Crypto & Real-World Asset Predictions for 2026
Dec 26, 2025
Arx Lab’s Independent Outlook on Stablecoins, DeFi, RWAs, and Market Structure
As we close out 2025, the crypto and real-world asset (RWA) landscape has proven surprisingly resilient. Despite ongoing macro uncertainty and Bitcoin sitting below its prior highs (at the time of writing), stablecoins continue to gain real-world traction, DeFi infrastructure is actually maturing, and tokenisation of RWAs is finally happening.
We work closely with crypto founders, financial operators, and DeFi teams, and what we’re seeing on the ground doesn’t always match the narratives you may see online. Looking ahead, these are our 10 crypto predictions for 2026, shaped by current adoption trends, capital flows, and where incentives are actually pointing… I.e. not just what’s getting engagement on X.
TL;DR Our 10 Crypto & RWA Predictions for 2026
Stablecoins become the default for everything
Hundreds of crypto-native neobanks emerge
Prediction markets reach maturity but not exuberance
DeFi becomes legit backend infrastructure for traditional finance
Bitcoin has a painful year (but alts moreso)
Privacy matters more than ever, but at the protocol level, not via niche coins
Appchains (v2) re-emerge but just for institutions
RWAs actually become composable in DeFi
DAOs become serious capital allocators
Fundamentals finally matter but it’s a double edged sword
A secret bonus prediction
1. Stablecoins become the default for… everything
By 2026, stablecoins will function as the primary settlement layer for payments, global remittance and even ecommerce, and most users won’t realise they’re using them. Rather than positioning stablecoins as consumer-facing crypto products, payment platforms will increasingly adopt them behind the scenes to improve speed, decrease their COGS and increase their margins.
This shift doesn’t require mass consumer education or ideological buy-in. It happens because stablecoins simply work better than conventional banking rails. This doesn’t mean separate checkout flows and all the UX quirks we love (like gas). We can already see this gearing up thanks to Stripe’s acquisitions of stablecoin-related companies such as Bridge this year.
2. Crypto-native neobanks exceed 500 globally
We expect the number of crypto-based neobanks to exceed 500 by 2026, largely due to the effective collapse of barriers to entry. The modern web3 stack is modular and composable:
Wallet infrastructure (Privy and Thirdweb)
On-ramps (Moonpay and Transak)
Card issuance (Rain)
All of these can all be integrated without building core financial plumbing from scratch.
Most of these neobanks won’t exist as standalone financial institutions. Instead, we believe that they’ll be embedded inside existing products as retention and engagement tools. In practice, many will function more like long-tail marketing initiatives than traditional banking businesses, optimised for keeping users inside an ecosystem rather than replacing incumbents.
3. Prediction markets reach maturity but not exuberance
2025 was the year of the prediction market driven by increased attention and integrations from major platforms. While we see real value in these products, particularly in political forecasting and information aggregation, we don’t believe they’ll stay a dominant financial primitive.
Much of their early success comes from exploiting inefficiencies, mostly regulatory. As markets mature and sophistication increases, many prediction markets start to resemble traditional derivatives, especially as most of the top markets by volume are based on crypto-asset prices. These are better served by established exchanges with deeper liquidity, superior execution and distribution. Retail flow is also likely to thin as incumbents (like Draftkings or existing CEXs) enter the space. This isn’t an NFT-style boom and bust as we’ve seen previously, but it’s also not a crazy uncapped growth story.
So no, we don’t think these companies will go public yet.
(Source)
4. DeFi becomes legit backend infrastructure for traditional finance
DeFi has and will increasingly operate as faceless infrastructure rather than the actual destination. We expect most financial institutions to have dedicated DeFi teams, much like mobile development teams in the early 2010s, before DeFi capabilities become embedded across product development (and investment).
When adjusted for risk, DeFi can offer superior returns due to inefficiencies and opportunities that traditional finance participants either don’t understand or can’t access. Early examples of this backend integration already exist, like Coinbase integrating Morpho into the Base app for literal everyday users. And as tooling, education, and compliance improve, more retail-focused and non-crypto brands will quietly rely on DeFi protocols to generate yield.
5. Bitcoin has a painful year (but alts moreso)
Despite our long-term optimism, we don’t expect Bitcoin to break into a new all-time high in 2026. Rate cuts are likely to occur in a persistently inflationary environment, which historically limits speculative upside. Bitcoin also continues to trade within a broader four-year, liquidity-driven cycle a pattern common across many assets without the “4 year cycle meme”.
