Predictions for 2026

Transcript

I am so so excited for this next year and next 5 to 10 in crypto. I think it's the best time to be building or even investing in crypto. And yeah, I I just I could not be more excited. Um, and I genuinely mean that from the bottom of my heart. Quick shout out to today's sponsor, Katana. We'll hear more about Katana's 1 billion CAT campaign later today, but for now, let's get into the episode. Hey everyone, quick disclaimer before we get into today's episode. Nothing said on bell curve is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is forformational purposes only and the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Our guests and I may hold positions in the companies, funds or projects discussed.

All right, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Bell Curve. First of all, happy new year to everyone and happy new year to uh my lovely co-hosts Miles and Z. How you guys doing? >> Doing great. Happy New Year to you, too. Happy new year everyone. >> All right. >> Well rested, ready to go. [sighs and gasps] >> Yeah. By that you mean hung over. [laughter] >> Uh thank you. >> Yeah. I hope everyone had a good uh end to 2025. It was a really interesting year. And we're going to use this episode as a predictions episode for 2026. And maybe just for folks who missed uh part one of this, this is kind of a two-parter. So we did a recap of 2025. We had some just an overall, you

know, kind of explanation for the sentiment of last year. We had some categories, biggest winners, losers, uh, you know, biggest comeback story, that type of thing. So, if you haven't listened to that, I would definitely recommend folks go back and and listen to that episode. Uh, we're going to be talking all about the future uh this year. Uh, so we're going to be talking about 2026. Uh, but before we get there, we started off the wrap-up for 2026 talking about what were the big themes of 2025 and how did we feel about this year overall. And I thought before we get into specific predictions and kind of the different categories that we have of predictions for 2026, we could start with an overview of where we think 2026 is going. And I can I can maybe start here. And I think this is a this is a

unique year uh going in uh for this is a this is a really unique start to the year because generally there actually a lot fewer predictions uh than I've almost ever seen in crypto. But there also seems to be uh much less energy frankly that I've seen on crypto Twitter in a long time. But I do think uh what's unique is there's a general perception that there's a line in the sand. Um crypto in the next 10 years is going to be very different uh from the past 10 years. And a lot of the predictions that I've noticed on a very very similar theme and for the first time generally I think predictions go in a bunch of different directions but I but I agree with most of the predictions that I've been seeing and I think the general theme around most of 2026 predictions

and where people think the industry is going to be going is that we are finally in the post imagination a maturation scale up of crypto as an industry. And what I mean by that is I think there were people got so so excited by the technology of crypto that they did you know kind of that they've gone through that massive bubble of expectations where everything is possible and there's going to be decentralized social media and it's going to touch every aspect of our lives and I think now we've had 10 years of data points and what the industry has consolidated around primarily um I'd be curious you guys might disagree with me on this but I think the early use case and traction for blockchains is money and financial and I think we're going to see a scale of both of those things over the next 5

to 10 years. I also think that one of the themes that I very much agree with is I think that we've moved from the driving force and animus of crypto as an industry being speculative. So a new hot thing comes in, hot money chases it, a massive speculation or speculative premium inflates. I I think we're moving from that as the driving force into real businesses, scaled technology and valuation methodologies that more closely mimic equities. Um, and so I think we have to go through a little bit of a transition period and the industry generally understands that. So there's almost the way that I would think about it from the audience perspective is that

there's going to be a gap where you had a bunch of stuff where there wasn't real value, but there was a ton of excitement, a ton of speculative capital. uh driving up and creating very very high multiples and I think a lot of those are going to need to rerate towards something that's more fundamentally driven and so there might be a gap and I I see a lot of confusion con this year where very good projects are objectively doing well on all of the metrics that matter but their token price is continuing to fall and I think it's that gap where the speculative premium is going out and we're resetting towards something that's more fundamental and sustainable And you know, I think there's a lot more to say, but that's my general

perception for 2026 going into the next year. Curious what you guys agree on or disagree on there. >> Yeah, I mean I I couldn't agree more in terms of like um I guess how the market is going to value these projects. Um it's a much higher bar these days of um proving out, you know, that you're actually addressing something with demand, right? Um and we've seen too many times in the past of like especially on the emperor side where yeah there was um you know I guess valuation was centered around what this like could enable or design spaces that don't exist yet but could in the future and now to go to market like you need to come to market with proven out demand right um and for L1's that means like

being more selective about the use cases you go after right so that you can like you know instead of going a inch deep mile wide you need to come, you know, to the scene like basically at launch with proven out demand for at least one or two like specific use cases. So, um, yeah, I agree with that, but Z, curious to hear your thoughts. >> Yeah, I think, uh, in general, I agree with the framing, Mike. Um 2025 I think what people were expecting it to be a sort of bullish year especially with Trump in and I think it didn't necessarily meet everyone's expectations.

I do think, you know, funnily enough, I've been thinking a bit about this prediction market or prediction episode and, you know, where it's going in 2026. And if I rewind to where I was 12 months ago, I noticed in 2024, like I was feeling a bit more bearish, I think, than the rest of the sort of crypto ecosystem cuz I could feel the sort of like private market capital in particular that was drying up. Um, and I felt it again in 2025. Of course, a lot less VC funds launched, a lot less projects raised money, etc. I have to admit just with like the sentiment and, you know, all the posts and, you know, returning to fundamentals and the value investing in crypto and all of that, I'm kind of getting a little bit bullish

again cuz it just seems like we are now um, we're definitely towards the bottom of sentiment. The question for me is like how long is it going to last? Um, if you subscribe to the sort of fouryear cycle, it could last maybe as long as maybe Septemberish this year before things start getting better. If you subscribe to the sort of like no more fouryear cycle thesis, which is also a potential option, I think that it might end up looking kind of similar to 2025. But I do think just with everything going on in macro regulations, maybe lower interest rates, etc., better crypto businesses, I think the free money days in crypto are over. Although I don't necessarily know that the token days in crypto are over and I do think

