Major Events in the 2026 Crypto Market: The Consensus of Five Major Institutions Reveals the True Direction of the Industry

To gain an in-depth understanding of the development trajectory of the crypto industry in 2026, there’s no need to read through countless institutional reports page by page. The insights from the five top research institutions (Delphi Digital, Messari, Four Pillars, Coinbase, a16z Crypto) have already converged into a clear signal: The cycle driven by speculation is becoming obsolete; structural maturity is the true driving force.

Industry Consensus: From Speculation to Infrastructure

These institutions’ analyses point to the same conclusion—“The traditional 4-year halving cycle is a thing of the past.” Instead, deep changes driven by liquidity integration, infrastructure improvement, and industry consolidation are taking place. Future value will flow into “Ownership Coins” with genuine profit-sharing mechanisms, rather than projects relying on short-term narrative fluctuations.

Key viewpoints also include:

• The Rise of AI Agent Economy — Major institutions generally believe that AI agents will become the main participants in the economy by 2026, leading to the emergence of “Know Your Agent” (KYA) protocols and the demand for native machine settlement layers.
• Super App Integration — As US regulatory frameworks gradually clarify (with expected legislation like the GENIUS Act, CLARITY Act, etc.), complex crypto experiences will be integrated into user-friendly super apps.
• From Norms to Scale — Increased regulatory clarity will push the market from the “Wild West” era to a mature financial asset class.

Delphi Digital: Liquidity Dividends and Agent Finance

Delphi’s macro assumptions are based on the aggregation of global liquidity. They predict that global central bank policies will unify, and after the end of QT cycles, abundant liquidity will benefit hard assets like Bitcoin. In 2026, this liquidity dividend will manifest as:

Large-scale Expansion of Agent Finance — AI agents will no longer be just chat tools but will be capable of independently managing capital, executing complex DeFi strategies, and optimizing on-chain profits as economic participants.

Evolution of Social Trading — From simple meme coin hype platforms like Pump Fun to mature strategy replication layers, ultimately tokenizing strategies into tradable products.

Reshaping Institutional Liquidity — The proliferation of spot ETFs will continuously channel capital from traditional finance into crypto markets, serving not only as hedging tools but also as standard portfolio allocations.

Messari: Awakening Utility and New Coin Paradigms

Messari’s core proposition is “Separation of Utility and Speculation.” They believe 2025 will be a victorious year for institutional investors and a difficult year for retail, while 2026 will evolve into an “Era of System Applications,” rather than mere asset price gambling.

Within this framework, Messari highlights several key directions:

The Second Spring of Privacy Tracks — Privacy coins like Zcash are not just tools but necessary hedges against increasing corporate surveillance. Messari sees these assets as having opportunities for revaluation.

Birth of Ownership Coins — In 2026, new tokens integrating economic rights, legal rights, and governance rights will emerge. These tokens are expected to address DAO accountability crises, with initial projects possibly surpassing a market cap of $1.1 billion.

Fusion of DePIN and AI — Decentralized physical infrastructure networks will find real-world applications, meeting AI’s massive demands for computing power and data.

Four Pillars: Regulatory Restructuring and Application Integration

Four Pillars’ perspective revolves around “Regulatory Restructuring.” Their logic is that US legislative actions will serve as a blueprint for comprehensive market reform, transforming the industry from the “Wild West” into a formal economic sector.

Super App Era — The dispersed application ecosystem will gradually consolidate into super apps that combine payments, investing, and lending, driven by stablecoins, hiding blockchain’s technical complexity.

Practical Shift Toward RWA Tokenization — Asset tokenization will become a trend, but the focus will shift from experimental projects to real economic utility.

Maturity of Tech Stack — Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machines (ZKVM) and proof markets on Ethereum will form the infrastructure layer supporting large-scale applications.

Coinbase: End of Cycles and Structural Drivers

Coinbase’s statement is straightforward—“The Bitcoin halving cycle theory is dead.” 2026 will mark the end of traditional cycle theories, with macroeconomic demand (alternative value storage) and industry normalization driving structural growth.

Token Economics 2.0 — Evolving from pure governance models to profit-sharing mechanisms. Protocols will introduce buyback and burn or fee-sharing mechanisms (to meet new regulatory requirements), aligning interests of token holders with platform success.

Digital Asset Trading 2.0 — The market will shift toward more professional trading modes, where “sovereign blockchain space” is regarded as a key scarce resource in the digital economy.

Intersection of AI and Crypto — AI agents will extensively use encrypted payment channels, creating demand for “Native Crypto Settlement Layers” to support continuous micro-payments between machines.

a16z Crypto: Internet Banking and Identity Revolution

a16z Crypto’s premise is: “The internet has become a bank.” Value flows will be as frictionless as information flows, and the gap between on-chain and off-chain will be eliminated through better infrastructure.

KYA (Know Your Agent) — As AI agents become economic entities, identity verification will evolve from traditional KYC to KYA. AI agents will need cryptographic signatures as identity credentials for transactions, building a new identity infrastructure layer.

Asset Origination vs. Tokenization — Moving from off-chain assets wrapped on-chain (like on-chain financial bonds) to directly generating debt and assets on-chain, significantly reducing costs and increasing transparency.

Privacy as a Competitive Edge — In an environment with open-source code, privacy technologies (especially state privacy capabilities) will become the most critical competitive advantage for blockchains, creating strong network effects for privacy-supporting networks.

Democratization of Wealth Management — The combination of AI and crypto payments will democratize high-net-worth asset management capabilities (rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, etc.) for ordinary users.

Key Insights: Investment Logic for 2026

The crypto industry in 2026 is destined to be a “Year of Clarity.” All mainstream institutions are conveying the same message—“The speculative dividend is exhausted; the structural dividend is just beginning.”

Value will no longer come from following cyclical fluctuations but from:

• Understanding capital flows (institutional, AI agents, national asset allocations)
• Grasping infrastructure upgrades (settlement layers, privacy layers, aggregation layers)
• Identifying real application scenarios (beyond proof of concept)

2026 will reward projects that quietly build infrastructure, possess distribution capabilities, and can earn large-scale trust.