Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | jk
Well-known crypto research institution The Block Research, as usual, released its annual forecast report at the beginning of the new year. As one of the earliest professional research teams in the industry, The Block Research is quite influential within the circle due to its in-depth data analysis and reliable market insights. This year, their analyst team has made quite a few predictions: Bitcoin will surge to $140,000, stablecoin market cap will break $500 billion, Polymarket and Base will launch tokens and enter the top ten, multiple crypto companies will IPO, etc.. Interestingly, the analysts' views are not entirely consistent; some are optimistic about a small bull market in 2026, while others believe the market will continue to diverge.
This forecast report is a compilation of each individual's independent views. Let's see what the industry's top researchers have to say; remember to come back at the end of the year to see who got it wrong!
Steven's Predictions
Tom Lee's Bitmine will conduct its first ETH sell-off before the end of Q1 2026. This sell-off will act as a catalyst, prompting more Digital Asset Trust (DAT) treasuries to follow suit, further dampening market sentiment.
Bitcoin's market dominance will remain above 50% throughout the year.
Polymarket and Base are about to launch tokens, and their fully diluted valuations are expected to rank within the top ten by market cap.
The Base ecosystem will see a surge of mobile-first crypto applications. The market will experience several rounds of small, rotating hotspots similar to 2025, including: the RWA (Real World Assets) sector, the prediction market sector, and mobile projects.
Tether, in collaboration with other institutions, will launch a crypto exchange in the US.
Robinhood will list cryptocurrency perpetual contracts.
Eden's Predictions
The velocity of stablecoins will explode, primarily driven by regulated payment institutions starting to use stablecoins for clearing and settlement. The total stablecoin market cap will exceed $400 billion, but USDT's market share will decline. There will be 20 stablecoins with a market cap exceeding $1 billion. The total value of non-stablecoin RWAs will exceed $30 billion. Besides gold, other commodities will also be tokenized and gain some market recognition.
Decentralized perpetual contract exchanges will launch stock and commodity perpetual contracts, generating substantial trading volume. The trading volume ratio between DEXs and CEXs, for both spot and perpetuals, will stabilize around 20%. Request-for-Quote (RFQ) based DEXs will emerge.
Polymarket and Kalshi's annual trading volume will at least triple, and the two will engage in fierce competition for exclusive partnerships. At least one of them will launch its own blockchain.
Plasma will become a top-four public chain by TVL (Total Value Locked) based on real on-chain activity, being one of the few enterprise-grade blockchains with genuine organic growth. Base and MetaMask will issue native tokens. Leading crypto companies like Kraken, BitGo, and Consensys will initiate IPOs, re-attracting mainstream capital attention. Strategy and BitMine will not sell their held BTC and ETH.
Bitcoin will break through $140,000. Although Bitcoin's market share will decline, it will not fall significantly below 50%.
Bitcoin will hit a new all-time high in Q2.
NFT and memecoin launchpads will not make a comeback.
The privacy narrative will gradually fade from the market.
The four-year cycle theory will be disproven by the end of the year.
Gabriel's Predictions
DATs will continue to trade below their modified Net Asset Value (mNAV), forcing many funds to sell assets. As crypto ETFs become increasingly convenient to trade and offer better risk-reward ratios, the DAT story will gradually lose its appeal.
Massive token unlocks combined with weak market sentiment will lead to sustained selling pressure for tokens issued in this cycle. Short-sighted buyback-and-burn strategies will become a burden for projects when market sentiment deteriorates and cash reserves diminish.
Funding valuations will be significantly lower than this year's levels. Many VCs will learn lessons from high-valuation investments—although seemingly cheap compared to previous cycles, valuations will continue to adjust downward as the industry matures and hype subsides.
Native network tokens will struggle to attract buying interest because stablecoins are becoming the most attractive and widely used asset class in DeFi, and on-chain activity is accelerating the shift from being denominated in ETH and SOL to being denominated in USDC.
Ivan's Predictions
2026 will see a K-shaped recovery pattern: low-quality projects will lose market attention, while capital and focus will concentrate on high-quality projects with real paying users.
Outperforming sectors will include decentralized perpetual contract exchanges and prediction markets.
Crypto projects will generally start postponing token launches, opting instead for the IPO route. Similarly, quality DATs will continue to explore on-chain use cases, while other funds will be forced to sell tokens under the pressure of continuously shrinking NAV.
Due to the difficulty for altcoins to maintain their market position, Bitcoin's market share will rise in 2026, with capital flowing into listed crypto companies. Crypto stocks will continue to perform strongly, benefiting from business diversification (miners transitioning to AI computing power, exchanges launching stock trading, etc.). Despite volatility, Bitcoin's performance in 2026 will outperform the Nasdaq. Outside of crypto, US gold sales will mark a bottom for the US Dollar Index.