that we're going to see bullish times again. I mean even today you look at the charts and it's up like kind of 5 10% across the board and you're kind of already thinking like or like it doesn't take very much to get things going again. So um I think maybe this space is a little bit too bearish on potentially what 2026 holds where I do think that especially later on in the year things could get very very interesting. I agree with that. Um, and I think the that speculative premium, if you just look at alt prices and market that that's already been deflating. Um, and I think in general as a rule for predictions, people do a really bad job uh because they tend to just extrapolate the trends

of the previous year. Um, if you look at almost every list of predictions through that lens, it mostly matches up. Uh, so if something's been going like this, people continue to predict it going like that. And I I agree, Zave. I think that this is going to be I I'm more bullish than I've been in a while going into 2026. And I'll call one other theme out, too. I think you're going to start to hear the phrase generational companies quite a bit. Um, but I do think one other thing that I would call out is consolidation. Um, I think that's going to happen in a number of categories and it'll be at least a theme of my predictions as well is I think the winners keep winning. Uh, and I think the way that I would call out something a little bit interesting that's happened

in um crypto VC and financing in general is that there's a little bit of an inversion of how risk gets priced. And what I mean by that in traditional VC is the the idea generally is you're taking on more risk by investing in an early stage product um early stage project, right? So if you're investing in seed, only a certain percentage of those make it to series A, series B, series C. And so you have investors that take more risk by investing in seed stage. I think in crypto that's almost been reversed where because you get liquidity so fast and because you don't actually need to create a product that has product market fit or take a company public or get it acquired. um the perception and there's a lot of a lot of the VC apparatus has

been set up to invest early flip a token and actually the perception is that there's more risk at later stage because we have so few examples of companies or projects uh driving you know continued outperformance in their token or creating real sustainable value and it's created this very weird imbalance of capital where you have a ton of early stage investors so many if you're raising an uh funds for an early stage product, you've got a lot of VCs kind of bending over backwards to give you money. But as you get later stage and more mature, that capital dries up. And I think that's going to reverse because what's happening in the industry is that there are these clear categories that are going to be valuable. The barrier to entry um and the difficulty of creating

a winner in those categories is higher than it's ever been. And I think what you tend to see even in web 2 and things like that is that the winners keep winning, right? No one really displaced Netflix after it took off. Amazon, like you have these kind of category winners that are very, very difficult to displace. And I don't think that rule is broken in crypto. So, I think that that kind of fundamental law of tech is going to um you know, we're going to see it show up in crypto and I think uh you're going to see a little bit of a change in the capital structure. This episode is sponsored by Katana. Katana is a DeFi first chain built for deep liquidity and real yield by redirecting chain revenue back to active D5 users. The 1 billion KAT campaign is live. [music]

Bridge and deposit directly into vaults in one simple click and start earning immediately on your Ether, [music] Bitcoin, USDC, and more. Follow the link in today's show notes to get started. All right, let's get into some specific predictions for this year. So, we group these in terms of categories to uh organize it for for all of you listening. So got one category is ecosystem. So we're going to be talking about general predictions for Ethereum, Bitcoin, Salana, etc. Uh two is DeFi. Uh the third is RWAS and stable coins. Fourth is prediction markets. And then the fifth is VC um in general investment markets uh etc. And then I think we'll have uh maybe we can add a smaller sixmonth on there around AI. This is not

an AI podcast, but I know we have some perspectives there at least where it intersects with crypto. Um, okay. Let's start with ecosystems. And again, maybe I can kick us off here. And I would summarize. I want to maybe concentrate on the three big ecosystems and maybe talk about Hyperlid a little bit as a potential fourth. Um, although I probably wouldn't still include them in that category yet. Um, I think so. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Salana. I think it's going to be a tough year for Bitcoin. Uh, from a sentiment perspective for a number of reasons. I think it's going to be a great year for Ethereum. Um, I think there's a renaissance happening there. I think it's going to be a quiet year for Salana. Uh, but ultimately a good one. Uh, and I think it's going to

be a really challenging year for Hyperlid. Um, and I'll go through my rationale for each of those things. I think for Bitcoin, one there, Bitcoin's had a really, really good last couple of years. And so, I think there's just a natural consolidation that ends up happening after the run that Bitcoin's had from the bottom in 2022. But I also think um a huge part of the driver of Bitcoin's outperformance has been Michael Sailor. Um and I think there's a lot of reason to believe that he's not going to have as much dry powder um as he's had in the past. I think you also have um Bitcoin's going to struggle to compete against gold as a very similar asset and profile. I think generally the kind of macro environment that we're

heading into is one of less kind of runaway money printer gober burr growth and maybe one of you know more stagflationary like inflation is going to continue to be there but I think economic growth is going to be a little bit more challenging. I think gold does better than Bitcoin in those environments and I think the quantum stuff is going to be real from a fear perspective. Um you know I I think that generally that's going to get very very noisy going into this year. I think a lot of investors are going to question that and I think price turning over is going to, you know, make those fears louder. I think the devs are going to get their together by the end of the year, but I think it's going to take a while and they're going to drag their feet because the Bitcoin card devs

always drag their feet. So, I think it'll be fine, but I do just think in general it's been such a good last three years for Bitcoin that we're due for a reversal in sentiment. Um, on the Ethereum perspective, I think it's the inverse of that. So, Ethereum is going through its kind of second big round of growing pains here. Um, I'd call the first one, you know, 2019 into 2020 when it was unclear if, you know, genurpose smart contract platforms were going to be a thing and if anyone could compete against Bitcoin and I think uh they convincingly showed that that was going to be the case. There's I mean it has just been like a [laughter] really tough uh last couple of years for Ethereum.

