6 Crypto Narratives Set to Shape and Transform the Industry by 2026

Updated

November 29, 2025

Gambar 6 Crypto Narratives Set to Shape and Transform the Industry by 2026

Jakarta, Pintu News – The year 2025 looks to be a challenging one for the crypto industry. Despite promises to make the United States a global center for crypto and artificial intelligence, the market continues to face significant pressure.

After President Trump officially took office in January, the market experienced a number of pressures culminating in a sudden crisis in October, which almost paralyzed the entire industry. Although the impact of this crisis has yet to fully subside, macroeconomic factors and positive impulses from within the industry point to the possibility of a better quarter, as well as a bright outlook for 2026.

Let’s explore six trends that are quietly starting to reshape the crypto industry, providing an early glimpse of what the landscape will look like in 2026.

1. Prediction Markets: Crypto Options Alternatives

Prediction markets (PMs) are experiencing a major surge, with weekly trading volumes exceeding $3 billion. These markets now cover topics such as politics, sports, esports, pop culture, macroeconomics, crypto and finance.

Projects such as Polymarket and Kalshi offer broad topic coverage, while projects such as Limitless and Opinion Labs focus on specific areas such as currency markets and interest rates.

Prediction markets overcome the limitations of crypto options with a more user-friendly interface, allowing anyone to jump in and bet on an event. Users can simply buy “Yes” or “No” shares without having to understand complex financial terms.

In addition, prediction markets can also be used as a hedging tool against risk, making them a valuable tool for investors.

2. Prediction Markets: Machine Learning Testbed

Machine learning teams are now using prediction markets as a means to develop and test their models. For example, Sportstensor incentivizes those who submit the best signals, which are then used to improve their prediction models.

Synth utilizes market data to predict crypto asset prices, while Sire is building an “Alpha Vault” dedicated to sports predictions. Billy provides tools for automated betting analysis.

This environment encourages AI-based competition, allowing teams to prove their strategies in real market conditions. In addition, these projects will also have the opportunity to be incentivized with tokens, similar to the early days of Hyperliquid.

3. Neobank War

Major company Web2 began to launch Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain projects, and integrated payment links using stablecoins to directly serve users.

On the other hand, crypto-native projects are also starting to enter real-world financial services. Teams like Ether.fi , Tria, Avici, and UR are now offering non-custodial crypto debit cards, allowing users to spend their on-chain assets in the real world.

However, most of these products still rely on partnerships with banks that have Visa/Mastercard licenses, so their main function is still as a “user acquisition gateway.”

Projects that are able to manage compliance and regulatory aspects directly will be able to offer real bank accounts as well as seamless multi-currency channels – bridging the worlds of traditional finance and crypto as a whole.

One of the leading examples is UR from the Mantle ecosystem, which already operates under FINMA regulation and has official banking authority in Switzerland.

4. Crypto App Breakthroughs

The crypto landscape has evolved rapidly, from centralized exchanges (CEX), to spot DEXs, perpetual DEXs, to the Hyperliquid era. A surge in highly speculative project launches, pioneered by Pumpdotfun, is driving the growth of narrative-driven on-chain launch platforms. The prediction market is now truly starting to reach a wide audience, much like the NFT craze of the past.

DeFi is also making progress in various areas: structured yields, interest-based products, stablecoins, real-world assets (RWAs) and DePINs, and asset tokenization. All major crypto applications are now seeing rapid improvements.

Centralized exchanges are launching super-app wallets, while other wallets are also rapidly expanding their functionality. The ICO trend is starting to make a comeback, with Coinbase launching its first Monad ICO, and other platforms such as Legion and Kaito also growing.

5. Crypto AI Finds Product-Market Fit (PMF)

Initially, AI in crypto was only fulfilled by meme coin projects and GPT wrappers. Now, blockchain-based payments and stablecoins are used to support automated transactions between agents.

Technologies such as Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and Zero-Knowledge , along with token-based incentives and penalties, make AI systems more verifiable, controllable, and predictable.

Support layers are starting to enable seamless collaboration between humans and AI. “Darwinian” style AI competition became a powerful mechanism to build agents, improve signals, and optimize performance.

The most successful use cases so far have been in trading and predictive signaling. More and more ecosystems are adopting this Darwinian model, incentivizing developers, rewarding contributions, and supporting high-quality AI research and development.

Although still in its early stages, some subnets of Bittensor are already showing promising results.

6. Dynamic DeFi

DeFi has long been a key foundation of the crypto industry, with a total locked value (TVL) exceeding $130 billion across DEXs, lending services, yield products, and stablecoins. The main strength of DeFi lies in its programmable, verifiable, and composable nature.

However, over the past five years, the basic mechanisms of DeFi have remained largely static and have not changed much.

Now imagine if the new DeFi protocol could automatically adjust leverage, rebalance liquidity provider (LP) positions, and enter and exit the market based on predicted underlying asset prices. This is the beginning of the “Dynamic DeFi” era, driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Allora Network has become an important player in this development, integrating machine learning-based intelligence into traditional DeFi systems. Their strategy includes dynamic leverage management and return optimization based on predictive risk signals.

Projects like Giza and Almanac are also developing new products that allow AI agents to create tokenized strategy vaults in just minutes – making them not only capital managers, but also platforms for automatically creating financial strategies.

What will happen next?

By 2026, we are likely to witness the convergence of various grand narratives – such as Crypto, AI, DeFi, RWA (Real World Assets), DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks), and robotics – into one interconnected digital economic ecosystem run jointly by humans and intelligent agents.

DeFi will become more dynamic, and AI will play a big role in expanding DeFi adoption to more users. Crypto payment links, stablecoins, as well as other key applications will reach mass adoption levels. Neobank will become a real bridge between Web2 and Web3, seamlessly merging traditional finance with the crypto world.

Prediction markets will continue to evolve, with machine learning teams becoming an important part of the ecosystem. The natural selection process will take place faster, with only a few assets actually experiencing significant value appreciation.

Crypto projects also tend to favor IPOs (Initial Public Offering) over ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) in order to gain the liquidity, regulatory compliance, and scale of traditional capital markets.

The next cycle will be an era of deep integration between traditional finance (TradFi) and DeFi, creating the foundation of a more stable, efficient and inclusive digital economy.

FAQ

What are the main factors influencing crypto adoption in 2026?

Key factors include an increase in crypto-based products by financial institutions and clearer and more consistent regulation across countries.

How will blockchain technology evolve in 2026?

Blockchain technology in 2026 is evolving through innovations such as sharding and layer 2 scaling, which increase scalability and transaction speed.

What impact do crypto derivatives have on the market?

Crypto derivative products such as futures and options increase liquidity and provide more tools for investors to manage risk, making the crypto market more attractive to large investors.

That’s the latest information about crypto. Follow us on Google News to get the latest crypto news about crypto projects and blockchain technology. Also, learn crypto from scratch with complete discussion through Pintu Academy and stay up-to-date with the latest crypto market such as bitcoin price today, xrp coin price today, dogecoin and other crypto asset prices through Pintu Market.

Enjoy an easy and secure crypto trading experience by downloading Pintu crypto app via Google Play Store or App Store now. Also, get a web trading experience with various advanced trading tools such as pro charting, various types of order types, and portfolio tracker only at Pintu Pro.

*Disclaimer

This content aims to enrich readers’ information. Pintu collects this information from various relevant sources and is not influenced by outside parties. Note that an asset’s past performance does not determine its projected future performance. Trading crypto carries high risk and volatility, always do your own research and use cold hard cash before investing. All activities of buying and selling bitcoin and other crypto asset investments are the responsibility of the reader.

Reference: