Author | Delphi Digital

Compiled by | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Translator | Dingdang (@XiaMiPP)

Editor’s Note: Bitcoin has strongly broken through the $96,000 mark, and market sentiment is rapidly heating up again. However, rather than short-term fluctuations, what deserves discussion may be the direction that the crypto market should truly focus on in the next phase. Delphi Digital has provided 10 core judgments in its latest "2026 Outlook Report."

1. AI Agents Begin Autonomous Trading

The x402 protocol allows any API to control access through cryptocurrency payments. When an Agent needs a service, it can directly use stablecoins for instant payment—no shopping cart or subscription system is required. ERC-8004 introduces a trust mechanism by establishing a reputation registry for Agents: it records their historical performance and requires them to provide collateral.

When these two are combined, a true "autonomous Agent economy" begins to take shape. Users can completely delegate travel planning to an Agent: it will subcontract tasks to flight search Agents, pay for data via x402, and complete the ticketing process on-chain, all without any human intervention.

2. Perp DEX Devours Traditional Finance

The high costs of traditional finance stem from its extreme fragmentation: transactions occur on exchanges, settlements rely on clearinghouses, and asset custody is handled by banks. Blockchain is compressing these stages into a unified smart contract.

Currently, Hyperliquid is building native lending features. Perpetual contract DEXs have the potential to act as brokers, exchanges, custodians, banks, and even clearinghouses simultaneously. Competitors like @AsterDEX, @Lighterxyz, and @paradex are accelerating their pursuit.

3. Prediction Markets Upgrade to Financial Infrastructure

Thomas Peterffy, Chairman of Interactive Brokers, describes prediction markets as "a real-time information layer for portfolios." Currently, early demand on IBKR is mainly focused on weather contracts for energy, logistics, and insurance risk management.

Entering 2026, prediction markets will expand into more categories: stock event markets around corporate earnings surprises and guidance ranges, macro data markets for CPI, Federal Reserve decisions, and cross-asset relative value markets. Traders holding tokenized AAPL can hedge earnings risk through a simple binary contract without navigating complex options structures. Prediction markets will officially become a class of first-rate derivative tools.

4. Ecosystems "Reclaim" Earnings from Stablecoin Issuers

By merely distributing rights, Coinbase earned over $900 million from USDC reserves last year. Meanwhile, public chains like Solana, BSC, Arbitrum, Aptos, and Avalanche collectively generate about $800 million in annual fee income while supporting over $30 billion in USDC and USDT. Platforms promoting stablecoin usage are losing earnings to issuers that exceed the value they themselves obtain.

This situation is being disrupted. Hyperliquid has initiated competitive bidding for USDH and has allocated half of its reserve earnings to its Assistance Fund. Ethena's "stablecoin as a service" model has been adopted by Sui, MegaETH, and Jupiter. Earnings that previously passively flowed to established issuers are now returning to platforms that genuinely create usage scenarios.

5. DeFi Breaks the Low-Collateral Lending Dilemma

DeFi lending protocols have locked in billions of dollars in TVL but rely almost entirely on over-collateralization. The real breakthrough lies in zero-knowledge transfer protocols (zkTLS): users can prove their bank balance exceeds a certain threshold without disclosing account numbers, transaction records, or identity information.

@3janexyz has provided instant low-collateral USDC credit lines based on verified Web2 financial data, with algorithms that monitor borrower conditions in real-time and dynamically adjust interest rates. The same framework can also introduce "historical performance" as a credit score, providing credit support for AI Agents. @maplefinance, @centrifuge, and @USDai_Official are entering adjacent fields. By 2026, unsecured/low-collateral lending will transition from proof of concept to infrastructure.

6. On-Chain Forex Finds Product-Market Fit

Currently, USD stablecoins account for 99.7% of total supply, but this dominance may be nearing a peak. The traditional forex market is worth trillions of dollars but is rife with intermediaries, fragmented settlement systems, and high costs. On-chain forex compresses the entire intermediary chain by allowing various currencies to coexist as tokenized assets on the same execution layer.

The true product-market fit may first appear in emerging market currency pairs—where traditional forex channels are the most expensive and least efficient, and where the value proposition of crypto is clearest.

7. Gold and Bitcoin Lead "Devaluation Trades"

After we listed gold as "the chart to watch," its price has risen by about 60%. Even at historical highs, central banks have accumulated over 600 tons of gold, with China being one of the most active buyers.

The macro environment continues to support its strong performance: global central banks are cutting interest rates, fiscal deficits are expected to persist at least until 2027, global M2 is reaching new highs, and the Federal Reserve is ending quantitative tightening. Historical experience shows that gold typically leads Bitcoin by 3 to 4 months. When "currency devaluation" becomes a mainstream topic before the 2026 midterm elections, both asset classes will see significant inflows of safe-haven funds.

8. Exchanges Are Becoming "All-in-One Applications"

Coinbase, Robinhood, Binance, and Kraken are no longer just exchanges; they are building true super applications.

Coinbase has Base as its operating system, Base App as its user interface, USDC revenue as the underlying cash flow, and is laying out derivatives through Deribit. Robinhood's Gold membership has grown by 77% year-on-year, gradually becoming its core retention engine. Binance has already reached super application scale, with over 270 million users and $250 billion in payment volume. As distribution costs approach zero, value will concentrate on platforms that "control users." By 2026, the head effect will become increasingly pronounced.

9. Privacy Infrastructure Is Catching Up to Demand

Privacy is facing systemic pressure: the EU has passed the "Chat Monitoring Act," cash transaction limits have been set at €10,000, and the European Central Bank plans to launch a digital euro with a holding limit of €3,000.

At the same time, privacy infrastructure is accelerating to fill the gap. @payy_link has launched privacy crypto cards, @SeismicSys provides protocol-level encryption solutions, @KeetaNetwork achieves on-chain KYC without exposing personal data, and @CantonNetwork offers privacy infrastructure for large financial institutions. Without private channels, the adoption of stablecoins will hit a bottleneck.

10. Altcoin Returns Will Continue to Diverge

The past cycle of "broad-based rallies" is unlikely to be replicated. In the future, there will still be over $3 billion in token unlocking pressure, while competition from AI, robotics, and biotechnology fields is significantly intensifying, and ETF funds will increasingly concentrate on Bitcoin and a few large assets.

Capital will be reallocated around "structural demand": tokens with ETF fund inflows, protocols with real income and buyback mechanisms, and applications that truly achieve product-market fit. The ultimate winners will be those teams that build defensive moats in real economic activities.

Conclusion

The crypto industry is entering the next phase; institutionalization is no longer a future prospect but a current reality. Prediction markets, on-chain credit, the Agent economy, and stablecoins as infrastructure are driving a genuine paradigm shift.

Crypto is becoming the foundational layer of global finance. Teams that truly understand this trend will define the next decade.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。