But the way that I would frame this is I think no offense uh to anyone I think some of their mental models were not necessarily correct. I think they tried to fire a lot of their customers, tell them to move it up to the L2. Uh, but despite all of that, I think there's genuine product market fit around the massively exciting categories of RWA issuance and onchain finance. And I think that is going to be huge. And I think that's such a powerful um imagination capture. It kind of has all of the elements that you'd want almost as an early equity investor. There's this kind of huge but vague enough market like global finance happening here. uh I think that will you know you don't have to make a lot of leaps uh internally to understand the fees that that could acrue and I think there's

just real product market fit there and it's happening almost independently of anything else and so I think it's just going to be a phenomenal year for Ethereum from a sentiment perspective maybe less convinced on price but I think this will be a real building year for Ethereum um Salana I think it'll be generally quiet I think the challenge that they have is they're kind of the DEX chain in my opinion and I think they've made real strides with Fire Dancer and Alpenlow. Um, and a lot of what you're seeing on the the microstructure side of DEX's like these prop AMMs, I think you're starting to see the foundations laid, but they've kind of lost onchain price discovery.

Um, or that's being threatened by Hyperlid at the moment. They had it for memes, but the Bloom has fully come off the rose for memes. So, I think that Salana's tech is going to start to pay dividends. I believe in the neutrality of Salana as opposed to a more concentrated platform like Hyperlid. And so I think they're going to ultimately win back, but that's their challenge for this year is being the onchain venue or the the venue for onchain price discovery, which I I don't think they actually currently have. Um, but I think it's I think they're going to win that and I think it's going to be a quiet building but very successful year for Salana. Um, at Hyperlquid I think this is going to be a really challenging year for them because there are two big questions, right? There's one, how much dominance can they have in this purp

category, which is just a viciously competitive category. Even the history of this within crypto, how many per exchange have you guys seen people be excited about over the years from like GMX to gains to whatever. It just it doesn't seem like there's almost any sustainable moat and they're all competing for the same small number of kind of crypto whales and loose money and I don't know how many James wins there really are. Um, but also there's just so much competition from Coinbase trying to be the everything exchange to Robin Hood. I think there's just vicious competition and I I just don't really see where the mode is. So, I think that's going to be really challenging.

And Hyperlid is also it's unclear if this is really a platform or a DEX. And I think there's going to just there's just a lot of uncertainty and things that have to be figured out. And every major ecosystem has gone through at least one of these extremely challenging periods. And I just see that happen. I think this will be the first really big test in sentiment, community, long-term strategic priorities. I I just think it's going to be a really challenging kind of mean reversion year for Hyperlquid. That would be my that's my summary on all of these different ecosystems, but I'm curious, you know, what you guys agree with, disagree with.

>> I can just run through some of my quick reactions. Um I think uh on Salana I think they will continue to actually I'm a little bit more bullish um on Salana I think than you are for next year. Like I think they will continue to increase their lead in uh retail app adoption. So like if you're building anything with like a you know a a financial component whether it's prediction markets or trading or like some new type of like social play like I think your your default choice is Salana today and I think that will just only continue and I think that will actually drive a lot of fees that the market wants to see from like you know a platform. Um, I think Bass will probably start to look more and more like first party focused and

integrated with the exchange as they see themselves like kind of losing uh this like you know to to Salana in terms of like getting third party apps. Um, so they'll just lean into the winners that they have today and try to actually exert leverage with their like you know exchange um to get more and more of those users actually doing things on base even if they don't know that they're doing things on base. Um and then on Ethereum I think you're uh yeah it's not like controversial like I think they are going to continue like winning RWA adoption. Um I think that they will uh this won't translate though into the fees that the market um wants to see these days basically with like you know uh that they'll see Salana actually

acrewing a lot more value from the apps that launch on it than than Ethereum is just because these assets will kind of like just sit on chain. Um unless there's lots of you know uh new classes of like RWA buyers driving activity and demand there. Um, but that's much bigger if for me. Um, so yeah, those are the main ones. I agree like Hyperlid is kind of at a, you know, a fork in the road where they, um, I think they're going to compete with Salana for like getting assets that people want to trade, right? Um, and we'll see if they can actually compete on spot as well. Um, because they need to if they're going to, I think, like, uh, be able to continue like growing um, their valuation. So,

yeah. Z, what do you think? Yeah, I think uh I agree with you, Miles, around the Salana point. I I do think that they have a real niche right now in the market with attracting consumer app developers. Um and it's really the era we're in right now in crypto for consumer apps and I think Salana is perfectly set up for this. The real competition there is probably bass, but I like I think we touched on it a bit before, but bass seems like maybe Mike, you had this in your prediction tweet where, you know, bass was maybe somewhere in between finding a niche and not finding a niche and they're still trying to find out sort of maybe what their northstar actually is. Whereas with Salana, it's pretty simple and always has been. So, I think I'm pretty

bullish on Salana again. Actually this year I'm like mildly or like sort of yeah conservatively bullish on Salana. Um with Ethereum totally aligned with you guys. I think it's pretty clear that Ethereum is going to have a big year. Um I do actually think for the first time this could translate to price. Um, and I might take the sort of contrarian angle here where I do think that Ethereum could start having a higher monetary premium in 2026 as chains like Stripe goes live. Um, so I think it'll be a very interesting year for Ethereum in terms of adoption as well as like um everything else that comes with that.

Um, didn't touch on Stripe, but I'm also bullish on Stripe going live uh in 2026. Um, I know a lot of predictions have been kind of bearish. Um, Tempo, I should say, not Stripe. But, um, yeah, I think Tempo in itself, like if Stripe gets some of their activity on Tempo, I do think that it could potentially be quite a big year. I think the last valuation was 500 million. I think that could look cheap um, in 12 months time. So, that's my my take on on Tempo itself. Um, with regards to Hyperlid, um, I'm neutral on Hyperlid. I think that I don't know if they're going to have a majorly tough year. I was listening to predictions from 12 months

ago actually in preparation for this episode and almost everyone had the same prediction 12 months ago around alt EVMs like doing massively and everyone was thinking about monad mega e bar chain hyperlquid to be honest like I didn't expect hyperl to be the winner out of those four chains and they are the winner now by far and I actually feel like that is probably going to continue being the case at least for some time. So, Hyperliquid, I I'm neutral and think that they could have an interesting year, but I don't have anything in particular around how bullish or bearish I am on it. And yeah, I'd say those are my thoughts on those four ecosystems. I think in general, I'm pretty neutral across the board. Um, and then I would

maybe add that base. Um, again, Mike might might not necessarily agree with this take and curious to hear you here, Mike, but um, I do think that base is pretty interesting for AI crypto developers. Um, just with all the sort of, um, A2A stuff they're doing, X4 O2 standards they're working on, etc. the distribution they have as well. Like for me, I've come across many many crypto AI developers working in the base ecosystem and that is very early and maybe 2026 isn't the right year for crypto AI but I do think that it it will be at some point and that and actually from what I understand right now Salana and Bass are pretty much 50/50 on this. So this could also be a bull case for Salana in 2026 um if it comes earlier than expected.

