Every year, countless outlooks and predictions emerge in the cryptocurrency market. Most are quickly forgotten. However, a few predictions can truly influence the flow of capital, talent, and attention. Among them is Messari's annual "Crypto Theses" report, which occupies a unique position.
For many institutions, this report is more of a strategic memo than a forecasting document. It not only explores market trends but also implicitly defines… things that will often become the focus areas for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in the coming year, as emphasized in the Messari Theses.
The 2026 edition of the report revolves around a clear transformation: cryptocurrency is shifting from pure speculation to system-level integration. In the first part of this three-article series, I will focus on several core arguments from the report, combining my personal interpretations and questions, particularly emphasizing the perspective of market participants rather than a purely first-order research viewpoint.
Valuation Traps of L1 Blockchains
Between 2024 and 2025, a wave of venture capital-backed Layer 1 blockchain projects emerged, often boasting fully diluted valuations in the tens of billions of dollars. Projects like Monad, Berachain, and Sei appeared with familiar promises: higher TPS, stronger teams, and superior execution environments. The implicit assumption is that every new L1 blockchain has the potential to become "the next Ethereum."
Messari believes this assumption has now been overturned by real data.
Early valuation logic viewed L1 tokens as potential currencies. If a chain could become a settlement layer with sufficient activity, then a massive currency premium seemed reasonable. However, in practice, most such networks ultimately turned into highly inflationary systems with negligible revenue. The token issuance far exceeded on-chain fee income, leading to structural losses for many L1 tokens.
Meanwhile, the market environment has also changed. Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem has significantly matured, while Solana has solidified its dominance in the high-performance consumer cryptocurrency space. In this context, new chains struggle to attract loyal long-term token holders. Instead, they attract airdrop farmers and short-term liquidity tourists.
Messari's conclusion is straightforward: aside from BTC and a few truly attractive ecosystems (Solana and Base are the most frequently mentioned examples), most L1 valuations have completely detached from fundamentals.
Looking ahead to 2026, the report anticipates that the market will actively strip L1 tokens of their so-called "currency premium." Simply promoting high throughput is no longer sufficient to support billions of dollars in FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation). At a minimum, a chain's daily gas fee income should exceed the amount distributed through inflationary rewards. Otherwise, the consequences could be dire.
In extreme cases, some newly launched parallel EVM chains have transaction prices still reaching $5 billion to $10 billion, while their daily gas income is less than $10,000. At this rate, it would take thousands of years to offset token issuance costs through fee income. This is not a temporary mismatch but a structural issue.
Although Messari holds an optimistic view of Solana—perhaps influenced by its own investments—the broader revelation is more significant: a viable L1 platform must possess genuine "commanding power" or some form of monopolistic position at the application layer. Speed itself is no longer the winning formula.
Chain Abstraction as a Survival Strategy
One area highlighted in the report that I believe deserves closer examination is chain abstraction.
The theoretical goal of chain abstraction is simple, but its actual impact is profound. Users do not need to know which chain they are using. With just one wallet, balances denominated in stablecoins allow users to initiate operations, while the system automatically handles all aspects in the background, such as bridging, gas conversion, routing, and signing.
If this vision is realized, blockchains will no longer be consumer-facing products but will become backend infrastructure.
Projects like Near and Berachain are attempting different versions of this concept. Near positions itself as an AI-centric distributed platform, while Berachain reinforces capital stickiness through its "liquidity consensus" model, effectively forcing liquidity to remain within its ecosystem.
From an investment perspective, this redefines how L1 layers are evaluated. Blockchains that merely process transactions faster can be replaced, while those that can control user traffic, liquidity routing, or application distribution can maintain their influence. In the post-abstraction era, power will no longer depend on execution speed but on coordination and control.
The Rise of the Agent Economy
Perhaps the most controversial claim in the Messari report is that by 2026, most on-chain activity will no longer be driven by humans.
Instead, AI agents will dominate transaction volumes.
