I summarize the important narratives (main themes) in the crypto market that are predicted to thrive in the upcoming period (late 2025 - early 2026), based on reports from Galaxy Research, CoinGecko, VanEck, Bitwise, and recent analytical sources for everyone to gain another perspective:
Real World Assets (RWA) & Tokenization:
Tokenization of real assets (real estate, bonds, stocks, commodities) is booming, with a market value exceeding 20 billion USD in 2025 and expected to grow significantly thanks to #blackRock and large funds participating.....
This is the main bridge between TradFi and crypto.
AI & AI Agents
The intersection of AI - blockchain remains hot, especially AI agents (automated on-chain agents) and DeFAI (DeFi combined with AI). Despite a pullback at the end of the year, this is a long-term narrative with great potential thanks to agentic commerce and verifiable compute.
Stablecoins & global payment chains:
Stablecoins reach a scale of over 300 billion USD, becoming the default payment tool, remittances, and neobanking. The stablecoin bill in the US could greatly boost real-world adoption.
Prediction Markets (prediction market): Currently, Kalshi has been authorized and regulated by the CFTC, paving the way for many other existing projects like predict.fun and Probable, both of which are invested in by CZ's YZI Labs.
Record trading volume in 2025 (tens of billions USD), not only from the election but also expanding to other real-world events. Expected to grow significantly in 2026 with integration from existing large apps with users.
Hits right at the investor's ego wanting to express their thoughts and opinions with a bet in control.
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure):
Building decentralized infrastructure (network, compute, storage) for the real world. Still leading liquidity by the end of 2025 despite corrections, aligning with trends in robotics and real-world utility.
Memecoins:
Still holds the largest share of attention (12-15% traffic), even though it has decreased in dominance compared to the beginning of the year. Cultural/community-driven, especially on Solana, but high risk and easy to rotate.
Not very interested, but I must admit that memes are part of crypto culture. If you want to play with memes, I do not encourage you to buy famous memes currently on the market like ($DOGE $PEPE )
Bitcoin Ecosystem & Institutional Adoption:
$BTC as "digital gold," with staking/restaking Bitcoin. BTCDefi ... Without these extensions, Bitcoin still holds sustainable, monopolistic value.
DeFi & Yield:
DeFi is shifting to the "dividend era" with real yields, consumer apps, and TradFi integration. New ATH TVL, but focusing more on utility than hype. Overall trend for the upcoming period: The market is shifting from hype (memes, AI agents) to real utility (RWA, stablecoins, payments, prediction markets).