Under these assumptions, we could see a retrace toward the USD $70k range followed by gradual recovery later in 2026. As we haven’t seen an explosive blow off for Bitcoin, this cycle we don’t expect a historical 80% drop that we’ve seen across previous cycles. However we still see a rocky future for alt coins, with drawdowns of 50–80% being common
6. Privacy matters more than ever, but at the protocol level, not via niche coins
Privacy will remain one of the most contentious topics in crypto through 2026 and beyond. As global uncertainty rises, concerns around surveillance and government overreach will push demand for privacy-preserving technologies.
However, we don’t expect standalone privacy coins to outperform long term. Instead, privacy functionality will increasingly be integrated directly into major L1 chains like Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade making ZK rollups more accessible, alongside zero-knowledge tooling that allows existing DeFi products to selectively shield activity.
Migrating to entirely new chains adds friction, while enabling privacy at the protocol or application level meets users where they already are. As a result we don’t see tokens like Zcash taking off but rather more Bitcoin being bridged and wrapped to Ethereum in the long term to be shielded there.
7. Appchains (v2) re-emerge but just for institutions
While the app-chain thesis fell out of favour in recent years, we believe it returns in a much narrower and more pragmatic form (aka. Appchains v2). Payments and stablecoins are a clear example where dedicated chains make sense. Even companies like Robinhood are looking to launch their own L2.
(Source)
Companies processing large volumes of stablecoin payments don’t want to share blockspace with unrelated applications as the congestion directly impacts user experience. Purpose-built chains also offer greater regulatory control, which appeals to leadership teams and investors. Early moves by major payment players suggest this trend is only just beginning.
8. RWAs become ubiquitous and composable in DeFi
By 2026, real-world assets will be deeply embedded across DeFi. We expect a significant portion of equities and credit products to be tokenised on-chain, driven by lower costs, expanded access, and increased efficiency. We’d wager close to 30% of the existing traditional assets get represented on chain via tokenisation.
Tokenisation not only reduces operating costs for incumbents but also expands total addressable markets by enabling global access and unlocking new demand from crypto-native capital. More importantly, RWAs become composable (fancy word for being combined or rearranged modularly) enabling lending, looping, and structured strategies that simply aren’t possible in traditional finance. We’ve already seen this with Apollo and Gauntlet's ACRED and sACRED tokens and looping mechanism deployed this year.
(Source)
9. DAOs evolve into serious capital allocators
As markets remain volatile, DAOs will be forced to mature. Treasury management, asset protection, and capital efficiency will become core competencies rather than secondary concerns. Many DAOs will prioritise yield generation as a way to offset declining treasury values and reduce reliance on token issuance.
This shift will drive demand for more sophisticated operators and financial tooling, benefiting protocols focused on capital efficiency, lending, and yield-bearing assets. In 2026, successful DAOs will increasingly resemble asset managers rather than online communities. This actually isn’t a new idea, but we think the timing is now ideal for this to become the normal operating model for DAOs hereon (or until markets become more risk-on).
10. A partial return to fundamentals (finally)
The idea that crypto markets will return to fundamentals has become a running joke, but we believe there’s some truth to it, but only for select assets. For a small group of blue-chip projects with real usage, revenue, or economic relevance, pricing will increasingly reflect fundamentals. You could argue, along similar lines to Santi Goel, that this is part of the technology adoption (and valuation) cycle, as we’ve seen before in the dotcom boom and bust… so things are working as expected.
That doesn’t mean explosive upside. These assets are unlikely to see drawdowns as the broader market declines, but thanks to the focus on fundamentals we don’t think they’ll decline anywhere near as much. Having said that, we think when things rebound they won’t have the same explosive growth.
Bonus: A strong year for web3 M&A and a tough one for VC
Finally, we expect 2026 to be a strong year for mergers and acquisitions in web3, and a difficult one for venture capital. Prolonged market softness and liquidity pressures will force some funds to sell or consolidate positions, creating opportunities for strategic buyers. Arthur Hayes’ team has been preempting this and have even launched a private equity vehicle to scoop up these distressed assets.
And that’s it for this year. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for your time. We’ll be expanding on several of these themes in future posts.
In the meantime, if you have any questions or you’re building in this space and want to discuss how these trends apply to your product or strategy, feel free to reach out to us at Arx Labs here.