An autumn ATH for bitcoin, a DeFi boom and the end of hype: forecasts for 2026

2026 crypto forecasts: trends, regulation, mining, privacy and bitcoin’s potential ceiling.

If crypto made New Year’s resolutions, in 2026 it would finally resolve to grow up. The industry is ditching hype for steady, painstaking work aimed at wholesale transformation.

DeFi will become a demanding quest, private networks will break into the mainstream, and projects with practical value will edge out storytellers promising “easy Xs”.

How will that coexist with predatory market-makers and the hunt for loopholes under the regulator’s baton? Will we witness audacious wins or shocking failures?

ForkLog gathered expert forecasts so you can peek into the future without putting down your Olivier salad. Read on to learn bitcoin’s potential ceiling in the new year—and whether risk-free yield is really over.

Coming market trends and anti-trends

Sergey Mendeleev, CEO Exved:

As ever, I insist on the deep link between cryptocurrencies and the global economy, although the crusade by institutional giants against Strategy will shape bitcoin’s path, especially in January’s short term. Sadly, there is little cheer for longs. Most likely, Michael Saylor and similar companies will no longer be able to buy bitcoin and Ethereum from the market at industrial scale; whether JPMorgan and BlackRock will keep doing so with the same zeal—we’ll see.

The main question remains US fiscal and monetary policy and decisions by the ФРС. Will there be a pause in rate cuts, as forecast, or in 2026 will the rate drop towards 2%? What are the prospects for stimulating markets with various QE programmes? In this sense, for crypto holders, the worse the economy, the better. And if [US President Donald] Trump keeps his promise and starts handing out “helicopter money” from higher tariffs ahead of the midterms, then next year we may yet see a new ATH for bitcoin.

Overall, I do not expect a critically deep correction; whether bitcoin dips to $74,000 or $60,000 is not that important—it will climb anyway, if not in 2026 then the year after. If you have bitcoins, hold them; if not, look to buy the dips. Your children will thank you.

A third factor is the state of the artificial-intelligence bubble—and whether there is one at all. If things are steady, the world economy should keep growing, with the S&P punching above 7,000. If not, a sharp correction could hit global markets, which traditionally smacks crypto prices, pushing total market cap below $2trn.

Vladimir Menaskop, Web3 entrepreneur:

Technology trends for 2026:

1. ZKP—no less foundational than blockchain itself: without it, nothing else works.
2. Oracles 2.0—fast, omni-chain and with a bias towards decentralisation.
3. Storage optimisation and decentralisation (in that sense Arweave, Filecoin and others remain promising).
4. To build global distributed computers we need not only storage but also memory and other components—this vector is inevitable.
5. Its direct descendant: AI projects tied to resource leasing.
6. DePin is vital in the broad sense: data sets, storage, resource rentals.
7. Optimising DAG, without which neither L2 nor competing solutions will progress—we will otherwise drown in a perpetual stream of homogeneous data.

Economic trends:

1. Tokenomics had been treated by projects as a pretty table with a matching chart. 2025 showed it is not. Expect sweeping changes.
2. Creating mutual insurance funds and similar tools—a necessary lesson from 2025’s hacks.
3. Bridging offline and online. The old “foundation + DAO” model works, but it is neither the only nor the most efficient one.
4. Moving away from conservative governance towards more flexible systems where capital is just one lever; the others are reputation and a participant’s time and activity.
5. VE tokenomics is a gold vein, but it needs modernising. Example: merging AERO and VELO.
6. “Bribes” are baked into VE tokenomics and can evolve independently, especially alongside AI mechanics.
7. Tokenisation will be everywhere: if your business is not tokenised, it effectively does not exist. This is the base layer of the future economy.

