By 2026, cryptocurrencies will shed their speculative image and become a foundational 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, detached from the real economy. Now, this barrier is crumbling. Cryptocurrencies are transforming into a universal clearing and settlement layer—the very infrastructure the internet has been lacking,” 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 areas that have historically existed outside exchange mechanisms.
The key drivers in this direction will be:
- Prediction markets. They will transform probabilities—from election outcomes to startup success—into liquid financial instruments;
- Evolution of insurance. Instead of standard policies, users will be able to hedge highly specialized risks. For example, protecting not against a hurricane in general, but against wind speed exceeding a certain threshold at a specific farm within a given 48-hour period.
“As the infrastructure of prediction platforms scales, entirely new categories of products will emerge based on data on topics that have never before had a market valuation. We expect the emergence of markets designed for trading and quantifying objective measures of perception, sentiment, and collective opinion,” the analysts emphasized.
These new tools will seamlessly complement the DeFi sector, creating new opportunities for assessing and exchanging information, they added.
Stablecoins as the New Settlement Standard
“Stablecoins” are becoming the primary means of payment in the digital economy, Wintermute indicated.
However, the development of the segment is hindered by fragmentation. According to the experts, there is an “obvious market need” for a unified platform capable of consolidating settlements in various stablecoins for all asset categories.
“The missing link is transferring conversion and credit risk to stablecoin issuers through balance-based compatibility, instead of forcing end users to manage currency operations, routing, or counterparty risks in stablecoin transactions,” the experts stated.
The optimal solution would be an on-chain analogue of the correspondent banking system. In this model, risks fall on fiat asset issuers, while 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 valuation will increasingly be based on sustainable financial metrics rather than short-term hype.
Investors will stop trusting projects that turn one-off fee spikes into annual figures.
“Projects whose tokens do not demonstrate a realistic path to creating and retaining value will not be able to sustain long-term demand after speculative interest is exhausted,” Wintermute emphasized.
This will lead to strategic changes: fewer startups will consider launching a coin as an initial step.
Instead of early token sales, projects will begin to favor the classic venture model with equity financing. In this model, blockchain will become an efficient infrastructural 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 the entry point.
The Merger of DeFi and Fintech
According to experts, the future of finance lies not in the opposition of DeFi and traditional finance, but in their integration into a single ecosystem.
“Dual-mechanism architectures will allow fintech applications to dynamically choose the transaction route based on the optimal balance of cost, execution speed, and potential yield,” the company explained.
For users, crypto products will become indistinguishable from familiar applications. Technical details such as wallet management or interaction with specific blockchains will be hidden behind an intuitive interface.
Regulation
The emergence of regulatory frameworks—MiCA in Europe or the Genius Act in the USA—provides institutional players with clear rules. Regulatory clarity allows for the replacement of outdated financial systems with high-speed blockchain infrastructure.
“In 2026, the discussion will shift: the question will no longer be whether institutions can use blockchains, but how exactly they use these guidelines to modernize their infrastructure and transition to efficient on-chain systems,” Wintermute noted.
Regions combining clear rules and rapid agreement will attract capital, talent, and experimentation, accelerating the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, the experts concluded.
Earlier in January, analysts from the market maker highlighted the concentration of liquidity in Bitcoin and Ethereum.