Author: Tiger Research

Translated by: Shenchao TechFlow

Guide by Shenchao: In 2026, blockchain has not yet changed the world, but what will happen a decade later? This article depicts the possible changes that could occur by 2036 through the stories of four ordinary people, such as stablecoins replacing fiat currencies, assets trading around the clock, major integrations of public chains, and the reconstruction of content payment mechanisms—these are not science fiction but technological evolution that is already happening.

“Does anyone still use paper currency?”

In 2036, at a currency exchange in the fictional country of Zutopia. Judy, who has worked for 34 years, takes out a currency verifier and begins counting the national currency, Bucks.

“It’s surprising that someone still uses Bucks.”

That’s quite normal. This country, prone to inflation, sees its currency value shrink daily. Legally it still exists, but in practice, no one uses it anymore. Everyone conducts their daily life using USD stablecoins.

Clatter clatter clatter.

Listening to the sound of the currency verifier, Judy reflects on these years.

In 2002, 22-year-old Judy experienced a national default. The bank doors were locked, and people could not withdraw their life savings.

“You have to exchange it now.”

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

“How much is USD today?”

This question started every day. It was impossible to buy USD at the official exchange rate. The government imposed a monthly foreign exchange quota per person, and no one knew when banks would freeze USD deposits.

By the mid-2020s, young clients began to ask her questions she couldn't understand.

“Can I exchange for USDT?”

Initially, only a few freelancers and exporters used it to receive money from abroad. No banks, no queues. With just a smartphone, they could convert Bucks to stablecoins and convert back when needed.

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

By 2030, no one queued for payday either. Once businesses had no reason to hold Bucks, they started paying salaries directly in stablecoins. Bucks became a currency needed only for paying taxes and utilities.

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

“Accepting USDC and USDT as alternative payment methods for taxes”

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

In 2034, the Ministry of Finance followed suit. Bonds issued in Bucks repeatedly failed to sell out, leading the Treasury to eventually issue new bonds denominated in USD stablecoins. Civil servant salaries followed suit. By 2035, some local governments began to pay half of civil servant salaries in stablecoins—because civil servants who only received Bucks were hit hardest and earliest by inflation.

Money printing, tax collection, salary payments—these powers that once belonged solely to the state gradually shifted to stablecoins.

By May 2026, the total market value of stablecoins was approximately $320 billion, with an annual trading volume of $28 trillion. Compared to the over $2 trillion processed daily by the U.S. wholesale payment network, this was just the volume of three weeks. Excluding wash trading and false transactions, less than 6% was actually used for payments. The remaining 88% circulated only within exchanges—trading, collateralizing, then returning.

The question is where that 6% actually occurred. It might have started in New York and Silicon Valley, but the real users of this money were not in the U.S. Americans had sufficient credit cards and bank accounts. The real need for stablecoins came from people in countries where the currency was devaluing daily.

Judy put the currency verifier back in the drawer. Will there be clients tomorrow?

2 a.m., ten minutes to liquidation

In 2036, a small rented room in Singapore.

At two in the afternoon. A notification sound rings, and Lia glances at her phone. NVIDIA limit order alert.

At two in the afternoon in Singapore, the New York stock market hasn't even opened. But on Lia's screen, the NVIDIA chart is still flickering. Without hesitation, she clicks to buy. On the same screen, alongside NVIDIA are government bonds, real estate REITs, and data center infrastructure funds, all on one interface.

By 2036, you weren’t just trading stocks—you could trade everything in the world.

“Investment never sleeps, no matter where you are.”

This is a phrase Lia often says. For her, the world has always been like this.

In 2021, nine-year-old Lia watched as American retail investors drove the stock price of physical game store GameStop sky-high. It became an investment where participation itself became the focus, exceeding asset value—the organization of this participation was not by brokers, but by online communities.

According to a 2025 World Economic Forum survey across 13 countries, 30% of Generation Z began investing as soon as they came of age—a rate far higher than Generation X (9%) or Baby Boomers (6%). Generation Z's interest was so deep that 86% of them learned to invest before entering the workforce, compared to just 47% of Baby Boomers.

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

For this generation, investing is a given—they want to access everything more.