Organisational trends:

1. The community has split for good: enthusiasts on one side, institutions on the other, with newbies (“hamsters”), speculators, traders and others in between. This stratification will only deepen.
2. DAOs have gone “under the hood”, and even DeepDAO could not keep up: margins are too thin. But DAOs are indispensable—they are the basis of any decentralised project.
3. Speculators’ communities have grown distinct: holders of Sybil farms, farming droppers, airdrop hunters and others. Their upheavals will intensify, as seen with falling returns from drops and testnets.
4. Much depends on liquidity providers: it is a “profession” and a business, but too many big players entered and will try to set the rules.
5. Community-management tools keep shifting: Discord is bursting at the seams; Telegram has got carried away with TON; Farcaster moved into the wallet. 2026–2028 may bring something new—both in existing and yet-untapped channels.
6. Communities are increasingly niche, making real traffic hard to find: quest platforms and the like deliver shilling, not substance; Google-style ads are ineffective; SMM works only once the machine is already humming. Time to move from shilling to something more fundamental.
7. Most “key opinion leaders” in the industry have discredited themselves. People now look to real authorities: developers and system architects. Expect this to become more evident, though influencers are not going away.

Anti-trends:

1. The Web 3.0 & Web3 (WW3) industry is going mass-market, so social-engineering hacks and vector attacks will surge.
2. Speculators dislike low-margin industries; they will migrate to AI and elsewhere—which is not entirely bad.
3. Crypto wants to look squeaky clean but is, in practice, lying down ever lower for states and corporations: many forget cypherpunk principles and just “make money”. It is the worst outcome—but inevitable. The only antidote is enthusiasm and education; channel at least some WW3 proceeds into onboarding and educating newbies, the most at-risk group.
4. Five years of technological, economic and legal copycatting have piled up. Winners will be those who remember that uniqueness is a native property of WW3.
5. There is blatant flirting with DAT mechanics and bets on regulated markets. It is a global trap with more unknowns than many expect.
6. Time now works against enthusiasts. Most want simple, cookie-cutter templates for earning and distribution. That, in the end, slows everyone down.
7. The biggest anti-trend is disbelief in altcoins. Bitcoin has become a narrative—a thing in itself. That is centralisation in a new guise. If altcoins stagnate, we lose decentralisation for good.

Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance:

By 2026 it has become clear: digital assets are entering a new, pivotal phase. What defines the market now is not only growth but deep integration into global finance and a more mature market dynamic.

The past year revealed a fundamental shift in bitcoin’s holder base, showcasing a changing market landscape. By December 2025, BTC on exchanges fell to a five-year low of 2.94m BTC, while holdings by public companies and in bitcoin ETFs kept growing and now exceed 2.5m BTC combined. The migration from retail to institutions is not just dry data. It is a turning point that could dampen volatility, smooth speculative swings and soften the depth and length of future bear markets. In other words, cycles may become less pronounced, befitting a more stable, more mature asset class.

This shift is part of a broader transformation. Digital assets are evolving from speculative mechanics into strategic financial instruments. Today, over 200 public companies hold bitcoin on their balance-sheets, underscoring growing confidence in crypto as a tool for diversification and long-term value. We see a similar trend at Binance: institutional users rose by 14% and institutional trading volume by 13% year-on-year. In 2026 we expect this to accelerate: corporate treasuries will diversify not only into BTC and ETH but selected altcoins; governments and public institutions will get more involved via regulatory frameworks and pilots.

A maturing regulatory environment will gradually shift asset pricing towards fundamentals: real utility, sustainable economics and compliance. That matters especially for altcoins, historically the more volatile cohort.

We also expect further growth of regulated access channels such as ETFs, which offer safer, more accessible entry points beyond bitcoin. Stablecoins continue to prove their worth not only as payment instruments but also as drivers of financial inclusion. In 2025 they topped $300bn in market cap, aided by clearer regulation such as the GENIUS Act in the US.

Technology will remain a key driver. The convergence of AI and blockchain is creating a smarter, safer financial infrastructure. Together they will form the backbone of the future economy across sectors. At Binance, AI is already widely integrated to boost efficiency and security. It helped users avoid losses measured in millions and will play a bigger role in personalising experience, strengthening compliance and protecting the ecosystem.

We believe the next chapter for crypto is about meaningful adoption, trust and long-term impact. When innovation is paired with responsibility, digital assets become part of everyday finance.

Global crypto regulation

Vladimir Menaskop, Web3 entrepreneur:

States are tightening rules on stablecoins and other assets, but this can be turned to advantage: for instance, by creating meta-stables that fall outside regulatory scope; by seeking innovation in algorithmic tools that are still nascent.

Acts such as MiCA in the EU or laws in the US show regulatory divergence—and those contradictions can and should be used within the crypto-offshore.

