Citrini points out that the crypto market has reached a turning point, but BTC, ETH, and XRP may be marginalized as funds shift towards tokenized and AI agent-related protocols.

Written by: Billy Bambrough, Forbes

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Note: Citrini Research analysts released a 79-page research report titled Breaking The Wall: Has Blockchain Finally Reached Its Moment? on October 8, 2026. Forbes later wrote a briefing based on this report. This article is a compilation based on the Forbes briefing, further supplemented with insights from the original report.

BlackRock states that the crypto "gate" has been opened, while Citrini Research suggests withdrawing from mainstream coins and shifting towards DeFi protocols and infrastructure stocks.

In 2026, AI trading continues to dominate the market, with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies overall under pressure. However, the price of Bitcoin has rebounded from below $60,000 in July to over $80,000. Meanwhile, BlackRock revealed that the "gate" for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies has suddenly opened; one of Wall Street's most formidable and influential institutions claims that the crypto market is at a "turning point." Yet, this turning point may leave Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP behind. Although a massive crash could also be a game changer for Bitcoin's price.

Wall Street Report: Agentic Finance Will Be Built on Blockchain

Citrini Research analysts propose in their 79-page report titled Breaking the Wall that AI agents and crypto-based tokenized assets are opening up a new paradigm for fundamental investment in cryptocurrency. They believe that the upcoming wave of agentic finance will be built on blockchain. Earlier this year, this institution stirred the stock market by warning about a global intelligence crisis in 2028.

The report states that the blockchain industry has taken 15 years to build something unexpectedly useful in the agentic world: a programmable financial infrastructure that operates around the clock and allows assets, ownership, and settlement to coexist in an already integrated world. AI agents will programmatically operate across applications around the clock, and funds and financial assets will ultimately do the same. This brings people back to the crypto industry — for most of the past decade, it has felt like a sector where "solutions come first, then problems are found."

Don't Just Focus on Mainstream Coins: Funds May Shift to DeFi and Infrastructure Stocks

To bet on agentic finance, the report suggests reallocating funds from assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP to DeFi protocols that can generate transaction fees, as well as listed companies focusing on infrastructure. The report emphasizes that financial assets are being tokenized and brought on-chain, merging traditional finance with the crypto world; meanwhile, agents bring in a new class of users who do not care about the poor user experience of blockchain explorers.

In the portfolio proposed by Citrini, Derive, Lighter, and ether.fi hold the highest weights, along with a basket of stocks, including the tokenization company Securitize, stablecoin issuer Circle, and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The authors bluntly state that one cannot assume that major cryptocurrencies — especially Bitcoin and Ethereum — will set new historical highs as a result; even if they do, there are better betting alternatives.

The remaining portfolio includes some smaller market cap but well-known tokens, such as the Ethereum competitor Solana, Hyperliquid's HYPE, the liquidity protocol Aave, and the synthetic dollar protocol Ethena; lesser-known tokens related to platforms like Aerodrome, Maple, Pendle, and Ondo Finance also appear on the list.

Who Has Led the Surge in the Past Year

Price performance also supports this judgment. Over the past year, Derive has skyrocketed by 1300%, while most other tokens on the list recorded double-digit increases, leaving Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP behind.

Researchers also noted improvements in the technology, finance, and crypto regulatory environment, as well as the Iranian oil crisis, which propelled the 24/7 derivatives trading linked to crude oil prices with Hyperliquid to take off rapidly. The report's authors stated that since then, the adoption of real-world assets (RWA) has noticeably accelerated; large-scale shifts have begun to emerge in the crypto space in the past month, seemingly marking a turning point.

Supplementary Insights from the Original Citrini Report

Systemic Risks of Agentic Bank Runs

The report begins with a "disturbing" scenario: what happens when millions of AI agents continually and programmatically transfer idle funds to institutions or protocols offering the highest interest rates? Will the cheap deposit funding sources that traditional banks rely on be continuously drained? Could we see an "agentic bank run"?

