By 2026, cryptocurrencies will shed their speculative image and become a fundamental financial and transactional layer for the entire internet, according to analysts at Wintermute Ventures.
— Wintermute Ventures (@wmt_ventures) January 28, 2026
“Digital assets have long existed in isolation—within blockchains disconnected from the real economy. This barrier is now breaking down. Cryptocurrencies are evolving into a universal clearing and settlement layer—the very infrastructure that the internet has been missing,” the analysts noted.
Everything Becomes Tradable
Wintermute forecasts that the boundaries of financial markets will dissolve: events, their outcomes, and even information will become tradable. This will provide liquidity to sectors that have historically existed outside of exchange mechanisms.
Key drivers in this direction will include:
- Prediction markets. They will transform probabilities—from election outcomes to startup successes—into liquid financial instruments;
- Evolution of insurance. Instead of standard policies, users will be able to hedge specialized risks. For example, protecting against wind speeds exceeding a certain threshold at a specific farm within a given 48 hours, rather than just against hurricanes.
“As the infrastructure of prediction platforms scales, entirely new categories of products based on data around topics that have never before had market valuations will emerge. We expect markets designed for trading and quantitatively assessing objective measures of perception, sentiment, and collective opinion to arise,” the analysts emphasized.
These new tools will organically complement the DeFi sector, creating new opportunities for information assessment and exchange, they added.
Stablecoins as the New Standard for Transactions
“Stablecoins” are becoming the primary payment method in the digital economy, Wintermute indicated.
However, the segment's development is hindered by fragmentation. According to experts, there is an “obvious market need” for a unified platform capable of consolidating transactions across various stablecoins for all asset categories.
“The missing link is transferring conversion risks and credit risks to stablecoin issuers through balance-based compatibility, rather than forcing end users to manage currency operations, routing, or counterparty risks during stablecoin transactions,” the experts stated.
The optimal solution would be an on-chain equivalent of a correspondent banking system. In such a model, risks are borne by fiat asset issuers, and settlements between counterparties occur almost instantly.
The End of the Hype Era
This year, the speculative frenzy surrounding cryptocurrencies is expected to wane, analysts believe. Asset valuations will increasingly rely on sustainable financial metrics rather than short-term hype.
Investors will stop trusting projects that turn one-off spikes in fees into annual metrics.
“Projects whose tokens do not demonstrate a realistic path to creating and maintaining value will struggle to sustain long-term demand after speculative interest wanes,” Wintermute highlighted.
This will lead to strategic changes: fewer startups will view launching a coin as the initial step.
Instead of early token sales, projects will prefer the classic venture model with equity financing. In this model, blockchain will serve as an effective infrastructure technology, hidden from the user's view.
The issuance of a native asset—if needed at all—will become the result of product development rather than an entry point.
Integration of DeFi and Fintech
Experts believe the future of finance lies not in the opposition of DeFi and traditional finance, but in their integration into a unified ecosystem.
“Dual-mechanism architectures will allow fintech applications to dynamically choose transaction routes based on the optimal balance of cost, execution speed, and potential returns,” the company explained.
For users, crypto products will become indistinguishable from familiar applications. Technical details like wallet management or interaction with specific blockchains will be concealed behind an intuitive interface.
Regulation
The emergence of regulatory frameworks—MiCA in Europe or Genius Act in the U.S.—provides institutional players with clear rules. Regulatory clarity allows outdated financial systems to be replaced with high-speed blockchain infrastructure.
“By 2026, the discussion will shift: the question will no longer be whether institutions can use blockchains, but how they use these guidelines to modernize their infrastructure and transition to efficient on-chain systems,” Wintermute noted.
Regions combining clear rules and rapid approvals will attract capital, talent, and experimentation, accelerating the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, the experts concluded.
Recall that in January, analysts from the market maker pointed out the concentration of liquidity in Bitcoin and Ethereum.