There will always be assets less regulated by this or that state: be it NFT 2.0 or other programmable assets, tokenised delta-neutral strategies.

Digital-asset classes evolve: we started with native tokens (coins), then fungible and non-fungible tokens, semi-fungible, synthetic, programmable and others. It is essential to define the legal status of the assets you work with—many exist only in the crypto-offshore.

As a result, platforms such as Chainalysis will widen their footprint; AML checks (both “on the fly” and delayed) will expand and grow in importance across services.

The RWA segment will demand special regulation, far stricter than standard DeFi approaches.

Follow the cases around Tornado Cash, Samurai Wallet and the like—that is where the answers lie.

Regulatory risks were, are and will be. What projects should do to protect themselves:

• build and develop real DAOs, not mere declarations as with bZx and others;
• push the boundaries of tokenomics—focus on token velocity, not one-off distribution;
• do documentation before, not after, token launch;
• grow community without relying on perpetual shill-marketing;
• study practice at the SEC and other regulators; do not count on any one administration’s leniency;
• build genuinely global solutions;
• trade founder fame for open, anonymous and decentralised solutions.

The world has split into zones. The basic fault line runs between those betting on CBDCs (China, Iran, Russia, South Korea and others) and those betting on stablecoins (primarily the US). That tension will always leave gaps in the law that can be used to one’s advantage.

Tying yourself to a legal entity looks good—until reality bites: the UAE is not always lenient; the US is not always kind; Russia changes rules year to year; China is ready to ban what has yet to be born.

So participants should:

• create as many clean but anonymous wallets as possible;
• learn to use private DeFi—and quickly;
• study tax law and optimise crypto taxation legally.

Regulation in Russia

Andrey Tugarin, founder of GMT Legal:

In 2026 Russia will introduce mandatory licensing of crypto exchanges and exchangers; in 2027 administrative and criminal liability will follow for providing such services without a licence.

The relevant roadmap and later the concept were presented by the Bank of Russia, which for five years took a conservative, prohibitive view of crypto turnover inside the country.

Several factors drove the central bank’s pivot. Russia is one of the few CIS countries still lacking rules for crypto-circulation infrastructure.

The legal status of stablecoins remains unclear. For Russian users, P2P remains the only way to buy and sell crypto—rife with fraud and dirty money. The result: mass account blocks under Federal Law 115 and 161.

There is no draft law yet, but licensing requirements for exchanges and exchangers can be anticipated:

• a legal entity registered in Russia;
• charter capital;
• mandatory user identification with personal-data storage under Russian law;
• all necessary AML/FT measures;
• an AML officer;
• mandatory digital compliance to block illegal crypto from circulating in Russia;
• technical requirements for trading platforms owned by exchanges and exchangers.

With 99% probability, the Bank of Russia will issue licences and keep the register.

Liability for unlicensed services planned for 2027 can also be sketched. Administrative fines: 400,000–600,000 rubles for sole proprietors; 1m–2m rubles for legal entities. Attempts to introduce this rule were made in the summer by the Ministry of Digital Development.

Criminal provisions are likely to be refined, but it is highly probable the regulator will propose prison terms and seizure of crypto from illegal exchanges and exchangers.

Also in 2026 new definitions are expected, including those covering stablecoins. This will allow proper determination of tax base in transactions with such assets and set out which transactions are permitted and which are not.

What does this mean for the market? Those who run an “exchanger” on a website, organise a P2P venue or systematically use drop cards and mass transfers will face a choice in 2026:

• seek a licence—change corporate structure, “whiten” flows, implement KYC/AML, technical infrastructure and digital compliance;
• exit the Russian perimeter—shut down or move the business offshore, ceasing to serve Russian users.

Regulation in Ukraine

Kyrylo Khomiakov, head of Binance in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa:

The draft law “On Markets for Virtual Assets” is of fundamental importance to Ukraine, hence the unprecedented number of amendments—around 750 pages from MPs. The relevant committee must now meet, examine them in detail and decide which to accept and which to reject.

In our view, there are both useful, constructive proposals and plainly poor—or even potentially harmful—ones. The priority now is to preserve the bill’s core concept and make it flexible and workable in practice, rather than excessively complex and inoperable for businesses and users alike.