Brandon's Predictions
The rise of bank-issued deposit tokens in 2026 will lead to institutional liquidity fragmentation across proprietary ledgers of various banks (e.g., competition between JPM Coin and Citi Coin). As global banks are structurally unable to hold significant liabilities of competitors, USDC will become the dominant neutral bridging asset, with its 2026 growth largely coming from its value as a clearing tool between isolated banking networks.
Agent-to-Agent trading will be standardized on the x402 protocol and will account for a significant share of global on-chain activity.
Cryptocurrency "Greek letter" derivatives, such as implied volatility products (e.g., BTCVOL-PERP) or funding rate swaps, will gain market favor in 2026.
Alessandro's Predictions
2026 will start slowly, trading within a range in the first half. High-risk premiums and selective capital will favor mainstream coins. The consistent winners will be products with real users and sustained usage, especially wallets and trading platforms, which can continue to acquire users even if token performance is weak. The second half will be overall bullish, with a few ecosystems and projects attracting most of the incremental capital. The strongest buying will come from new consumer products that combine risk with solid fundamentals.
Cross-chain interoperability will be the main theme of the year, with improvements in cross-chain routing and chain abstraction allowing "super apps" to gain market share. RWA will make progress through tokenized stocks, equity perpetuals, and credit products, while traditional finance continues to advance internal or permissioned Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). This will exacerbate the divergence between "true cryptocurrency" (as a high-risk testing ground for new mechanisms and markets) and enterprise-grade DLT settlement systems.
Better execution, tools, and automation will further concentrate arbitrage among professional institutions. Stablecoin supply growth will accelerate, with the USD still dominant, but the Swiss Franc and Singapore Dollar will see the strongest growth from a small base. Prediction markets will compound growth during the US midterm elections, while the risk of a messy insider trading investigation also rises.
Simon's Predictions
Bitcoin's market share will remain above 50%. The total cryptocurrency market cap will not break $4 trillion. ETF flows for all coins will remain net positive throughout the year. Non-BTC and non-ETH ETF trading volume will reach $20 billion. Stablecoin adoption will continue to grow, with traditional enterprises launching new stablecoins and existing stablecoins continuing to expand.
Prediction markets will be the fastest-growing crypto application in 2026, with open interest reaching $500 million, and trading volume accounting for 3% of total CEX volume. These platforms will issue tokens to aggressively attract users. Thanks to technological advancements, decentralized derivatives trading volume will continue to grow, reaching 25% of centralized derivatives trading volume.
NFTs will not revive in 2026, and NFT market trading volume will continue to shrink.
Tiago's Predictions
Prediction markets will continue to be one of the strongest narratives in crypto, while other concepts that dominated the market in the past two years, such as memecoins and various launchpads, will lose momentum.
Even though ETFs and other financial instruments continue to attract institutional and retail attention, Bitcoin and other major coins will struggle to set new all-time highs against the backdrop of escalating geopolitical tensions.
Stablecoins will remain the strongest narrative for attracting new users into crypto, with major players either launching their own stablecoins or establishing partnerships with established institutions like Circle and Tether.
Ian's Predictions
Most DATs will crash in 2026 as their share prices fall below NAV, breaking the equity issuance model that supported their growth in 2025. Crypto ETFs offer better liquidity and lower fees, further squeezing DATs' space. Strategy and a few large institutions will survive due to their scale and brand advantages, but small DATs will face liquidation, acquisition, or be forced to transform.
Stablecoin supply will break the $500 billion mark, with trading volume exceeding the US ACH system in Q3. Growth will accelerate on two fronts: continued expansion in emerging markets and integration into corporate payment processes in developed markets. Companies will shift from passive holding to practical application, migrating part of cross-border supplier payments, international contractor salaries, and intra-group settlements to the stablecoin轨道. At least one major card network will process 5-10% of its cross-border merchant settlements via stablecoins by year-end. B2B payment platforms will increasingly integrate stablecoin options for international invoices.
Prediction markets will experience explosive growth during the US midterm elections, with Polymarket's trading volume quadrupling compared to 2024. The industry will bifurcate: Polymarket and Kalshi will dominate cultural and political markets, while specialized DeFi platforms focus on leveraged financial products. 85% of copycat platforms will shut down due to an inability to gain users. The legal framework for sports betting and prediction markets will remain unclear until year-end, but user growth will continue to accelerate due to the huge and highly attractive market size.