>> Yeah. And I'm just gonna make one note there. Uh, Tempo raised 500 million valuations. Their valuations five five billion. So >> they've got a lot of they've got to show like a lot to the market in 2026 if they're going to launch at that, right? Um, so yeah, they said the expectations >> one point on on a tempo valuation and I was looking at this before the episode as well. So, Telegram at some point, maybe a year or two ago, had like a you know, a valuation in the several billions and when their token launched, it actually reached pretty much the same valuation as their private market valuation. So, this might be obscene to say, but you know, like crypto can be obscene at times and Stripe's valuation

now is, you know, pretty much 100 billion. So, you never know in crypto how these things are valued, um, if it will be anywhere close to that or not. So, yeah, it' be interesting to see what happens there. one one point that I I had a separate prediction around this. I think that um we are on the Ethereum versus Salana point here and fees. I think there's a lot of nuance to this subject. I had one prediction for this year. I think we're going to move beyond I'm so happy that we're talking about revenue right now. It's also nowhere close to sufficient and I think the vocabulary that the space is going to adopt over the current year or the coming year is revenue quality and durability. um you know just as as concepts and I think people will start

to dissect income streams um from this perspective and one thing that I think investors are well and truly sick of is highly procyclical revenue streams um we keep falling for this as an industry I could name any number of projects that the revenue goes up like this and you know I see a bunch of people annualize at the very top of their income stream right when it's about to turn because you're talking about a business which is inherently highly cyclical and I think investors have finally caughten on to this and they're going to stop giving um those revenue streams the same credit as revenue streams which are provably more durable. And the reason I think this matters even when I look at Ethereum versus Salana, I completely agree that Salana is going to extract more value.

There's just more uh value and fee potential for a chain that turns over as much volume as Salana does with their strategy. But I also think that investors will give a higher REV multiple towards what is more sustainable and predictable revenue. Like when I just think about the use case of issuing RWAS, onchain finance, money market fund type things, that just is very sustainable to me versus I I see that the more retail trading high slippage fee extraction game that's just a really cyclical um income stream I think into the foreseeable future. And so even though the amount of fees could be quite different, I think that investors will the way that I make sense of this in my head is essentially give a

higher REV multiple to Ethereum than Salana. That makes sense to me. Um, so I I also didn't mean to sound bearish on Salana at all. I think I actually I just Hyperlid was able to pivot or counterposition successfully against Salana by being more opinionated and essentially just building a DEX right into the structure of this chain. But I also think that makes them not a platform. And I think that Salana's neutrality is going to ultimately win them that market. And yeah, I'm very bullish from very bullish on Salana.

>> I think I think a point on that as well, the the difference with Salana in 2026 versus other years is that they were the underdog for many many years and there was a narrative around them maybe taking over Ethereum, etc. And now it kind of feels like they're a bit further away from that than they were maybe this time 12 months ago. And so like whilst I think we all are aligned that the future is bright for Salana, I think there's still, you know, room for them to grow and they still have a little bit more to go to like really get to where Ethereum is at right now. And if anything, Ethereum has kind of got their act together, which is why I think that we're all still bullish on Salana as an ecosystem. But I just think that Ethereum finally is like actually now

there and is viable competitor and it's less um known if they're going to be able to overtake Ethereum in the near future, which makes it more exciting to follow than ever really. >> Shout out to today's sponsor, Katana. Katana is a DeFi first chain built for deep liquidity and high yield. No empty emissions, just real yield and sequencer fees routed back to DeFi users. [music] Incubated by Polygon Labs and GSR, Katana is launching with notable ecosystem [music] of primitives, assets, and partners like Morpho, Chainlink, and more. [music] Katana's 1 billion KAT campaign is live. Bridge and deposit directly into vault in one simple click and start earning immediately on your Ether, Bitcoin, [music] USDC, and more.

Follow the link in today's show notes to get started. Can we go on to our next category of predictions here, which is DeFi? Um, and maybe I can maybe I can lead off and some of this is going to dovetail with at least my thoughts on Ethereum. And I think we're all actually pretty aligned about Ethereum, but I think Salana or I think Ethereum rather has pretty convincingly won this RWA issuance onchain finance use case. And I think one of the part of the reason too I think there's a road towards fees here for Ethereum where you have activities like one thing that I think is going to take off in 2026 is RWA looping. um and vault management. I'm not really sticking my neck out here, but I think if you look at an enormous a huge

percentage of what's driven TVL and usage in things like a um is this idea of looping and there's an analog here which is in traditional finance, people like to put leverage on extremely safe trades like a treasury convergence trade, right? So there's extremely um you know lowrisk profit. uh it's not totally arbitrage but it's the closest thing and so you can take this trade which is very safe but doesn't earn you very much and lever it up to get um to get much better returns and I think that that activity is going to be replicated on onchain rails and if you just look at the assets that people want to use in borrow lend protocols it's much more it's most mostly stable coins that

people want to borrow or yielding assets and so I think that that looping behavior people are going to want to replicate But it's going to be on real world assets as opposed to digitally, you know, bearer um digital bearer instruments like ETH. But there are lots of challenges to that. Um like there's a liquidity cadence to RWAS that doesn't necessarily exist with, you know, you can't just like if you were to tokenize a delta neutral fund or something like that, you can't just take that into the market and sell it whenever you want um because maybe you can only redeem once a month. And so I think there's there are going to be some very clever uh protocol constructions that do quite well. Um and as a secondary prediction to that uh

I'll just get through my my three here and then Miles I'd love to get your response. Um I think credit funds are going to be a much bigger thing. Uh this does tells the future prediction but I think there's going to be some real pain in VC. Um I think there's been some less than flattering performance over the last couple years that I think is going to come to light and get reported on. But I also think the kind of longonly altcoin uh strategies um that haven't panned out, I think VCs are going to move into credit, but I think real big credit funds like Apollo and some very sophisticated credit traders are going to move in once they see this onchain use case take off.