It is crucial to preserve several basics:

• ensure a reasonable, effective tax rate;
• avoid mandatory transfer of user personal data by crypto exchanges—otherwise the market will simply not function;
• build a model that minimises manipulation and corruption risks, particularly in licensing.

Given Ukraine’s circumstances, a lengthy vote is likely. If the supervisory body is not named directly in the law—which seems likely now—the Cabinet of Ministers will appoint it. After that, the necessary secondary legislation must be drafted and adopted before regulation can launch.

On current trajectories, the most optimistic scenario is licensing starting in the third–fourth quarter.

Stablecoins

Dmitry Machikhin, BitOK:

In 2025 stablecoin rules were updated across multiple jurisdictions (MiCA in the EU, the GENIUS Act in the US, proposals in the UK, regimes in Singapore and Hong Kong)—a turning point for the asset class.

Key practical consequences for users and businesses:

1. KYC/AML on par with traditional fiat payment providers—or stricter.
2. On-chain analytics and wallet risk-scoring as standard.
3. Ongoing reserve attestations, capital and risk-management requirements.
4. The convenience of instant payments comes with tighter scrutiny. AML procedures are not just about reporting—they monitor risk and shield businesses from association with illicit crypto activity.
5. Non-dollar stablecoins are also trending. Examples include A7A5, which reached a $0.5bn cap in under a year; USDKG from Kyrgyzstan; and the yuan-pegged offshore AxCNH in Kazakhstan.

In 2026 the trend will strengthen. This is not a fleeting hype cycle but the bridge between TradFi and crypto—the best tokenisation use case.

Mining

Alex Petrov, co-founder of Hyperfusion:

Bitcoin mining stands on the brink of sweeping change. In 2026, fierce competition for energy, regulatory pressure, accumulation of bitcoin by states and corporates, and the rise of AI data centres will redraw the global map.

Peak hashrate and key trends

The network’s power keeps exploding. Since mining began in 2009, engineering optimisations have cut energy use by a factor of 1bn—from 16MJ/Gh to 12J/Th—while boosting efficiency by more than 20bn times—from 10Mh/s to 580Th/s (on Bitmain’s Antminer S23 Hydro). A giant evolution, driven by pure maths and competition.

In spring 2025 the network surpassed 1,000 EH/s, doubling in a year. If that pace holds, do not be surprised to see 1,250–1,350 EH/s by end-2026. The driver will be not only new ASICs but, increasingly, states and firms that, alongside hoarding bitcoin on balance-sheet, will want a slice of mining as a logical security hedge.

Another defining trend for 2026 is intensifying competition for power from AI data centres. This is already pushing mining into regions with stranded generation or weak grids, where big tech is reluctant to build. The crucial skill is “energy arbitrage”: flexing into low-tariff periods and joining grid-stabilisation programmes (Demand Response)—a positive for both firms and end-users.

Regulators can still squeeze pools and miners by tweaking hosting terms or adding taxes. These are points of vulnerability that drive migrations.

Renewables’ share in global mining has exceeded 50%. In 2026 this is critical for access to capital and survival amid tighter rules, especially in the EU and US.

Another trend: home mining gear. In Europe and Canada a market is growing for heating and hot-water systems built on such devices, cutting power bills.

Under MiCA the EU will keep rolling out strict reporting on energy use and carbon footprint, raising barriers for miners.

Miner migration

2026 will bring targeted, not mass, migration. As electricity prices rise, rules tighten and AI competition bites in traditional hubs (eg, parts of the US), miners will relocate.

Flows will target regions with:

• stranded generation, weakly tied into grids;
• political stability and friendly or neutral rules;
• access to cheap renewables (geothermal and hydro).

CIS countries, Northern Europe, Latin America and Oceania remain in focus. As flexible consumers, miners can be ideal partners for grid stability there.

Industry leaders

Consolidation will continue. Survivors will be those who diversify risk, optimise relentlessly and react faster.

By end-2026 the industry will be split between high-skill, capital-intensive operators and niche, agile models. Success will hinge not only on hardware efficiency but on energy contracts, adaptability to the macro environment and constructive dialogue with regulators.

