Author: Tiger Research

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Introduction: In 2026, blockchain has yet to change the world, but what will happen a decade later? This article depicts changes that may occur in 2036, such as stablecoins replacing fiat currency, around-the-clock asset trading, major public chain integrations, and the reconstruction of content payment mechanisms—these are not science fiction, but the technological evolution already happening.

“Are there still people using cash?”

In 2036, at a currency exchange point in the fictional country of Zutopia. Judy, who has worked for 34 years, takes the currency detector from the drawer and begins to count the local currency, Bucks.

“There are still people using Bucks.”

It's normal. In this inflation-prone country, the value of currency shrinks daily. Legally it still exists, but in reality, no one uses it anymore. Everyone uses the US dollar stablecoin in their daily life.

Clatter, clatter, clatter.

Listening to the sound of the currency detector, Judy reminisces about the past years.

In 2002, 22-year-old Judy experienced a national default. The bank doors were locked, and people couldn’t withdraw their lifetime savings.

“You have to exchange it now.”

Her father said. As soon as the salary was credited, it had to be exchanged for dollars immediately. Wait a day, and Bucks would visibly depreciate. People checked the black market dollar exchange rate more frequently than the front-page news.

“How much is the dollar today?”

This question begins every day. It’s impossible to buy dollars at the official exchange rate. The government set a foreign exchange limit for each person per month, and no one knew when the bank would freeze dollar deposits.

In the mid-2020s, young clients started asking her questions she couldn’t understand.

“Can I exchange for USDT?”

At first, only a few freelancers and exporters used it to receive money from overseas. No banks, no waiting in line. With just a mobile phone, they could exchange Bucks for stablecoins and exchange them back when needed.

At that time, Judy never thought it would replace her work. Older people still needed cash, and many businesses did too. But the lines gradually became shorter. Young clients disappeared first, followed by middle-aged people.

By 2030, no one was lining up on payday anymore. Once businesses had no reason to hold Bucks, they began paying salaries directly in stablecoins. Bucks became a currency only needed for paying taxes and utility bills.

In 2033, the tax bureau changed its stance. The calculation was simple: collecting stablecoins was more reliable than collecting Bucks. A brief notice was posted on the website.

“Accept USDC and USDT as alternative payment methods for taxes.”

Bucks still existed, but the state announced that it preferred to collect others' money.

In 2034, the Treasury Department followed up. Bonds issued in Bucks repeatedly went unsold, and the Treasury ultimately issued new bonds denominated in US dollar stablecoins. Civil servant salaries soon followed. In 2035, some local governments began paying half of civil servant salaries in stablecoins—because civil servants who only received Bucks were hit hardest and earliest by inflation.

Issuing currency, collecting taxes, and paying salaries—these powers, once belonging solely to the state, gradually shifted to stablecoins.

As of May 2026, the total market capitalization of stablecoins was approximately $320 billion, with an annual trading volume of $2.8 trillion. In contrast to the US wholesale payment network processing over $2 trillion daily, this was merely a three-week volume. Excluding wash trading and false transactions, less than 6% was actually used for payments. The remaining 88% circulated only within exchanges—trading, collateralizing, then back again.

The question is where that 6% actually occurred. It may have started in New York and Silicon Valley, but the real users of this money are not in the US. Americans can manage just fine with credit cards and bank accounts. The people who desperately need stablecoins are those in countries where currency value shrinks daily.

Judy puts the currency detector back in the drawer. Will there still be clients tomorrow?

2 AM, Ten Minutes to Liquidation

In 2036, in a small rental apartment in Singapore.

At 2 PM. The notification sound goes off, and Lia glances at her phone. Nvidia price alert.

It’s 2 PM in Singapore, the New York stock market hasn’t even opened. But on Lia’s screen, the Nvidia chart is still fluctuating. Without hesitation, she clicks to buy. On the same screen, next to Nvidia, are government bonds, real estate REITs, and data center infrastructure funds, all in one interface.

By 2036, you are not just trading stocks—you can trade everything in the world.

“Investing never stops, no matter where you are.”

This is what Lia often says. For her, the world has always been this way.

In 2021, a 9-year-old Lia watched as US retail investors pushed the stock price of brick-and-mortar game store GameStop to the moon. It was an investment where participation itself became the focus, surpassing asset value—the organization of this participation was not the brokers, but online communities.

According to a 2025 World Economic Forum survey of 13 countries, 30% of Generation Z began investing as soon as they came of age—far higher than Generation X (9%) and baby boomers (6%). Generation Z's interest is so deep that 86% learned to invest before entering the workforce, while only 47% of baby boomers did.

In a Coinbase survey in the fourth quarter of 2025, 73% of young respondents said it was difficult to accumulate wealth through traditional means—higher than the 57% of older generations.

For this generation, investing is taken for granted—they want access to more of everything.

In June 2025. Tokens collateralized 1:1 with major US stocks—Apple, Tesla, Nvidia—flood into decentralized exchanges (DEX). There are no nationality restrictions, no strict KYC. With just a wallet address, US stocks are within reach, and leverage is effectively unlimited.

Just try again tomorrow.

