From 'Crime Cycle' to Value Reversion, Outlook on the Four Major Opportunities in the 2026 Cryptocurrency Market

Original Title: Make Revenue, Not Crime | My 2026 Crypto Plan

Original Author: Poopman, Crypto Researcher

Original Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Ansem has declared the market's peak, and CT has dubbed this cycle the "Crime Cycle."

Projects with high FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) and no real-world utility have drained the last penny from the crypto space. Memecoin rug pulls have tarnished the crypto industry's reputation in the public eye.

Even worse, almost no funds are being reinvested back into the ecosystem.

On the other hand, almost all airdrops have turned into "pump and dump" scams. Token Generation Events (TGEs) seem to exist solely to provide early participants and teams with exit liquidity.

HODLers and long-term investors are taking a beating, and most altcoins have never recovered.

The bubble is bursting, token prices are plummeting, and people are furious.

Does this mean it's all over?

Difficult times breed strength.

To be fair, 2025 wasn't a terrible year.

We witnessed the birth of many outstanding projects. Projects like Hyperliquid, MetaDAO, Pump.fun, Pendle, and FomoApp have all demonstrated that there are still true builders in this space striving to drive development in the right way.

This was a necessary "purge" to rid the space of bad actors.

We are reflecting and will continue to improve.

Now, to attract more capital inflow and users, we need to showcase more real-world utility, genuine business models, and revenue streams that can bring actual value to tokens. I believe this is the direction the industry should move toward in 2026.

2025: The Year of Stablecoins, PerpDex, and DAT

Maturing of Stablecoins

In July 2025, the Genius Act was officially signed, marking the birth of the first regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, requiring stablecoins to be backed by 100% cash or short-term government securities.

Since then, Traditional Finance (TradFi) has shown increasing interest in the stablecoin space, with stablecoin net inflows exceeding $100 billion just this year, making it the strongest year in stablecoin history.

RWA.xyz

Institutions have shown a strong preference for stablecoins, believing in their significant potential to replace traditional payment systems, citing reasons such as:

· Lower cost and more efficient cross-border transactions

· Instant settlement

· Low transaction fees

· 24/7 availability

· Hedging against local currency volatility

· On-chain transparency

We have witnessed major acquisition moves by tech giants (such as Stripe acquiring Bridge and Privy), Circle's IPO being oversubscribed, and several top banks collectively expressing interest in launching their own stablecoins.

All these indicate that over the past year, stablecoins have indeed been maturing.

Stablewatch

In addition to payments, another major use case for stablecoins is earning permissionless yield, which we refer to as Yield Bearing Stablecoins (YBS).

This year, the total supply of YBS has actually doubled, reaching $12.5 billion, driven mainly by yield providers like BlackRock BUIDL, Ethena, and sUSDs.

Despite the rapid growth, recent events like the Stream Finance incident and the overall poor performance of the crypto market have impacted market sentiment and reduced the yields of these products.

However, stablecoins remain one of the few truly sustainable and growing businesses in the crypto space.

PerpDex (Decentralized Perpetual Contract Exchange):

PerpDex is another star of this year.

According to DeFiLlama data, PerpDex's open interest has grown on average 3–4x, increasing from $30 billion to $110 billion, peaking at $230 billion at one point.

The trading volume of perpetual contracts has also seen significant growth, skyrocketing 4x since the beginning of the year, rising from an impressive $800 billion in weekly trading volume to over $3 trillion in weekly trading volume (part of the growth also benefited from incentivized mining), becoming one of the fastest-growing tracks in the crypto space.

However, since the market's significant pullback on October 10 and subsequent market downturn, both of these metrics have shown signs of slowing down.

PerpDex Open Interest (OI), Data Source: DeFiLlama

The rapid growth of the decentralized perpetual contract exchange (PerpDex) poses a real threat to centralized exchanges' (CEX) dominant position.

Take Hyperliquid, for example, whose perpetual contract trading volume has reached 10% of Binance's, and this trend is continuing. This is not surprising, as traders can find some advantages on PerpDex that CEX perpetual contracts cannot provide

1. No KYC (Know Your Customer)

2. Decent liquidity, sometimes even comparable to CEX

3. Airdrop speculation opportunities

The valuation game is another key point.

Hyperliquid has demonstrated that decentralized perpetual contract exchanges (PerpDex) can reach extremely high valuation ceilings, attracting a wave of new competitors to enter the arena.

Some new competitors have received backing from large venture capital (VC) firms or centralized exchanges (CEX) (such as Lighter, Aster, etc.), while others are attempting differentiation through native mobile apps, loss compensation mechanisms (such as Egdex, Variational, etc.).