Um so I think that's going to have a really big year. And then finally, I think the two big, if I had to, you know, go out on more of a limb, I think Pendle and Morpho are going to be the two big five uh DeFi winners of this year. um Morpho because they've got the right construction. Uh they've got a great team. Um they've got a very simple they don't have this labs uh token dilemma. Um and I think they're just going to continue to win uh there. And honestly, almost all of the you know curators and vault people, they're all building on Morpho and they just have true product market fit there. On the Pendle side of things, I think they kind of built [clears throat] there have been a number of attempts to build like an interest rate swap, you know, ability to

create fixed rate borrow lend and I think Boros is going to be really really successful around that. Um, so I think it's going to be a big year for Pendle and Morpho. But curious what you guys think of any of those or any other predictions you guys have on the DeFi side of things. >> Yeah, maybe I'll go quick. Like I I don't I don't know if how strongly I feel about this, but I might take the other side of like the uh the RWA growth. Um and what I mean by this is like I think right now um we we see who's like the demand side for these assets. It's cryptonative, you know, whales, cryptonative institutional buyers, cryptonative protocols, right?

Um and so I think we will stall out unless we like can expand that demand side, right? Um because you know it's fairly fairly saturated at the moment in terms of who who like new buyers are not coming in a ton. Um so you need like um basically protocol driven demand. So you think about like a product that can sell B2B TOC, right? Um maybe it's a vault managed product that buys these assets and then integrates into the front end of like a fintech app, right? And so I'm just not sure like what the demand is for, you know, integrating like DeFi mullet products that do sophisticated stuff on chain quite yet. Um, and I but

I do see that as like the most realistic path to like expanding that demand side for these assets. I'm just not sure if we're there yet. Um, so that was yeah, just maybe one quick reaction to that. Just taking the other side of of of this a little bit. Um and then I think like we'll see a lot of um I think adoption of use cases that like bring their own demand side right so like you can think about treasury and like cash equivalents facilitating 24/7 financing um against this this onchain collateral and that could happen more in these like pseudo corporate chains or or rollups right in like sort of walled garden environments um when you know this is like something that people want um an institution

brings their customers with them to to offer it and it's not actually like as DeFi native as we might think. Um so yeah, maybe taking the other side of that a little bit, but I don't feel I I think like there's absolutely a chance that you're right. Uh and this plays out really well for those products. >> Yeah, I think Mike uh your DeFi predictions are normally spoton. Um I think I directionally agree with most of what you mentioned just there. Um, I do think that Ave will continue to grow. I'm also bullish on Morpho, but I think Ave will get us act together in 2026 and, you know, still be something interesting that people see as having

uh, you know, quite bright potential future. Um, outside of that, with regards to more leverage looping, um, I think leverage looping with real world assets, it's definitely a really interesting concept. There is some risk there. I guess we will understand that with regards to like how to actually manage that with redemptions and everything like you mentioned, Mike. So, it'll be interesting to see if that can be built out and whether or not that causes any blowups. I think Mikey mentioned that VCs might go a bit more into credit um sort of styles of investing. I'm not 100% sure on that. I think VCs will continue doing crypto VC

things until they're like bust. So, um but I do think that you mentioned as well that you know maybe some other bigger players will enter the credit space and I totally agree that that would definitely happen. I do also think that the vault curation space in general is super interesting. Will only continue to grow, I also think um related to that point that when it comes to like products and investing and things like Moro and V curation and stuff like that, I think it is actually kind of hard to build a moat around some of these protocols. So like there are actually quite a few um vault curation products being built in startup land right now and of course Moro has a brand and they have the partnership with Coinbase but I do think ultimately you know Coinbase

and distribution partners have the power when it comes to these kind of like asset management protocols. The question is like how much can they grow versus like a Coinbase which has the power over not just a protocol but also the curators. So that'll be interesting to see. I I do actually think that 2026 could bring an application that gets its own distribution away from someone like Coinbase and kind of abstracts the curation thing and just provides some great yield um with a great products. I think that could definitely happen this year. But yeah, I think in general like actually maybe one other um comment on DeFi, I guess in general in 2026 would be I think Salana DeFi will mature um and I think it'll chip into Ethereum's DeFi a little bit. So yeah, I think

Ethereum is already in great place when it comes to DeFi and it will continue to be that way in 2026, but I think Salana has maybe trailed a little bit in that department and it'll be cool to see that picking up a bit this year. Maybe [snorts] >> I have a response to by the way the curator side of things. I just think it's so hard to predict this stuff and I think generally when people talk about where does value acrue in the in the value chain um it's generally done from a retrospective lens and the idea is this was always inevitable based on the positioning but I I think in reality the future is unwritten and you know I would I would reference a a business like steakhouse which really successfully

transitioned from being this kind of consulting services provider to a curator And what you know just anecdotally you know if you want to build in this vault curation space you really do have to go and line up the curator like they have an enormous amount of strategic leverage within the ecosystem and ultimately even if that spot probably isn't the right long-term spot there's opportunity for a good team to leverage that strategic advantage and go either up or down the stack and build a more durable moat. So I think at this point almost everything is unwritten and I would give you like two examples of the past how this has played out differently. I think a lot of the big