The logic is simple. Traditional banking systems cannot open accounts for autonomous software agents. However, AI systems increasingly require 24/7 access to payment, hedging tools, and yield optimization capabilities. Crypto-native assets, especially stablecoins, are well-suited to play this role.
If AI agents achieve economic autonomy, they will be able to pay each other, rebalance portfolios, and seek optimal execution paths without human intervention. Messari estimates that up to 80% of on-chain transactions in the next cycle could be machine-generated.
This shift is significant. The importance of user interfaces, dashboards, and retail-friendly designs diminishes. APIs, the composability of smart contracts, and machine-readable financial primitives become the real battleground.
Protocols like Virtuals and Wayfinder are early attempts to build the infrastructure for this world. Virtuals positions itself as a platform where AI agents can have autonomous identities and control over funds. Wayfinder focuses on handling complex on-chain operations on behalf of agents.
However, the real opportunity may lie elsewhere. Rather than speculating on abstract "AI tokens," Messari is actually encouraging people to focus on the consumables of AI: such as gas optimization layers, agent authentication systems, and the infrastructure that AI must possess. Paying for the use of these works is more about tools than narrative drama.
Equity Perpetual Contracts and New Frontiers in Derivatives
Another important theme is the emergence of equity perpetual contracts.
Following the success of protocols like Hyperliquid, the ultra-liquid DeFi is expanding from crypto-native assets to global stock price exposure. Equity perpetual contracts are synthetic derivatives whose prices are anchored by oracles and funding rates, rather than ownership.
This distinction is crucial. Trading Nvidia stock options does not involve dividends or shareholder rights. It is purely a bet on price movements, realized through a financing rate mechanism. If the underlying stock rises, the shorts benefit from the longs; if it falls, the opposite is true.
Messari compares this model to tokenized stocks. Tokenized stocks theoretically represent ownership but face issues such as liquidity shortages, opaque custody, and platform risks in practice. For now, the equity incentive model seems more scalable.
Messari believes that if the Hyperliquid market truly expands in 2026, its surrounding ecosystem could experience exponential growth. Of course, there are other competing models. Aster is often considered closely related to the Binance ecosystem, adopting a cross-chain liquidity aggregation approach rather than building vertically integrated L1 services.
Hyperliquid prioritizes on-chain transparency and performance by owning the entire blockchain technology stack. Aster, on the other hand, prioritizes capital efficiency and convenience, allowing users to deploy leverage across chains with minimal friction. In a bull market, the latter's appeal is evident. However, the complexity of its architecture also brings higher systemic risks.
Decentralization and the Shift to Real Revenue
Finally, Messari points out that DePIN is the only industry it expects to generate hundreds of millions of verifiable revenue by 2026.
This claim is not without controversy. The concept of DePIN was once popular but mostly ended in failure due to one-sided supply growth lacking real demand. Many early projects encouraged hardware deployment but overlooked the question of who would pay for the service.
The report argues that this landscape is changing. Infrastructure has been deployed. What follows is demand—primarily driven by a shortage of AI computing power.
Projects like io.net focus on GPU aggregation rather than speculative data collection. The key metric is external revenue: is the token buyback funding sourced from real enterprise contracts or merely from new participants purchasing equipment?
Messari points out that Aethir is an example, with its annual recurring revenue exceeding $160 million in the third quarter, primarily due to users who could not afford AI computing services due to the high costs of high-end hardware. Whether this growth momentum can be sustained remains to be seen, but its model is already clear.
For DePIN, the quality of revenue (rather than network scale) will determine its viability.
Final Notes
Although Messari's report is detailed, it primarily reflects a first-hand market perspective. For retail investors, fundamentals rarely drive price movements. Liquidity and market narratives still dominate returns.
Usage does not equate to revenue; marginal capital flows equate to revenue.
This tension—between what should be important and what actually drives market direction—will determine the next cycle. And this is where critical interpretations of reports like Messari's hold the most value.
To be continued (Part Two).
The above views are referenced from @Web3___Ace
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