In June 2025, tokens backed 1:1 by major U.S. stocks—Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA—flooded decentralized exchanges (DEXs). No nationality restrictions, no strict KYC. As long as you have a wallet address, U.S. stocks are within reach, with leverage practically unlimited.

She could just try again tomorrow.

Lia logged into the borderless trading platform Lemming Brothers, and purchased a tokenized product of the South Korean real estate index. Ten minutes later, her phone vibrated with a liquidation alert. She casually swiped away the warning on the screen.

For Lia, the mobile notifications of 2036 are like the background noise of daily life. She checks the endless stream of signals in her trading app and picks up her phone again. This stands in stark contrast to her parents, who invest regularly in supposedly “safe assets” at regulated exchanges.

In the world Lia lives in, every form of value is converted into assets, operating non-stop 24 hours a day. This ceaseless massive market tempts her every day for the next transaction—today, just like every other day.

The day when $2.2 billion evaporated

In 2036, at a startup office in Banqiao Technology Valley.

Infrastructure engineer Do-hyun, who has been in the industry for 12 years, paused while scrolling through the network status dashboard on his monitor. Looking at the now-visible chain list on one screen, he murmured.

“Ten years ago you had to keep scrolling. Now there aren't even ten.”

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

The chain was named Allchain. In June 2024, thanks to expected airdrops, its total locked value (TVL) rose to $2.2 billion. He could still vividly remember the cheering scene in the conference room.

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

But the joy of listing was short-lived. After the token listing and airdrop rewards ran out, the token price and chain usage plummeted sharply. Those projects and users chasing rewards turned their backs the moment Allchain stopped paying, leading to a 97% evaporation of deposits within a year.

The harsh outcome for Allchain was not an isolated case. Numerous independent networks that emerged like mushrooms that year faced similar collapses. They attracted development teams with the lure of incentives, but when funding dried up, the ecosystem was instantly vacated, leaving only a silent shell of infrastructure.

The astronomical fixed costs of running an independent chain exceeded the capacity of any single project. Unable to withstand the soaring infrastructure maintenance costs, Allchains announced closures one after another, disappearing into history.

Only a few survived under the cold scrutiny of capital. Hundreds of chains that once seemed poised to change the world now shared just over 10% of the market share ruins, before quietly going extinct.

“Back then, we all thought we could survive and build our own vast ecosystems…”

In 2026, people mistook the number of chains for blockchain scalability itself. But the fragmented chains only disrupted the user experience and raised security costs. What people truly wanted was not hundreds of complex networks—but a few massive infrastructures that provided unbreakable liquidity and optimized speed.

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

The once-clicked “human eyes” have disappeared

In 2036, at a media startup office in Upping Cave.

Jae-hoon happened to see a banner ad in the lower right corner while browsing another platform and laughed.

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

Jae-hoon is right. The daily visit count of that platform set monthly records, but traditional banner ad revenue still didn't come; the entire ad model had become a thing of the past.

In the early 2020s, when Jae-hoon first 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 display banners.

“How many page views do we have today?”

This question raised every morning in meetings determined the life and death of media companies at that time.

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

Initially, like most media companies, they blocked the bots. Server costs skyrocketed, and they couldn't keep up at all. 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 the doors but earn nothing.

“Who are we even selling content to now?”

This desperate question filled the office. The answer was not billboard ads—but pricing the content itself.

The change was unlocked by the x402 standard launched by Coinbase in May 2025. It technically revived the HTTP 402 response code—“Payment Required”—that had been abandoned in the corner of web standards for 30 years.

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 verified, other media and data companies quickly adopted x402 and jumped into data sales.

At first, there were only a few scoffers—just small change, a few won at a time, hardly worth the effort. But as hundreds of thousands or even millions of machine calls piled up daily, real cash began to flow into the accounts, far exceeding the past revenues from banner ads.

“No longer worrying about what advertisers think—machines pay full price, and the company runs on that.”

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

Jae-hoon turned off the dashboard and picked up his coffee cup. The visitor curve still showed that strange, almost vertical ascent, making no sense when viewed by old standards—but now this has become the norm. He no longer checks how many visitors there are; rather, he checks how many AI agents paid today.

Tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of agents will once again knock on the door of his server, and that honest transaction record will not become shorter—not anymore.

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