big staking providers had an opportunity to move up the stack and it's funny almost none of them did. Um but I would actually if we reverse the clock back to maybe 20, you know, 19 time frame, the same fate could have been shared by many of the custodians, but firms like Anchorage uh successfully did move up the stack into prime brokerage and built a really great business. So I I actually when when the value chain is this immature, I think it really is almost impossible to say this is where the value is going to acrue and which team is going to be successful based on where you're positioned today because good teams that are worth their salt will build an advantage in one layer and then wake up and reassess, you know, where, you know, where the value is going to

be. um and then they'll have the opportunity to pivot and move and evolve into and build, you know, unique modes across different um different rungs of the value chain as well. So, I'm I'm like less people love to debate about this. I'm I'm less certain that it's obvious and I think there will be surprises and good teams will um have the ability dep regardless of where they start to build huge businesses here, >> right? I mean, we're just talking about like asset management, right? asset management businesses when we talk about like vault curators and things like that and so yeah there's absolutely a massive opportunity like yeah yeah like obviously there's a massive opportunity here and I it will be interesting to see if it um you know like the successful

ones are folks that specialize in this from day one in these very very early days or if it's just like asset management businesses that expand horizontally uh from say venture you know um into this sort of like into these sort of products Right. Um if they can make money, they will. So um yeah, I agree with you. >> Yeah. Um can we go into um actually I kind of skipped this category, but I had some thoughts on infrastructure in general. Um, and I think that uh and when I say onchain infrastructure, I'm talking about this is a a specific prediction for kind of like L2's roll up as a service, shared

sequencing, kind of this whole raft of related onchain infrastructure that popped up in uh the last couple of years. It's already been pretty tough, but I think it's only going to continue to get tougher for that for that group. And I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel here. I think there's consolidation, but I think the end market structure for this is two or three vertically integrated providers. And Miles, I'm going to give you credit. Um, we talked about this on you can go back and listen to bell curve episodes and writing that you were doing 2 three years ago um calling for the collapse and the vertical integration of frameworks, rollup as a service, shared sequencing. And I think all of these um company, you know, projects that started

a sensibly that looked very different and they tried to position themselves as leaders within this category, it's all the same thing. And I I would actually the analogy again I would reference is kind of this 2019 uh transition from custodians into full suite prime brokerage and you had a bunch of different companies like Anchorage started purely as a custodian. BlockFi started purely as this lender. Um and what you eventually went and there were tens and tens of these different custodians and lenders etc. And what happened was there was actually a bubble in these private market valuations of these companies. And it was a really tough it took like five years to work through that valuation overhang. And what you what emerged was a couple like Galaxy, Anchorage, you know, Falcon X, those sorts of winners from this cate.

It's like a massive category that consolidated. And I think that's going to happen in L2 land. And um I think we had a little bit of a broken mental model too around what L2s were. And I think we've talked about this before, but everyone wants to position themselves as a platform and an ecosystem. I just don't see it that much for L2. I think the ecosystem that people want to be a part of is Ethereum. And I think the mental model as opposed to there's the Ethereum ecosystem and platform and then there's the, you know, uh, uh, Mega ETH or or whatever ecosystem and platform. I think people want to build on Ethereum that'll mostly be a a mix of corporates and new

startups, but then there's this big opportunity for, you know, like the Red Hat model of um commercial open-source software to provide, you know, these value added services on top of connecting to the ecosystem. But I think that's going to end up being two or three big vertically integrated solutions as opposed to we've just way overbuilt uh and way overestimated demand and how many solutions the market really needs. So I think out of that there will be a couple big winners but unfortunately I think there's still pain to to emerge in that in that category.

>> Yeah, I agree. I think like what you know we talked about a ton two or three years ago was basically like I was looking at these RAS frameworks. I was or RAS providers looking at these rollup frameworks um and wondering why nobody had vertically integrated you know if you're building a framework obviously you should have your own RAS like that seemed very obvious and two years later like we finally see ZKYNC I think is the first you know one to do this like pretty explicitly and I think they're going to do great um I think they'll have like actually a very good year because they're just they've built up like a enterprise sales team for the past you know how many years right um they've now like I think product is fully featured. Um they have interoperability, they have privacy, they have a lot of good things and um

you know when you pair that with like a managed service business um uh with like managed service, great sales team, you know, I think you can have a lot of success. Um yeah, to your point like most rollups were just trying to look like L1's uh and they were trying to act like L1's and that I think has backfired um you know for for most of them. But uh yeah, that's where I see it's like you build a vertically integrated solution um that allows you to go like be very proactive um on the sales side um lower the friction to adoption and then you can also be a curator right if you're the infrastructure provider right you've got like all this different sort of activity you can provide like a front end that helps people discover like you

know apps and um things like that so yeah bullish bullish on those taking that sort of like proactive approach to infrastructure and I even like Symbiotic and iigen are are kind of having similar realizations right now, right? Where they need like to be opinionated in the use cases they go after, maybe even build them themselves. Um, and so I think, you know, you see Ian like now just kind of set on verifiable [snorts] AI and you see Symbiotic leaning more into like the the DeFi side, right? Um, and Lido now starting to do that as well. So yeah, I agree. um we'll see a lot of like horizontal expansion from these infrastructure providers um uh building like complimentary products.