Retail investors had high expectations for these projects at launch in terms of high FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) and also looked forward to airdrop rewards, leading to the "Points War" phenomenon we see today.

While perpetual decentralized exchanges can achieve high profitability, Hyperliquid has chosen to reinfuse profits back into the token through an "Assistance Fund" buyback of $HYPE (with a buyback amount cumulatively reaching 3.6% of total supply).

This buyback mechanism, by providing real value backflow, has become a key driver of the token's success and has effectively pioneered the trend of the "Buyback Metaverse," prompting investors to demand stronger value anchoring rather than governance tokens with high FDV but no practical use.

DAT (Digital Asset Treasury):

Due to Trump's pro-crypto stance, we have seen a significant influx of institutional and Wall Street funds into the crypto space.

The inspiration behind DAT comes from MicroStrategy's strategy and has become one of the primary ways for Traditional Finance (TradFi) to indirectly access crypto assets.

In the past year, approximately 76 new DATs have been added. Currently, DAT treasuries collectively hold $137 billion worth of crypto assets. Of these, over 82% are Bitcoin (BTC), about 13% are Ethereum (ETH), and the remainder is distributed among various altcoins.

Refer to the chart below:

Bitmine (BMNR)

Tom Lee's Bitmine (BMNR) emerged as a prominent highlight in this DAT trend and became the largest ETH buyer among all DAT participants.

However, despite early hype, most DAT stocks experienced a "pump and dump" scenario within the first 10 days. Since October 10th, the funds flowing into DAT have plummeted by 90% from July levels, and the majority of DATs' Net Asset Value (mNAV) has fallen below 1, indicating the premium has disappeared, effectively signaling the end of the DAT fever.

Throughout this cycle, we have learned the following:

· Blockchain needs more real-world applications.

· The primary use case in the crypto space is still transactions, yields, and payments.

· Today, people are more inclined to choose protocols with fee-generation potential rather than just decentralization (Source: @EbisuEthan).

· Most tokens need stronger value anchors, tied to protocol fundamentals, to protect and reward long-term holders.

· A more mature regulatory and legislative environment will provide greater confidence for builders and talent to join the space.

· Information has become a tradable asset on the internet (Source: PM, Kaito).

· New Layer 1/Layer 2 projects without a clear positioning or competitive advantage will gradually be eliminated.

So, what's next?

2026: The Year of Predictive Markets, More Stablecoins, More Mobile DApps, More Tangible Income

I believe that in 2026, the crypto space will evolve in the following four directions:

· Prediction Markets

· More Stablecoin Payment Services

· Increased Adoption of Mobile DApps

· Realization of More Tangible Income

Still About Prediction Markets

Undoubtedly, prediction markets have become one of the hottest tracks in the crypto space.

「Bet on Anything」

「90% Accuracy in Predicting Real-world Outcomes」

「Participants Bring Their Own Risk」

These headlines have attracted a lot of attention, and the fundamentals of prediction markets are equally compelling.

As of the time of writing this article, the total weekly trading volume of prediction markets has surpassed the peak of the election period (even including total volume then, including wash trading).

Today, giants like Polymarket and Kalshi have completely dominated the distribution channels and liquidity, making it almost impossible for competitors lacking significant differentiation to gain meaningful market share (except Opinion Lab).

Institutions are also starting to pour in, with Polymarket receiving investment from ICE at an $80 billion valuation, and its secondary market valuation reaching $120–150 billion. At the same time, Kalshi completed a Series E funding round at a $110 billion valuation.

This momentum is unstoppable.

Moreover, with the upcoming $POLY token, upcoming IPO, and mainstream distribution channels through platforms like Robinhood and Google Search, the prediction market is likely to become one of the key narratives of 2026.

That being said, the prediction market still has plenty of room for improvement, such as optimizing result resolution and dispute resolution mechanisms, developing methods to combat malicious traffic, and maintaining user engagement over a long feedback cycle, all of which need further enhancement.

In addition to the market's dominant players, we can also expect to see new, more personalized prediction markets, such as @BentoDotFun.

Stablecoin Payments Space

Following the enactment of the "Genius Bill," institutional interest and activity in stablecoin payments have increased, becoming a major driver for its widespread adoption.

Over the past year, the monthly trading volume of stablecoins has risen to nearly $30 trillion, with adoption rates rapidly accelerating. While this may not be a perfect metric, it has already shown a significant increase in stablecoin usage following the enactment of the "Genius Bill" and the European MiCA framework.