Key players to watch in 2026:

1. Public companies: Cipher Mining (CIFR), Bitfarms (BITF), IREN, Hut 8 and Core Scientific (CORZ). Their strength lies in scale, access to public capital and diversification (eg, CIFR and CORZ building AI units).
2. Vertically integrated operators: firms controlling the chain from generation or energy contracts to hosting and pooling. This yields critical cost and resilience advantages.
3. Financial and infrastructure giants: Galaxy Digital (GLXY) or Strategy (MSTR). Not miners pure and simple, but central to the ecosystem through investment, custody and services.
4. Energy firms such as Kinder Morgan (KMI)—key as resource suppliers.

DeFi

Vladimir Menaskop, Web3 entrepreneur:

In 2026 DeFi has more growth vectors than ever. Here are the standouts.

ZKP

Technically we are at a breakthrough threshold. Expect exponential expansion—from ZKP-KYC to ZK at the L1 level. It is not just about privacy; it promises lower fees, higher speed and, in time, compactness.

Private DeFi

Last year proved the viability of anonymous and private crypto. Approaches from Monero, Zcash and Mina will advance within a much larger ecosystem and become its base—alongside moving much onto EVM at L2/L3.

Cross-chain 2.0 and stablecoins

Old multi-chain and cross-chain approaches are giving way to omni-chain strategies: the CCTP protocol from USDC, USDt0 and similar.

Cross-chain liquidity is becoming a necessity. It is turning into a single melting pot—from which the 402 standard, Uniswap v4 with hooks, and Chainlink/LayerZero innovations have already emerged.

Nativism

Omni-chain and cross-chain 2.0 demand collateral that is both safe and flexible—achievable only inside the chains themselves. In 2026, native staking may become native collateral deposits.

Protocol-Owned Liquidity is an attempt to combine cross-chain and nativism in one bottle.

RWA: institutionalisation and tokenisation

The segment will evolve rapidly, expanding both the number and complexity of instruments. Expect a niche for national stablecoins and related assets (like ЦФА in Russia).

A second thread: unsecured credit based on repayment history, on-chain data and more. Here AI becomes indispensable, and solutions like XRP offer patterns for direct, fast rollouts.

Neobanks

The super-narrative of the future is cash flow and profit by any compliant means. Institutions and VCs will build schemes with transparent, predictable flows.

New derivatives

The upshot will be a boom in derivatives markets, including tokenisation of hashrate, staking-enabled ETFs and Web3 indices. Beyond structured products for institutions and programmable assets for retail, new assets will arise across AI, RWA, ReFi and CeDeFi. Prediction markets will inevitably integrate with delta-neutral and other strategies.

What matters is keeping DeFi’s ethos—and visible, intelligible backing—otherwise any superstructure will collapse.

Other prospects

In 2026 DeFi practitioners will likely chase yield via value averaging and other advanced mechanics. Expect reshuffles in perp-DEX and AMM markets and in lending, where leaders are visible and ruthless optimisation is on.

The biggest problem lies with market makers and their ties to CEX—DeFi’s arch-enemies: manipulating, dumping, draining liquidity and worse. Their clash with regulators will bring a bloody harvest and hard ultimatums. Decentralised market makers will gain.

In DeFAI we may see breakthroughs in capital efficiency, accounting and rebalancing. But do not expect AI agents to autonomously earn passive income within three years. The segment will face growing attack vectors, complicating approvals and delegations at the EIP-7702 level. The trend towards automated and autonomous liquidity will persist, but it will be as risky as yield farming in the early 2020s.

Privacy

Andrey Velikiy, founder of Allbridge:

The ZK market will move towards compliant privacy, akin to banking in traditional finance. The end user will not see balances or counterparties, yet, when necessary—say on a police request—services will be able to trace a transaction.

This will likely be more elegant than what Zcash offers today. First, there is no exit to stablecoins. Second, Zcash has two address types—transparent and shielded—and privacy is achieved only between two shielded addresses. To me, that is a crooked design. One could move towards Monero, where all transactions are shielded—but then you face risk scores and XMR delistings. Hence I expect a 2026 market for compliant privacy payments in stablecoins.

The most viable monetisation model for private transactions in 2026 remains transactional (fees).