>> Yeah, I think only thing to add on my end is I think it'll be another tough year for most infra providers. Um but the winners will keep winning like the ones we mentioned earlier like Hyperlid, Ethereum, Salana. Um, and if you're not in that bucket of winners, it'll be tougher. It'll be interesting to see with Monad if that gets adoption. Of course, fingers crossed Delta launches this year and let's see how that goes. Um, as well when it comes up against some of the bigger players. Um, but yeah, I think in general, Emperor is is very competitive. It's never been harder, I think, to compete with with the bigger players as they become more

and more Lindy. But that's also to be honest not to say that there isn't room for one more like and this is the classic BC talk of like why they throw so much money at these infer projects but um I yeah I still think with crypto like you actually don't ever know and because infer is so you know sort of out of favor with the rest of the space it could also be interesting time for someone like a Delta or even like a Monet or someone like that to pop up and actually give some of the other players a run for the money so yeah it'll be interesting year for him for a theme. >> I agree. I completely agree. Um I also think I also think one of the things that ends up happening in these sorts of cycles is there's a challenge from

incumbents where they have a lot of debt. And I mean that both as actual tech debt, but kind of this organizational mindset debt that's really hard to overcome um from an inertia standpoint. and sometimes actually coming in with a more fresh view of the world um more correct positioning and frankly just more energy. I mean it's really it's really challenging as an organization that's been going down for 3 years to turn it around. I mean it takes exceptional founders and leadership teams and money is not enough. It's just not. Um you need really exceptional people and there are teams like that that exist in

crypto. There are also a lot of teams that I don't necessarily think that uh you know have that internal competency. So I think there's a ton I completely agree. I think there's a ton of room whenever the category is left for dead but it's obviously an important category like infrastructure there's going to be big opportunity. Um so Miles this is us gassing you up for for Delta. >> Hell yeah. There we go. Um, and I would also say like it's not just like net new projects. Like there could be a couple that end up like Solana where like they just build through this this like really dark time, right? And like they have like some builders that are super committed to them even building during like the dark, you know, uh, down only days. Um, >> and then they come out the other side

looking great. So I think yeah we'll have room for new entrance like Delta and like I think there will be one or two of these infrastructure platforms that everybody wrote off that like come back um you know um with a with a good end of 2026 maybe maybe 27 who knows >> I would like to put together a prediction on corporate chains in and I want to actually flesh out a framework here so I'm not just uh cuz I think some of so much of this is timelines but I think in general um what Ethereum and modularity and kind of this was Celestia's whole viewpoint as well got right was I think the ultimate first of all it doesn't need to be binary there

are massive integrated ecosystems like Apple right versus the more Microsofts or the Googles of the world which are more modular and specialized you can literally just do both it was silly that we ever tried to make it a battle yeah uh but I also think that the modular side of things really appeals to me I understand you know I do subscribe to this idea we're going to bring everything on chain and there is going to need to be specialization. I think what Ethereum and Celestia got wrong was the magnitude and the timing there and we way overbuilt and way over specialized before the demand materialized. Um and so I think within that context I think we are we kind of swung at one point remember how consens uh how consensus modularity was as an idea. We're going to swing in the

opposite direction and I think corporate chains and corporate L1s are going to be a huge theme um in 2026 and I'm ultimately not bullish on almost any of them. I think most of them will end up um using an L2 framework or building on something like Delta. I just and I think that that this kind of we did this whole episode on specialization and being more intentional and strategic around where you want to focus in the value chain. I think that that logic will eventually kick and that gravity will kick in. But I don't think it's going to happen in 2026 and I think you're going to start to see some a lot of attempts and swings at big swings on goal here. Um tempo Z, I'm I'm just on the other side of you uh

on this one. Um I I'm so the team is so competent, right? Like Stripe are such goats um at product. The Paradigm guys are so smart. Uh I think the fundamental challenge with this is that it's just not perceived as neutral and I don't think it strategically makes sense for them to be an L1. I just I can't make my brain see it. I'm would h be happy to be wrong on this, but I just don't see it. So I see I see Tempo debuting to a lot of fanfare. I think frankly that team is just too good to not launch with one or two big apps, um, a bunch of money lined up, all of that stuff. I think they're going to have it lined up and it's going to look really good, but I think they're going to struggle to gain true adoption

on the their their L1. Um, and I think ultimately I see Tempo becoming like an L2 or something like more of an execution environment. Um, I think I think Circle is going to struggle with ARC. Sorry, love you Circle, but I just I can't see it on this one. I think USDC the val I think there's more network everyone hates on USDC in crypto I think that's a really good product that has a ton of um support already I actually my my kind of um counter if I were circle I would stop uh here's here's here's a hot take for you I would stop paying distribution fees to Coinbase I would call their bluff and say go ahead launch a stable coin because they're not going to do it um I think circle I think Coinbase is actually already in like you

remember at the end of 2022 um they were trying to do everything and then to Coinbase's credit they really reigned it in um and they you know prioritize they like cut their NFT exchange and they did a bunch of stuff. I think I see Coinbase trying to do too much again. Um and I think honestly if you wanted to do the baller move here, Jeremy, like I would just call their bluff and say go ahead launch your own stable coin now. Um because I don't think they'll do it. Um so I think USDC is a great asset. I do not like ARC the chain for them. I don't see it going anywhere. Um, and I don't think it's going to work. Um, the the like wild card in all of this for me is Robin Hood. Um, that was, if I have to give myself one piece of credit, I think

it's pretty right on that going into 2025. Uh, they have unbelievable product discipline. You rarely see Robin Hood launch a flop. Like almost everything is successful and I think that comes down to Vlad being such a um product ccentric founder and so I don't know where the momentum is going to stop for them. um you know they've they've successfully made inroads into prediction markets. Um they are and they're much more singularly focused on the everything exchange. So I don't know u frankly it's I I have to it's it's hard to know when they're going to fail because I just haven't really seen it in crypto so far. So those would be my predictions though for um I also think uh last I think we're going to see a black rockchain. Um I

just like they have been doing so much. Uh they've been leaning into the space. I think that they they they basically made uh US ETFs a thing. Um I think they want a big slug of this space and I think that platform mentality mindset is going to um appeal to them and they're going to say we should just own more of this that so that would be this is that's an out there prediction but that would be my out there prediction for the year. Yeah, >> I uh yeah, I think I've already mentioned it several times uh over the last few weeks, but yeah, tempo. I'm excited for Arc. I agree. I'm not really seeing the differentiation to be honest.

