and private shares, to more innovative products including revenue streams from fixed assets and entertainment IP.

Bringing RWAs onchain opens up investment access for a new class of investors, allows for 24/7 trading, and enables integration into various L1 and L2 blockchains and DeFi protocols, potentially enhancing returns.

At the same time, continued convergence of traditional capital markets and the crypto economies should drive further tokenization activity. This includes the evolution of Digital Asset Treasury strategies, as corporates look to differentiate by bringing more types of assets onchain and generating additional returns from crypto native sources such as L1 and L2 rewards and DeFi.

The remaining hurdles are liquidity provision to support 24/7 trading and ease of onboarding for a broader base of investors. We expect to see more innovation across both areas in 2026.

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Brand Coins enter the mainstream

Richard Skeet, Managing Partner

Brand Coins occur when “goodwill” moves from the balance sheet to the blockchain. In traditional accounting, brand value only shows up as goodwill after an acquisition – a hidden, company-owned, illiquid line item that never directly rewards the people who actually built the brand: customers and community. Brand Coins use the crypto rails of web3 to flip this on its head. They make brand equity real-time and public, community-owned rather than company-owned, and freely tradable rather than locked in a dusty M&A model. They also create a direct link between contribution and value: if you help grow the brand’s perception, you may share in the upside rather than just donating your engagement to someone else’s P&L.

We believe 2026 is the year this idea breaks out of crypto Twitter and into the mainstream consumer playbook. The flywheel is already visible: sell products → grow brand evangelists → attention and demand for the Brand Coin increase → the Brand Coin “number goes up” → the value of rewards and community treasury rises → more incentive to talk about and try the product → product demand grows again. Brand Coins also let brands redirect a slice of their marketing budget straight to their most powerful advocates instead of renting influence from intermediaries. REKT Drinks ($REKT) and Pudgy Penguins ($PENGU) are early category leaders: both have turned culture, community, and distribution into liquid brand equity. In REKT’s case, with more than 1m+ cans sold, rapid direct-to-consumer revenue growth, a slew of significant partnerships (including X Games, GameSquare [Nasdaq: GAME], MoonPay, Binance.US, OpenSea, Jupiter, and Abstract), traditional distribution starting to come online with Giant Eagle and Superior Beverage Group, and a 10% revenue buyback commitment, the results are beginning to show what happens when a real product meets a real on-chain community. Full disclosure: we are long-term holders of $REKT in our funds, reflecting our conviction in Brand Coins as a structural theme rather than a short-term trade. This is not investment advice; Brand Coins, like any digital asset, can be highly volatile and subject to significant risk.

The big questions for 2026 are, first, which new brands will choose crypto rails from day one - using Brand Coins to bootstrap awareness and turn their earliest customers into owners - and second, whether any legacy consumer giant will be smart enough to acquire an on-chain brand like REKT and effectively buy both product traction and a live, market-priced “goodwill” asset that could even be accretive on day one. If (brand) equity is going to trade 24/7 anyway, the only real decision is whether you help build it early.

Ask yourself, Anon, do you really want to be the one to fumble your REKT coins to the institutions?

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Digital Assets Go Public

Jake Greenstein, Partner & Head of Infrastructure

Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) efforts surged in the second half of 2025, with DATCOs holding over $100B in assets at one point. As the hype dies down and the reality of managing digital assets at scale sets in, I am looking forward to seeing how public companies that choose to allocate crypto as part of a diversified balance sheet apply the rigor of public-facing reporting and operations to increasingly complex portfolios.

Companies holding digital assets on a public balance sheet are quickly discovering that managing crypto demands a materially higher operational standard than traditional asset management activities. Public market investors expect frequent insight into asset balances, custody arrangements, and risk management practices. Without enhanced middle- and back-office capabilities – such as real-time reconciliation, live reporting, and robust disclosure workflows – these companies risk opacity that can undermine investor confidence and widen the gap between company valuation and the value of their underlying holdings. In an environment where volatility is inherent, transparency can provide stability by allowing investors to better understand risk rather than price in the unknown.

Operational excellence should not stop at increased transparency. Investors directly benefit from reduced costs, which can stack up for sizable treasuries when factoring in hard costs such as custody & staking infrastructure along with the softer costs of hours spent on reconciliation & reporting. Preferred relationships with large suppliers, automated reconciliation, and standardized audit and compliance processes can significantly reduce OpEx, audit friction, and the chance of manual error.