ZK will become a mandatory element of Web3. There are many reasons to protect personal data, starting with physical safety. Privacy is a basic human right, and ZK provides a convenient toolkit.

AI and robotics

Sergey Lonshakov, architect of the “Robonomics” project:

2026 is a fascinating year for robots and AI. Recent AI advances have nudged humanoid-robot ideas off near-zero. Humanoids are the main universal actuators. Everything a human can do, a robot could in principle do.

Based on the scientific materials used by engineers at Tesla and Figure—and some hands-on with a Unitree humanoid—here is what to expect.

Figure AI focuses on a proven architecture with “several lobes of the brain” (today, two). That makes mechanisms a bit more adaptable to tasks, though its current use at BMW is very limited—a simple assembly stage in one shop. We will see whether they can take it further. I like the analogy with the human brain: we have lobes too, but in fact it is one entity.

The second path, which Tesla Bot appears to follow, is end-to-end learning. For example, a Unitree robot needs to change “tooling” or behaviour, assembled via cloud simulation. End-to-end is a way to make a robot universal “on the fly”. So far Elon Musk’s project delivers at the level of simple factory operations at Tesla.

The third path is straightforward factory modernisation. Chinese producers—whose ranks will grow—will set the volume, starting domestically. Expect hundreds of odd robots on AliExpress that may or may not work. Much depends on open software development.

Watch Boston Dynamics—the oldest humanoid-robotics firm, owned by Hyundai. Its prototypes are already being tested at plants in South Korea.

In sum: at best, many plants with humanoid robots could open worldwide. A small step forward for home use is possible, but a practical household model is unlikely before 2027. We need a true scientific breakthrough for robots in our kitchens; for factories, we are almost there.

Main cyber threats

Experts at F6:

The dominant cyber-incident pattern in 2025 was exploiting big brands, news hooks and memes. In the new year we expect scams built on current headlines to proliferate. Expect more fake crypto projects, “state programmes” and meme coins designed to reel in victims fast.

Combined attack schemes will intensify. Social engineering will pair more often with malicious drainers and phishing pages, including inside popular services and messengers.

Attacks using miners will retain a large share. Stealthy, modular miner families that integrate into legitimate processes to evade detection will keep improving.

Criminals will emphasise fast monetisation. Vectors will shift to theft with quick payoff—seed-phrase compromise, wallet hijacks, fake exchangers and other direct-steal schemes.

Maksim Sizykh, CTO Envelop:

Recently there have been many outages across internet infrastructure—consider incidents at Cloudflare, AWS, the hack of Node repositories.

This raises risks for crypto, since Web3 relies heavily on Web2. Consequences may include delays in different Oracles, including price feeds—potentially triggering liquidations in lending protocols.

We also cannot rule out failures/hacks in off-chain components of L2 networks, for example bridges.

Global politics and economic shocks

Alex Momot, CEO Peanut Trade:

Possible scenarios

The key risk that could most sway crypto capital flows in 2026 is the lingering threat of a military conflict between China and Taiwan. Some analysts deem it plausible; its materialisation would be disastrous for the world economy—and thus Web3.

In my view, the probability remains low: Beijing traditionally avoids hard, unambiguous moves that foreclose alternatives.

The second factor is Europe, which may face new risks amid reduced US military support and a possible armistice or peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. This scenario is less likely to trigger global escalation than a Taiwan crisis, but is more probable and could have substantial economic consequences for the region.

There are intermediary scenarios in which, even after formal peace, a tense stand-off persists: economic blockades, sanctions, hybrid conflict. In that case outright military escalation is avoided and the situation remains relatively stable.

Overall, the most likely 2026 scenario is the absence of major shocks in these two regions. The most profound change is immaterial: the reshaping of the global order and a changing US role. The new American doctrine effectively abandons past NATO leadership and shifts Europe’s security burden onto Europe.

These processes create deferred risks. They will likely play out fully in later years; on a 2026 horizon, they are unlikely.

Crypto as a defensive asset

In 2026 crypto is unlikely to become a full-fledged safe asset, though large funds and institutions have softened. Allocations of a few percent are acceptable—but mainly to bitcoin and, to a lesser extent, ether and a handful of large networks.

