Source: a16zcrypto
Compiled by: Zhou, ChainCatcher
1. This Year We Will See Better, Smarter Stablecoin On-Ramps
Last year, the transaction volume of stablecoins was estimated to be as high as $46 trillion, continuously setting new historical highs. To understand this number more intuitively: this is more than 20 times the transaction volume of PayPal; close to 3 times the transaction volume of Visa (one of the world's largest payment networks); and rapidly approaching the transaction volume of the US ACH electronic financial transaction network.
Today, you can send stablecoins in less than a second for less than a cent. However, the unresolved issue is how to connect these digital currencies to the financial systems people use daily—in other words, how to provide on- and off-ramps for stablecoins.
A new generation of startups is filling this gap, connecting stablecoins to more familiar payment systems and local currencies. Some companies use cryptographic proofs to allow users to privately exchange local balances for digital dollars. Some integrate with regional networks, utilizing QR codes, real-time payment channels, and other features to enable interbank payments. Others are building a truly interoperable global wallet layer and card issuance platform, enabling users to spend stablecoins at everyday merchants.
These methods collectively expand the range of participants in the digital dollar economy and may accelerate the direct application of stablecoins as a mainstream payment method.
As these on- and off-ramps mature, enabling digital dollars to directly connect to local payment systems and merchant tools, new transaction models will emerge. Workers can receive cross-border payments in real-time. Merchants can accept global dollars without a bank account. Applications can settle instantly with users anytime, anywhere. Stablecoins will transform from a niche financial tool into the foundational settlement layer of the internet.
— Jeremy Zhang, a16z Crypto Partner
2. This Year Banks Will Launch New Payment Scenarios
Today's banks commonly run software that modern developers would find unrecognizable: In the 1960s and 70s, banks were pioneers in adopting large-scale software systems. The second generation of core banking software began in the 80s and 90s (e.g., Temenos' GLOBUS and Infosys' Finacle). But all this software has aged and upgrades too slowly. As a result, the banking industry—especially the critical core ledgers (key databases for tracking deposits, collateral, and other debts)—still often runs on mainframe computers, programmed in COBOL, and interacts through batch file interfaces rather than APIs.
The vast majority of global assets are stored on these decades-old core ledgers. While these systems are time-tested, trusted by regulators, and deeply integrated into complex banking scenarios, they also hinder innovation. Adding key features like real-time payments (RTP) can take months or even years, requiring overcoming layers of technical debt and regulatory complexity.
This is where stablecoins come in. Over the past few years, stablecoins have not only found product-market fit and entered the mainstream, but this year, traditional financial institutions have embraced them with a new attitude. Stablecoins, tokenized deposits, tokenized treasuries, and on-chain bonds enable banks, fintech companies, and financial institutions to develop new products and serve new customers. More importantly, they do not force these institutions to rewrite their legacy systems—which, though aging, have been running reliably for decades. Thus, stablecoins provide a new path for institutional innovation.
— Sam Broner
3. We Will See More Original Forms of Stablecoins, Not Just Tokenized Forms
This year, we will see more "original, not just tokenized" stablecoins. Stablecoins became mainstream last year; the number of outstanding stablecoins continues to grow.
But stablecoins lacking a robust credit infrastructure resemble narrow banks, holding what are considered exceptionally safe liquid assets. While narrow banking itself is a valid product, I don't believe it will be the long-term pillar of the on-chain economy.
We see many new asset managers, asset management institutions, and protocols beginning to offer on-chain asset-backed lending services担保ed by off-chain collateral. These loans often originate off-chain and are then tokenized. I believe tokenization offers little benefit here, other than potentially distributing funds to users already on-chain. Therefore, debt assets should be generated on-chain, not tokenized after being created off-chain.
On-chain loan origination can reduce loan servicing costs and back-office architecture costs, and increase loan accessibility. The challenges lie in compliance and standardization, but developers are already working on these issues.
