A hot topic in encrypted narrative worthy of attention in 2026: Who is the next protagonist?

回看2025年，加密市场的主线正在从情绪驱动的短期叙事，转向由真实需求和长期资本推动的结构性趋势：稳定币年交易量屡创新高、RWA加速落地、ETF与企业财库持续入场，市场关注点明显前移。正是在这种旧叙事退潮、新周期酝酿的交汇期，提前识别方向往往比追逐热点更重要。基于当前数据变化和行业动态，本文将梳理那些尚未完全定价、却有望在2026年成为加密社区核心话题的关键叙事。

GambleFI：预测与意见市场

预测和意见市场已从主要面向加密爱好者的工具，逐渐演变为日常生活中决策的重要资源。

当人们想要判断某个事件的真伪时，往往需要翻阅大量文章、博客和社交媒体帖子，但仍然难以找到可靠的洞见。意见市场改变了这一现状。它不仅提供了人们对特定事件的清晰看法，还通过他们的经济投入来支持这些观点。

目前，Polymarket和Kalshi是该领域的两大巨头，占据了大部分市场关注和交易量。然而，我认为它们的潜力尚未完全发挥，未来还会有更多协议探索这一叙事的不同动态。

这一领域值得密切关注，尤其是因为它与现实世界用户的需求天然契合。

Launchpads：融资与ICO的回归

As Airdrop gradually moves away from becoming the default mode for community launches, we may see more community-led financing activities, even starting from the seed round stage and being accompanied by a strong return of ICOs.

More than US$341.35 million has been raised through community fundraising and community-led financing since October 27, 2025 (62 days ago), and more projects are expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2026:

● MegaETH: US$50 million

● Monad: US$187.5 million

● Gensyn: US$16.14 million

● Aztec: US$52.31 million

● Superform: US$3 million

● Vooi: US$1.5 million

● Solomon Labs: US$8 million

● Solstice, Football Fun: US$1.5 million

● Makina: US$1.3 million

● Rainbow: US$3 million

● Immune fi: US$5 million

● Reya Labs: US$3 million

● Humidi fi: US$6.1 million

● Zkpass: US$3 million

With the launch of some successful projects, community fundraising is expected to become the default model for community start-up, revolutionizing the way projects interact with the community.

In this process, the biggest winners will be those fundraising platforms that offer the most investor-friendly terms while prioritizing the economics of strong agreements.

Currently, Legion, MetaDao, Buildpad, Echo, Coinlist and Kaito are the platforms hosting the most token sales this year.

On November 14, 2025, I analyzed the current situation of Launchpad based on the performance of these platforms:

Next year, we are bound to see more new platforms exploring dynamic token issuance models to realize community fundraising while taking into account the interests of investors and agreements. This model will become a new focus in the encryption industry.

Privacy: The \"hidden\" world on the chain

The lifeline of the encryption industry is mobility, and institutions now control a large part of it. In order to attract institutional capital, privacy is no longer an option, but a necessity.

Some data simply cannot be disclosed, such as trading strategies, account balances, counterparty information or internal capital flows, especially if competitors are watching closely.

The next stage of on-chain applications will no longer be about simply hiding activities, but about achieving selective disclosure: proving legitimacy without exposing all information. This is the only way to attract serious capital into the chain.

Since the beginning of 2025, more than 44 privacy-focused dApp and blockchain projects have been funded, with a cumulative financing amount of more than US$500 million, which clearly demonstrates the rapid growth in demand for privacy-first applications.

Looking forward to 2026, we are likely to see more such projects emerge, and existing agreements will unleash their full potential as privacy gradually shifts from niche features to core requirements.

The new bank of digital assets: A comprehensive upgrade of wallets

The encryption industry has surpassed the capabilities of traditional wallets.

Tools used only for storage and transfer cannot meet the needs. As more capital, protocols and real-world businesses operate on the chain, the gap is obvious: there is still a lack of a bridge that truly connects the wallet to the complete financial workflow.

Next year, the industry\'s focus will shift from single-function wallets to new wallet-native digital assets (Neo-Banks). These products integrate hosting, payments, revenue, reporting and compliance functions into one interface.

This is not about replacing traditional banks, but about upgrading wallets into financial infrastructure.

This year,@Revolut is far ahead in overall attention, while rookie @AviciMoney has performed particularly well. It raised only US$3.5 million through community fundraising, but still delivered a remarkable report card.

In the future, we may see more similar applications emerging, especially those that not only provide utility to cryptographic native users (CT Natives), but also attract a wider range of users.

DePINs: The decentralized future of the Internet of Things

We witnessed the rise of decentralized physical infrastructures (DePINs) in 2024, but then experienced a sharp decline in 2025. But I believe that next year it will usher in a moment when it fully unleashes its potential.

Projects such as Helium have demonstrated that distributed connectivity can enable large-scale operations;Hivemapper has demonstrated that crowdsourced maps can compete with traditional giants; and Render has pushed decentralized computing into the real demand cycle. Emerging networks like Grass are turning idle resources into measurable economic output.

What is even more interesting is that venture capital institutions (VCs) continue to inject capital into these infrastructure, while some well-known projects have not only maintained usage, but have also successfully transformed it into revenue sources.

Once seen as a \"tokenized hardware narrative disguised as malware,\" it is now gradually transforming into a network with real users, actual usage scenarios, and revenue. The industry is clearly moving towards products with real use cases and profitability, and this is where DePINs(decentralized physical infrastructure) stands out.

Perpetual contract DEX: The future of the derivatives market

This year, Perpetual contract decentralized exchanges (Perpetual DEXs) dominated the crypto trading narrative, and the trend is far from over.

Platforms such as Hyperliquid, dYdX, Lighter and Aster have demonstrated that perpetual contracts can generate considerable transaction volume and fee revenue, and can even compete with centralized exchanges.

展望明年，最终的赢家不仅仅是那些交易量最大的DEX平台，而是那些能够提供资本高效产品、低滑点以及创新风险管理的交易所。这样的平台将使衍生品交易对零售和机构投资者都变得更加触手可及。

AI：人工智能的加密进化

近年来，人工智能(AI)已经在更广泛的互联网领域占据了主导地位，而它在加密领域掀起同样变革也只是时间问题。

我们已经见证了一些人通过AI工具从零开始“即兴编程”(vibe-code)去开发DeFi应用，并成功上线，这足以说明AI工具的进步有多么迅猛。

然而，AI在加密行业的作用远不止于交易机器人或交易信号分析。真正的变革将发生在AI成为基础设施的时候——它将负责撰写智能合约、管理风险、优化流动性，并以比人类更快、更低成本的方式运行协议。

可以预见，AI将作为加密行业的一大叙事，随着时间的推移只会变得更加重要。这是一个值得密切关注的领域。

在2026年到来之前，你应该熟悉以下新兴的AI技能：

● 即兴编程(Vibecoding)

● 提示工程(Prompting)

● AI增强研究(AI-Augmented Research)

● 自动化(Automation)

In addition, there are some narratives worth noting:

→x402: On-chain simplification

→ Robots: tokenized automation systems

→ stablecoins: Tokenized fiat currency

→ Real-World Assets

The future of the crypto industry is bright. I believe that for those who are curious about the future of encryption, 2026 will be a year full of risks. Looking forward to meeting you on the side of wealth creation!