The traditional financial system is designed for human users, who exhibit brand loyalty, inertia, operational friction, and emotional factors; whereas agents do not care about these things, simply seeking optimal returns, and can execute transactions across institutions around the clock at very low costs. The report points out that once this behavior scales, it could impose ongoing pressure on banks' funding costs and liquidity, a current system that lacks adequate design to respond to this. This is not short-term trading advice, but rather a macro warning about the long-term impacts of agentic finance.

Internet Protocol Analogy: Blockchain May Become "Backend Infrastructure"

The report uses the development of the internet as an analogy: most people are unaware of how HTTPS, TCP, and IP work specifically, yet they use them daily without realizing it. The authors believe that blockchain may follow a similar path in the future — becoming a backend programmable financial infrastructure directly invoked by agents, where ordinary users need not even understand the underlying technology.

The blockchain industry has spent about 15 years building a system that allows "always-on, programmable, and coexisting assets, ownership, and settlement." In the age of agents, this feature becomes highly relevant: agents need to operate 24/7, transferring funds and assets across applications, unhindered by traditional financial business hours or complex manual processes. The report believes that this marks a key moment when blockchain truly finds its "reason for existence."

Personal On-Chain Experiments and Observations of Ecosystem Maturity

The report's authors mention that they invested $1,000 into Coinbase Wallet, initially expecting to encounter typical "rug pulls" or a highly speculative environment, only to find a mature financial application ecosystem far exceeding meme coins. This includes tokenized government bonds, stocks, options, programmable debt, lending, payments, and yield protocols, with the overall形态 increasingly resembling existing traditional finance (TradFi).

This observation supports the core judgment of the report: on-chain financial applications have been quietly developing, and their usability may be further amplified when agentic users arrive, as they do not care about poor user experience.

Shift in Core Investment Questions: From "Is It Legal?" to "Who Captures Value?"

The report clearly shifts investors' focus from "Is tokenization legal? Can it enter the U.S. market?" to a more substantive question: "When these products eventually enter the regulated U.S. market, who will capture economic value?"

The focus is not on whether assets are on-chain, but on who can continuously charge fees from trading, lending, payments, yield generation, and settlement. The report believes that the market will ultimately reward protocols and infrastructures that can generate real income, rather than simply holding mainstream cryptocurrencies. This is one of the main reasons for its assumption that Bitcoin and Ethereum will not reach new highs due to this theme.

Public Disclosure of Portfolio Weights and Structural Characteristics

The report discloses a crypto basket (15 tokens) that completely excludes Bitcoin and Ethereum, assigning higher weights to emerging derivatives and yield-related protocols, such as Derive, Lighter, and ether.fi each around 10%, and Aave and Ethena each around 9%. Derivative-related targets account for a substantial portion (about 39%), while yield/staking-related approximately 27%, and blue-chip infrastructure around 26%.

The stock basket primarily includes companies related to infrastructure and tokenization (with Securitize receiving a high weight, followed closely by Circle and Coinbase), and does not include MicroStrategy or mining stocks. This structure reflects the report's approach of "focusing on value capture rather than market Beta."

"Hyperliquid Moment" and the Turning Point for Composability of Tokenized Assets

The report specifically mentions the weekend during the Iranian conflict, when on-chain exchanges became one of the few liquidity venues able to provide the most accurate crude oil prices, referred to as the "Hyperliquid moment." Since then, the adoption of real-world assets (RWA) has noticeably accelerated.

At the same time, tokenized stocks have become composable, able to flow between different applications and chains, no longer confined to a single venue from the issuer (such as Robinhood Chain, which led this progress). The report believes that these advancements collectively signify a true turning point, bringing on-chain assets closer to practical financial tools rather than remaining in the experimental phase.

Risks and Explicit Non-Bullish Warnings

The report is not broadly bullish on all crypto assets. It explicitly points out that higher on-chain activity or tokenization scale does not automatically drive up all token prices; investors should focus on segments that can truly capture economic value. The report also emphasizes that agentic finance and tokenization is a long-term structural trend, but its impact on prices will take time, and there are uncertainties related to execution, regulation, and competition.