On the other hand, Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are all actively embracing stablecoin payments, whether through supporting stablecoin spending on traditional payment networks or collaborating with centralized exchanges (CEXs) such as Mastercard's partnership with OKX Pay. Today, merchants can choose to accept stablecoin payments, regardless of customer payment methods, demonstrating the confidence and flexibility of Web2 giants in this asset class.

Meanwhile, crypto-native banking services like Etherfi and Argent (now rebranded as Ready) have also started offering card products, allowing users to directly spend stablecoins.

Take Etherfi, for example, whose daily average spending has steadily grown to over $1 million, with no sign of slowing down.

Etherfi

Nevertheless, we cannot overlook some of the challenges that the new crypto-native banks still face, such as high customer acquisition costs (CAC) and the difficulty in earning interest on deposited funds due to users self-custodying their assets.

Some potential solutions include offering in-app token swap functionality or repackaging yield products to sell them as financial services to users.

With payment-focused chains like @tempo and @Plasma gearing up, I anticipate significant growth in the payment sector, especially propelled by the distribution capabilities and brand influence brought by Stripe and Paradigm.

Mobile App Adoption

Smartphones are becoming increasingly ubiquitous globally, with the younger generation driving the shift towards electronic payments.

As of now, nearly 10% of global daily transactions are carried out through mobile devices, with Southeast Asia leading this trend due to its "mobile-first" culture.

Global Payment Method Rankings

This represents a fundamental shift in behavior within traditional payment networks. I believe that as mobile transaction infrastructure has significantly improved compared to several years ago, this shift will naturally extend to the crypto space.

Do you remember account abstraction, unified interfaces, and mobile SDKs in tools like Privy?

Today's mobile user onboarding experience is smoother than it was two years ago.

According to a16z Crypto's research, the number of cryptocurrency mobile wallet users has grown by 23% year over year, with no signs of this trend slowing down.

In addition to the evolving consumption habits of Gen Z, we are also seeing a surge in more native mobile dApps by 2025.

For example, the Fomo App, as a social trading application, has attracted a large number of new users with its intuitive and unified user experience, allowing anyone to easily participate in token trading even without prior knowledge.

Developed in just 6 months, the app achieved a daily average transaction volume of $3 million and peaked at $13 million in October.

With the rise of FOMO, major players like Aave and Polymarket have also started prioritizing mobile-first savings and betting experiences. Meanwhile, newcomers like @sproutfi_xyz are attempting a mobile-first yield model.

As mobile behavior continues to soar, I anticipate mobile dApps to be one of the fastest-growing areas in 2026.

Give Me More Revenue

One of the key reasons people find this cycle hard to believe is simple:

Most tokens listed on major exchanges still generate little to no meaningful revenue, and even when they do, they lack value anchoring to their token or "share." Once the narrative fades, these tokens fail to attract sustainable buyers, often leading to a downward trend.

Evidently, the crypto industry relies too heavily on speculation and lacks focus on real business fundamentals.

Most DeFi projects fall into the trap of designing a "Ponzi scheme" to drive early adoption, but each time, the focus shifts post-Token Generation Event (TGE) to how to offload rather than building a lasting product.

Currently, only 60 protocols have generated over $1 million in revenue in 30 days. In contrast, about 5000–7000 IT companies in Web2 reach this revenue level monthly.

Fortunately, a shift began in 2025 driven by Trump's pro-crypto policies. These policies made profit-sharing possible and helped address the long-standing issue of token value anchoring.

Projects like Hyperliquid, Pump, Uniswap, and Aave proactively focus on product and revenue growth. They recognize that crypto is an ecosystem centered around holding assets, naturally requiring active value flowback.

This is why buyback became such a powerful value anchoring tool in 2025, as it is one of the clearest signals of alignment between the team and investors' interests.

So, which businesses have generated the strongest revenue?

The primary use cases of crypto remain transactions, yield, and payments.

However, due to the cost compression of blockchain infrastructure, on-chain revenue is expected to decline by about 40% this year. In contrast, decentralized exchanges (DEXes), trading platforms, wallets, trading terminals, and applications have emerged as the biggest winners, growing by 113%!

It's time to place more bets on applications and DEXes.

If you still don't believe it, according to 1kx's research, we are actually witnessing the peak of value flowing to token holders in crypto history. Please see the data below:

Summary

The crypto industry is not ending; it is evolving. We are undergoing a market-required "purge," which will make the crypto ecosystem better than ever before, potentially even tenfold.

Projects that can survive, achieve real-world utility, generate actual revenue, and create tokens with practical utility or value capture will ultimately emerge as the biggest winners.

2026 will be a critical year.

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