Ultimately, the winners in digital asset treasury strategies will not be defined solely by asset selection or hype upon launch, but by operational infrastructure and how asset managers add value beyond the underlying holdings. Companies that invest early in institutional-grade operations designed for public scrutiny and scalable growth will be better positioned to earn trust, attract long-term capital, and deliver crypto exposure at a lower all-in cost to shareholders. In this next phase of the market, operations is not a support function; it is a competitive advantage.

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Privacy comes out the shadows

Adam Brice, Trader

Crypto today is at a crossroads. Major networks are robust, institutional products are expanding, and tokenized real-world assets are starting to scale. But much of the ecosystem remains fragmented, early-stage and unevenly regulated which delays the idea of more institutions adopting blockchain technology.

Looking ahead to 2026, I believe everything shifts. The traditional 4-year cycle is likely a thing of the past. Whilst we still have volatility on price action, the traditional 75%+ bear market drawdowns may only apply to assets that don't have more traditional capital flow channels such as ETFs.

For what feels like a lifetime, all you ever heard was "institutions are coming.", I heard it at $19K in 2017, $3K in 2018, $20K in 2020 etc, they always felt just around the corner.

Spot ETFs creaked the door open, but privacy will be the enabler. Institutions such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds demand secure, confidential transactions and custody solutions that protect sensitive positions, counterparties and strategies for large notional values of fiat currencies.

Goldwasser et al. (1989) research on the knowledge of complexity of interactive proof-systems provides a definition of zero-knowledge proofs widely used today, "A zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that something is true, without revealing any information apart from the fact that this specific statement is true."

I think the difficult question to ask in 2026 is how much centralisation is acceptable/required in a decentralised world to see mass global adoptions from these types of institutions?Privacy for on-chain transactions in institutional asset management will be the first domino prior to using blockchain for more even more impactful applications e.g., on-chain election votes. Which with the 2026 US elections in November seems like a topic that could arise very quickly. ²

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Fintech’s Shift to Blockchain Rails

Gigi Cho, Venture Principal

As we look to 2026, a powerful trend is set to unfold: the strategic adoption of blockchain technology by incumbent Web2 fintechs as a core enabler for global scale, speed, and product differentiation. This is no longer a narrative-driven experiment; it is a competitive necessity. Blockchain is becoming the essential infrastructure for any fintech aiming to move money internationally.

The initial strategic moves in 2025 set the stage. Fintech leaders like Stripe, Wise, and Revolut making a series of strategic move in stablecoin infrastructure, moving beyond trading features to develop direct settlement and payout capabilities. Companies like Brex and Ramp began integrating crypto rails to enhance their B2B expense and treasury platforms. In 2026, we anticipate this trend will accelerate exponentially, evolving from exploratory projects into a full-scale race for integration. These incumbents hold the decisive edge: existing global banking relationships, mature compliance frameworks, and vast commercial merchant/client bases. This allows them to onboard blockchain technology not as a disruptive front-end, but as a superior back-end rail, offering their users faster, cheaper transactions without asking them to leave a trusted ecosystem.

In the year ahead, we foresee two converging forces driving this trend. First, a broader cohort of existing fintech companies across verticals—from neobanks to cross-border payroll platforms—will join the race, leveraging blockchain to rapidly launch products in new regions and solve specific, high-friction payment flows. Second, and critically, we anticipate major payment acquirers and processors will begin directly onboarding stablecoin rails to expand their service corridors with unprecedented agility. This move will provide a strong growth lever, allowing them to offer new settlement options without the years-long process of establishing traditional banking partnerships in each new market.

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¹ References: [spglobal.com], [iea.org], [ig.ft.com], [datacenter...namics.com], [datacenter...wledge.com], [techinsights.com], [trendforce.com], [biggo.com], [statista.com]

² References: Ethereum Foundation. 2025. Zero‑knowledge proofs. Ethereum.org. Available at: https://ethereum.org/zero-knowledge-proofs; Goldwasser, S., Micali, S. & Rackoff, C. 1985. The Knowledge Complexity of Interactive Proof‑Systems. Extended abstract, 17th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing. Available at: https://people.csail.mit.edu/silvio/Selected Scientific Papers/Proof Systems/The_Knowledge_Complexity_Of_Interactive_Proof_Systems.pdf

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