Lia logs into the borderless trading platform Lemming Brothers and buys tokenized products for the Korean real estate index. Ten minutes later, her phone vibrates with a liquidation alert. She dismisses the warning on the screen as if nothing happened.

For Lia, the notifications in 2036 are like the background noise of everyday life. She checks the endless signal stream on her trading app, then picks up her phone again. This sharply contrasts with her parents, who invest in so-called “safe assets” at regulated exchanges.

In the world Lia lives in, every value is transformed into an asset that operates 24/7. This colossal market, which never stops, tempts her daily with the next transaction—today, just like every day.

The Day $2.2 Billion Evaporated

In 2036, at a startup office in Science and Technology Valley.

Do-hyun, an infrastructure engineer with 12 years in the industry, stops scrolling through the network status dashboard on the monitor. Looking at the chain list that can all be seen on one screen now, he whispers.

“Ten years ago, you had to keep scrolling. Now there are less than ten.”

In 2024, the year Do-hyun began his engineering career, it was indeed the era of the major discovery of Layer 2 rollups. Anyone could copy and paste a few lines of framework and stack code to launch their own blockchain under their own name. Do-hyun’s company also caught the wave of large-scale infrastructure, building validation nodes.

The chain was named Allchain. In June 2024, driven by airdrop expectations, the Total Value Locked (TVL) surged to $2.2 billion. He could clearly remember the scene of toasting and cheering in the conference room.

“At this rate, won’t we be the next Ethereum?”

But the joy of listing was short-lived. After the token was listed and airdrop rewards ran out, the coin price and chain usage plummeted dramatically. Projects and users chasing rewards turned their backs as soon as Allchain stopped paying, leading to a 97% evaporation of deposits within a year.

The brutal ending of Allchain was not an isolated case. Countless independent networks that mushroomed that year collapsed in the same way. They attracted development teams with the sweet taste of incentives, but once funds dried up, the ecosystem was instantly hollowed out, leaving only a silent shell of infrastructure.

The astronomical fixed costs of running independent chains exceeded the capacity of individual projects. Unable to bear the soaring maintenance costs, Allchains one by one announced closures, vanishing into history.

Only a very few survived under the ruthless scrutiny of capital. Hundreds of chains that once seemed poised to change the world carved up just a little over 10% of the market share ruins, then silently moved towards extinction.

“At that time, we all thought we could survive and build our own vast ecosystem…”

Back in 2026, people mistakenly believed that the number of chains was synonymous with blockchain scalability itself. But fragmented chains merely ruined the user experience and inflated security costs. What people truly wanted was not hundreds of complex networks—but a few massive infrastructures providing relentless liquidity and optimizing speed.

Do-hyun sighed deeply, silently closed the monitor, and picked up his bag to go home.

The ‘Human Eye’ That Once Clicked Has Disappeared

In 2036, at a media startup office in a cave.

Jae-hoon happened to see a banner ad in the bottom right corner while browsing another platform, and smiled.

“There are still companies putting up banners on screens, waiting for readers.”

Jae-hoon is right. The daily visits of that platform hit a new high each month, but traditional banner ad revenue just wouldn’t come; the entire advertising model has become a thing of the past.

In the early 2020s, when Jae-hoon just entered the media industry, the formula for the online economy was clear. Write good articles, and readers would come. With readers, advertisers would pay to post banners.

“How many page views today?”

This question, asked every morning at the meeting, determined the life and death of media companies at that time.

But this peaceful formula began to disappear by the late 2020s. By 2029, over half of global web traffic no longer came from humans but from AI agents and bots. AI would scrape articles and summarize them in seconds—but machines had no “eyes” to see banner ads.

At first, like most media companies, they blocked the bots. Server costs exploded and could not keep up. But the cost of blocking was brutal. Completely buried outside the AI search and recommendation ecosystem, brands were forgotten. Media companies faced a painful choice: block the bots and lose traffic, or open up but earn nothing.

“Who are we selling content to now?”

This desperate question filled the office. The answer was not the billboards—but to price the content itself.

The door to transformation opened with the launch of the x402 standard by Coinbase in May 2025. It revived the HTTP 402 response code, which had been abandoned in the corners of web standards for 30 years—signaling “payment required.”

By 2029, the focus was on building infrastructure: Know Your Agent (KYA) verification, settlement tracks, etc. The real explosion began in 2030 when a media company started selling data directly to AI through the x402 system. Once validated, other media and data companies immediately adopted x402 and jumped into data sales.

At first, there was only some ridicule—small change, just tens of won per transaction, hardly worth the effort. But as hundreds of thousands or even millions of machine calls accumulated daily, real money began to flow into accounts, far exceeding the revenue from prior banner ads.

“No need to worry anymore about what advertisers think—machines pay full price, and the company operates based on that.”

The old online advertising model, which sold ads by attracting human eyes, slowly moved towards its end, while the machine economy—AI agents trading through APIs—fully unfolded.

Jae-hoon turned off the dashboard and picked up his coffee cup. The visitor curve still presented that strange, almost vertical rise, nonsensical by old standards—but now it was the norm. He no longer checked how many people visited; instead, he checked how many AI agents paid that day.

Tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of agents would again knock on his server's door, and that honest transaction record would not get shorter—never again.

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