Gate Ventures' latest 2026 outlook indicates that five emerging frontier areas are rapidly reshaping the industry landscape, leading the next phase of Web3 development. First, the on-chain market "real-time information aggregation layer" is quickly rising, becoming the core intelligence infrastructure for integrating fragmented data and liquidity. Second, decentralized payment and foreign exchange settlement networks are replacing traditional neobanks, enabling cross-border, real-time, and borderless value settlement. Third, with the accelerated adoption of autonomous robots, a "machine-native" financial system is beginning to take shape, allowing robots to collaborate and transact on-chain. Fourth, institutional-grade DeFi is moving towards an integrated "meta-yield" platform, constructing a unified yield and risk engine by integrating diverse on-chain yield sources. Fifth, crypto mining is transforming into a distributed computing power and energy infrastructure provider for the AI era, becoming an essential part of high-performance computing and energy networks. Gate Ventures states that these trends collectively indicate a structural transformation in global value flow, computing power scheduling, and intelligent system collaboration, while also showing that an increasing number of crypto and ecosystem companies are accelerating their move towards public capital markets, expanding Pre-IPO investment channels.
The crypto industry is reaching a significant turning point in 2026: after over a decade of infrastructure development, Web3 is deeply intersecting with the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy. The coming year will be driven by entirely new demand rather than minor improvements: on-chain real-time information aggregators will become the intelligent foundation of the crypto market; borderless payment and FX networks will replace outdated fintech infrastructure; autonomous robots will collaborate and transact on-chain through machine-native financial systems; institutional-grade DeFi will integrate into a unified risk and yield engine; miners will evolve into global distributed AI computing power and energy providers.
For projects deeply engaged in the aforementioned areas, Gate Ventures looks forward to connecting with more outstanding teams.
Relevant teams can contact Gate Ventures via the X platform @gate_ventures or send project proposals to ventures@gate.com
1. Real-time Information Aggregation Layer of On-chain Markets
A new type of on-chain "information aggregator" is becoming one of the most critical foundational layers of Web3. With the surge in on-chain activities, predictive markets, governance data, social dynamics, trading flows, and AI signals are continuously generated on platforms like Polymarket, Hyperliquid, Kalshi, Hedgehog, and across multiple chains. The question is no longer whether data exists, but how to understand it. Each platform generates its own set of probabilities, incentives, and narratives, but this information is not aligned and cannot form a unified view. The key breakthrough in the next phase will come from infrastructure capable of integrating these signals and transforming them into a clear and consistent panoramic view.
The capabilities of these aggregators go far beyond presenting charts. They can ingest dispersed event data, standardize probabilities and sentiments from different sources, merge on-chain telemetry data with social context, and convert fragmented activities into clear insights that traders, institutions, DAOs, enterprises, and automated systems can directly use. This transformation is akin to what Bloomberg does for traditional markets, organizing chaotic information into truly actionable intelligence.
With the rise of AI Agents, this becomes increasingly important. Agents need clean, structured, real-time data to manage risks, allocate liquidity, respond to events, and execute strategies without human supervision. As autonomous systems begin to participate in the market, the demand for "integrated intelligent information flows" will make the ability to simplify the entire information landscape inevitable. By 2026, the most competitive platforms in this field will be those that can integrate decentralized information at scale and provide fast, interpretable intelligence. In an era drowned in noise, the ability to unify and interpret various signals will become the core advantage and one of the most underestimated opportunities in the Web3 space.
2. New Banks, Borderless Payment Infrastructure, and On-chain Foreign Exchange Settlement
While fintech neobanks have improved user experience, they are still constrained by traditional financial infrastructure, such as ACH, SWIFT, card organization networks, correspondent banking systems, and custodial payment service providers (PSPs)—these systems are essentially designed for human users and office hours, not for machines, global commerce, or real-time settlement. In contrast, blockchain networks can now achieve borderless, 24/7 value transfer globally. Stablecoins are becoming global settlement assets, while decentralized liquidity layers and smart contract routers provide continuously programmable foreign exchange conversion between currencies like USDC, EURC, and JPY-pegged stablecoins.
This opens the door to a new financial architecture where payments and foreign exchange can flow as freely as data. Enterprises can automate cross-border payroll, invoicing, treasury scheduling, and hedging operations; merchants can price in one currency but settle instantly in another; machines can autonomously complete transactions without bank accounts. As an open, permissionless system, such networks are becoming a universal settlement layer connecting real-world commerce with on-chain economies, not a replica of neobanks, but a payment and foreign exchange infrastructure that traditional fintech can never provide.