Institutional capital enters selectively via regulated products and centralised rails, barely touching DEXs, meme coins and small projects. This widens the gap between the institutional crypto segment and the high-risk retail ecosystem.

Participation by big players will grow, but at a slow pace by Web3 standards. In the short run, crypto pricing remains a function of internal market logic and global liquidity. Crypto will retain “risky asset” status despite gradual institutionalisation of parts of the market.

Debt and banking crises

A clear-cut global debt or banking crisis in key economies looks unlikely in the near term, including 2026. The current picture suggests long-running structural imbalances rather than a sudden systemic collapse.

Such distortions are visible in China, Russia and elsewhere. China keeps smoothing internal problems through large stimulus and a record trade surplus. Russia’s economy functions under sanctions but shows gradual macro deterioration without signs of an acute crisis. In several emerging markets, including Argentina, economic and currency curbs are offset by population adaptation and intensive use of digital payments.

The probability of a crisis that radically upends the global financial system in 2026 remains low. Some economies will keep sliding; Ukraine will retain access to large-scale European financial support.

Europe will likely fund this burden with more debt and moderate social-spending cuts—potentially spurring political change but not a continent-wide or global crisis.

Against this backdrop, institutional interest is growing in stablecoins, DeFi and alternative rails for cross-border payments—driven by easing rules and room to experiment, not by an acute global crisis.

Prices for bitcoin and other coins

Vladimir Koen, trader:

Bitcoin and Ethereum

In the base case for 2026 I expect bitcoin and ether to set new all-time highs. The main drivers: money-supply growth, Fed easing, speculative capital rotating out of precious metals and partly out of overheated tech. Passage and implementation of the CLARITY Act will bolster confidence among funds and investors previously wary of crypto.

Price also matters. At current levels, the risk-reward in bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana is far more attractive than three months ago.

There is also hope for a US strategic reserve of crypto assets; concrete steps in that direction would add fuel.

Expect high volatility this winter as post-Christmas liquidity tightens. There are grounds for bitcoin to hold above $100,000 as early as January. However, if gold and silver keep advancing steadily, the coin will likely range between $80,000 and $105,000.

In May, [US Federal Reserve chair] Jerome Powell will step down, likely replaced by a Trump appointee who will pursue quantitative easing. That would lift risk assets, including crypto. On those expectations, bitcoin could break $120,000 and ether $4,500.

The launch of Staked Ethereum ETFs by BlackRock and others will reignite inflows. I expect ether to outperform bitcoin in the first quarter of 2026.

In April–May, Ethereum could set a new ATH and trade in a $4,800–$6,200 range; BTC at $120,000–$140,000.

By autumn, in the base case, bitcoin reaches $150,000 and the second-largest crypto trades at $6,000–$7,000.

Ether at $7,500–$10,000 is possible in Q3 2026 if ETF inflows stay high and stablecoin issuance on Ethereum grows.

Volatility will likely remain elevated all year, especially in H1, partly owing to stockmarket jitters from global repositioning in the yen.

Political risk remains, alongside the impact of Trump’s posts and statements. Ahead of the midterms, I am confident we will see liquidity injections and lower Fed rates.

Promising altcoins

The strongest base cases include:

• Chainlink—the best coin for TradFi integration. For sustained growth it needs larger buybacks and more network activity; the groundwork is laid. Potential peaks: $30–$50.
• Solana. Strong marketing has cemented its US positioning as the fastest, cheapest chain. The main issues are inflation and lack of stable profits. Base case for H1: $200–$320 with further upside.
• XRP shows the steadiest inflows into crypto ETFs: $1bn in a month—the best of all. The founders have vast financial and administrative resources (closer ties to the Trump administration). Good potential to $3–$5 in H1 2026.
• Stellar—real utility in cross-border payments, RWA and CBDC. With proper marketing it could reach $0.8–$1.

Exchange tokens have strong communities but remain exposed to regulatory risk, hacks and bankruptcies:

• BNB with possible upside to $1,450–$1,600;
• Hyperliquid has sound incentives, but unlocks weigh on price. Forecast peak: $45–$76;
• Mantle.

Other coins with potential: Bittensor, Hyperlane, Sui, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Babylon, Kite, Worldcoin, Jupiter, Oraichain and Ondo.