What major changes will the crypto market experience in 2026? Recently, a forward-looking report from top industry investment institutions and experts has outlined 17 development directions worth paying attention to.

This comprehensive perspective covers a wide range of topics. From a technical standpoint, the integration of intelligent agents and artificial intelligence has become a focal point—how to enable AI to play a greater role on-chain has become a key concern for developers. The stablecoin ecosystem is also brewing new changes, with multi-chain deployment and cross-chain liquidity further maturing.

In terms of financial innovation, the wave of tokenization continues to accelerate. On-chain traditional assets and the large-scale application of RWA (Real World Assets) are moving from concept to practice. Meanwhile, privacy and security remain unavoidable topics—from wallet security to transaction privacy, requiring more innovative solutions.

The application ecosystem is also expanding its boundaries. The value of prediction markets is being re-recognized, DeFi protocols are iterating in efficiency and security, and other vertical applications are exploring more possibilities.

This report also emphasizes foundational issues—how underlying infrastructure can support these trends, how developer tools and user experience will evolve, all of which will be key factors in determining the pace of development. From smart contract optimization to cross-chain interoperability, from regulatory adaptation to large-scale application deployment, the crypto market in 2026 seems poised to enter a whole new validation phase.