— Guy Wuollet, a16z Crypto General Partner
4. We Will See More Real-World Asset Tokenization, But in a Crypto-Native Way
Last year, we saw strong interest from banks, fintech companies, and asset management companies in putting US stocks, commodities, indices, and other traditional assets on-chain. However, as more traditional assets move on-chain, their tokenization is often skeuomorphic—still based on existing concepts of real-world assets without fully utilizing the native characteristics of加密 technology.
But synthetic products like perpetual futures (perps) can provide deeper liquidity and are often easier to implement. Perpetual futures also offer easily understood leverage, so I believe they have the highest product-market fit among crypto-native derivatives. I also think emerging market stocks are one of the most worthwhile asset classes for perpetual trading. (The zero-day-to-expiry options market for certain stocks is often more liquid than the spot market, which would be a fascinating perpetual experiment.)
It all boils down to the question of 'synthesization vs. tokenization'; but in any case, we should see more crypto-native RWA tokenization this year.
— Guy Wuollet, a16z Crypto General Partner
5. More People (Not Just High-Net-Worth Clients) Will Have Access to Wealth Management Services
Traditionally, banks have offered personalized wealth management services only to high-net-worth clients: providing tailored advice and personalized portfolios across asset classes is expensive and complex. But as more asset classes are tokenized, crypto platforms enable strategies—combined with AI advice and辅助驾驶 features—to be executed and rebalanced instantly at极 low cost.
This is not just robo-advising; everyone can gain access to active portfolio management, not just passive management. In 2025, traditional finance (TradFi) increased its allocation to cryptocurrencies in its portfolios (whether directly or through exchange-traded products), but this is just the beginning; by 2026, we will see platforms aimed at "wealth accumulation" rather than just "wealth preservation"—fintech companies (like Revolut and Robinhood) and centralized exchanges (like Coinbase) will leverage their technological advantages to capture a larger share of this market.
Meanwhile, DeFi tools like Morpho Vaults automatically allocate assets to the lending markets with the highest risk-adjusted yields, providing a core yield allocation for portfolios. Holding剩余 liquid funds in stablecoins rather than fiat currency, and holding funds in tokenized money market funds rather than traditional money market funds, can further expand yield sources.
Finally, retail investors can now more easily access less liquid private market assets, such as private credit, pre-IPO companies, and private equity, as tokenization helps unlock liquidity in these markets while meeting compliance and reporting requirements. As various components of a balanced portfolio (with risk grades ranging from bonds to stocks to private equity and alternative investments) are gradually tokenized, they can be automatically rebalanced without cumbersome operations like wire transfers.
— Maggie Hsu, a16z Crypto Marketing Partner
6. The Internet Will Not Only Support Finance, But Become the Bank Itself
As agents proliferate and more commercial activities occur automatically in the background rather than through user clicks, the way money (or value) flows needs to change.
In a world where systems no longer execute step-by-step instructions but operate based on intent—for example, AI agents identify demand, fulfill obligations, or trigger outcomes, and funds are automatically transferred—the flow of value must be as fast and free as information is today. Blockchains, smart contracts, and new types of protocols emerge in this context.
Smart contracts can currently complete global dollar payment settlements in seconds. But by 2026, emerging primitives like x402 will make the settlement process more programmable and responsive: agents can pay for data, GPU time, or API calls instantly and permissionlessly—without invoicing, reconciliation, or batching. Developers will release software with built-in payment rules, limits, and audit trails—without fiat integration, merchant onboarding, or bank involvement. Prediction markets will settle automatically in real-time as events occur—odds update, agents trade, global payments clear within seconds, without custodians or exchanges.
Once value can flow in this way, "payment flows" are no longer a separate operational layer, but become a network behavior: banking becomes part of the internet's infrastructure, assets become infrastructure. If money becomes data packets that the internet can route, then the internet is not just the support for the financial system, it becomes the financial system itself.
— Christian Crowley and Pyrs Carvolth, a16z Crypto Marketing Partners
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