3. Robot Infrastructure and Machine-native Financial Networks
AI and robotics technology from the Web2 phase are rapidly evolving, with companies like 1X, Figure, Skild, and Unitree making significant progress, and investments in the Physical AI field continue to grow. As robots transition from scripted machines to embodied autonomous agents, a critical gap is emerging: different manufacturers and models cannot communicate or collaborate through a unified, neutral layer. This has created a demand for an open, cross-device operational layer, which is precisely what Web3 can provide. On-chain identity (DID) allows robots to self-identify without relying on manufacturers; smart contract registries enable them to publish their own functions, states, and telemetry data; immutable logs provide verifiable accountability for robot behavior. Smart contracts can also coordinate tasks and workflows among multi-vendor robot clusters, providing the interoperability foundation that current traditional robot software stacks lack.
Autonomous robots also require a machine-native financial system to pay for power, data, computing power, and service fees, but the traditional financial system is completely ineffective for them: robots cannot open accounts, cannot go through KYC, and cannot use human-centered payment networks. Web3 empowers robots with direct economic capabilities, enabling autonomous settlement without intermediaries through wallets, signatures, and global micropayments. Blockchain brings instant, low-cost settlement capabilities, while standards like x402 allow agents to automatically pay access or service fees. Smart contracts further provide escrow, conditional payments, insurance, and reputation systems, creating a programmable, borderless financial layer designed for transactions between machines. In this system, cryptocurrency is no longer an add-on but the only viable settlement infrastructure supporting the autonomous robot ecosystem.
4. The Rise of Institutional-grade DeFi and Meta-yield Platforms
The next generation of platforms will integrate perpetual contracts with lending markets and strategy vaults, allowing collateral to continuously generate yield while supporting leveraged positions; a shared margin system spanning spot, perpetual, and options will gradually evolve these platforms into multi-asset prime brokers operating 24/7.
However, in the underlying structure, on-chain yields remain dispersed across various sources, including: staking and re-staking rewards, perpetual contract funding fees and basis, MEV and order flow profits, market-making fees and impermanent loss, stablecoin and foreign exchange basis, RWA and off-chain asset net value differences, as well as liquidity premiums in predictive markets and InfoFi markets. The key opportunity in 2026 lies in viewing these yield sources as combinable "yield atoms" and packaging them into meta-yield products. Aggregation strategies can integrate market structure yields (funding fees, basis, MEV, FX spreads), layering hedging and arbitrage on top of base yields, and using predictive markets and AI Agents as dynamic configuration signals, ultimately transforming fragmented yields into structured, transparent on-chain fixed-income products, allowing CeDeFi platforms to upgrade from single trading venues to complete yield and risk engines.
5. Crypto Miners as Distributed AI Computing Power and Energy Providers
With the rapid development of AI, its energy demands are soaring, while existing power supply capabilities struggle to keep up. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data centers' electricity consumption is expected to double from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh in 2030, accounting for 2.5%–3% of global electricity consumption. However, new power supply projects are often constrained by complex grid connection procedures, strict site selection requirements, and lengthy construction and approval cycles. The imbalance between energy supply and computing power demand has become a new pain point in the AI era. In this context, crypto mining companies with abundant energy reserves and efficient electricity cost models accumulated over the past decade are becoming increasingly attractive. These miners typically hold ready-to-use power supply licenses, have signed long-term low-cost power contracts, and possess mature infrastructure, including substations, cooling systems, and emergency mechanisms. Additionally, switching equipment from executing cryptocurrency mining to handling AI computing loads is technically relatively simple.
As a result, in 2025, several major mining companies, including IREN Limited, Core Scientific, and Hut 8, reached new stock price highs after strategically expanding into high-performance computing (HPC) and AI cloud services. Notably, most of these mining operations are located in North America. Meanwhile, mining companies in the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, the Middle East, and other regions still have considerable growth potential and valuation upside when undergoing similar transformations.
These five frontier themes—the real-time information aggregators driving on-chain markets, borderless payment and foreign exchange infrastructure, machine-native networks for robots, institutional-grade meta-yield systems, and crypto miners transforming into AI computing providers—collectively outline the path for Web3 to evolve into a "universal coordination and computing layer" in the AI-driven economy. At the same time, an increasing number of ecosystem companies are entering substantial revenue scales and maturing in regulatory compliance, giving them the opportunity to enter public capital markets through IPOs, de-SPACs, and mergers and acquisitions.
As the industry moves towards 2026, the true frontrunners will be those teams building products at critical intersections, where blockchain demonstrates structural advantages in liquidity, computing power, collaboration, and settlement. As these forces continue to converge, Gate Ventures believes that the coming year may become the most transformative year in the history of the crypto industry, unlocking a new generation of investable opportunities for global entrepreneurs, institutions, and users.
About Gate Ventures
Gate Ventures is the venture capital arm of Gate.com, focusing on decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications, dedicated to driving global innovation transformation in the Web 3.0 era. Gate Ventures works closely with global industry leaders to support teams and startups with innovative visions and technical capabilities, helping them reshape the future of social and financial interactions.
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