I mean, we've already seen things like plasma um etc. go after a similar go to market um and plasma is still kind of TBD long term. if that will be sort of heavily differentiated in market. Um the Black Rockck one is interesting. Um even I mean to be honest we haven't even discussed it this podcast which might be outlandish for some but like Canton in itself seems to have some eyeballs on it right now. Like whether or not that's a corp chain or not is another question.

That's a public corp chain as opposed to like a more sort of commissioned wand. So that'll be interesting to see as well the difference of what is further this year public or or permissioned. But um I think with most corp chains I'm not that bullish cuz I agree with your overall sentiment of both of you around the fact that you know it is incredibly neutral. It is permission. There's like limited sort of cap growth. At the same time with tempo, the like really left curve thesis is like this is a massive opportunity for merchants and their own internal transaction volume and like developers want access to distribution etc etc and it's EVM has a great team.

Um, so I do think that they'll have at least one or two breakout apps um on Tempo in 2026. And yeah, again, like potentially be a top 10 or 20 kind of like crypto assets. So let's see. I guess we'll have to look back into a month's time. >> Yeah, I'm not as sure as that there will be like breakout new apps on Tempo. I'd be that that's a really interesting one. Um, I think that, you know, the the reason Temo got the $5 billion valuation is that Stripe can just, you know, >> yeah, >> with like add a module to every single, you know, checkout um page of every merchant that uses it, right? Uh like and then all of the surrounding sort of like services like CLA, right? We've

seen them already like offer us or announce a stable coin on on Tempo. Um, and so yeah, I think like the the they have probably the strongest like bullcase for me and it's not I don't necessarily see like the native uh new DeFi apps um killing it there, but I do see like the potential of just getting a ton of stripes, you know, volume running on tempo. Um, Arc has very like hello fellow kids vibes. Um, and I think like that you not super controversial. I wonder wonder if it'll do better than plasma. Like plasma kind of had like a moment and then fizzled out, but yeah, I see like kind of a similar thing here.

Um, so yeah, I don't have too many other like hot takes on this one. Um, and yeah, I'm going to leave Canton alone because they got mad at me last time. >> Okay. Uh, we don't have to pick on Canton. I think Canton's going to be going to be absolutely fine here. that that is the the risk case by the way for Ethereum is that this becomes such a sexy category for finance that um there's much more competition on the RWA issuance side of things. Um I I would love to uh I know we're we're already um long in the tooth here, but I got two more categories that I want to go into, which is one kind of this general um general category around VC investments markets, that type of thing, and then maybe we can end on prediction markets.

And um uh Zave, I'm I'm particularly looking to you here in your in investor hat, but my my thoughts are to to you know go through all of these is I think there's going to be real pain in VC um this last this coming year. I think there has been pain already. Um but I think it's going to start to get reported on and covered more deeply and I think a lot of that's going to come to light um in the next year or so. And I think for the first time, I don't know if folks noticed this with like the tempos of the world and some of these fintech, you know, vertically integrated fintech like kind of stable coin banks, but some of the big traditional fintech VCs are moving into the space. And I

think some of the VCs that thought they had crypto unlock are going to be really surprised when cryptonative founders opt to take these more traditional investors money as opposed to cryptovc money. Um and I think there's just going to be like a little bit of an existential crisis in this whole group of investors. Um in now I think the good ones you know the the paraphysis and the paradigms etc of the world I think they'll be um I think they'll be great. Um I also think ones that have positioned themselves well like the 50ts um you know etc like in kind of more growth equity. think if you have kind of this durable moat and people understand where you belong in the space but I think the category that's in trouble here are kind of the

generalized like megapund you know 2 3 plus billion aum but it's not clear where they've positioned themselves I I think that's going to be challenging um I think that'll be challenging um I also think VC in general is going to be anemic like we had there's about 30 billion of VC investment in 2021 we are down even this year in this bull market uh to around 25. I think we're going to continue to see that downward trajectory into 2026. Um I'd call for like somewhere between 12 and 18 probably, but I think the downward trend resumes and I think it gets concentrated in a couple of big Arabore style deals. Um that like feels almost separate from the rest of crypto. Um and yeah, I think

those are that would be those would be some of my predictions for this next year. Yeah, I think in general again directly align with your sentiment um in terms of like crypto venture on the whole I would maybe make the case that since the FTX crash it has been pretty hard uh in crypto private markets. I mean there was maybe 12 months after that where people sort of like there was just excess capital that had been raised and founders could still raise etc. But to be honest with you, from like 2023 onwards in crypto venture, especially for emerging managers, I think it's been like very very tough. Um, so emerging managers, um, anyone who has a fund one up to a fund three is classified as an

emerging manager. And I would say in crypto right now, it is just tough actually to break out as an emerging manager. And you had that kind of class of 2017, including legendary investors like Multicoin that like broke out back in 2017. And I do actually think that right now in crypto uh there is an interesting opportunity for emerging managers to become like the kind of multicoin of the application kind of product era. And to be honest uh I do think 2026 will be a very very good year to be investing in crypto venture. um valuations have actually come in line with like what you'd expect and if anything look very very appealing compared to AI and I do think actually sophisticated LPS um which are investors

and funds um understand this. They understand that AI is very hyped and they understand that crypto is here to stay and that there could be very interesting investment opportunities. So, I think we're like really sort of in the middle of this awkward timing phase of crypto venture where it's kind of like the tail end of that fallout from FTX where a lot of LPs lost confidence, especially in the US with just like crypto as a whole. It's taken them years to rebuild that trust. And now, you know, heading into 2026, I feel like regulations are here. But even still 8 n months later, at least in my view, the bigger USLPs are still just kind of warming up. And even then, they want really bigger, more established funds.

And to your point, Mike, you know, founders who I work with, for example, um they do actually want to work with web two or like more traditional funds. And I can tell you why. It's because when you're building out applications and products, etc., what you're really looking for now in this like era of that is distribution. So you want to be working with these massive trades that have distribution across like all these different companies, hundreds of portfolio companies across like all different industries and categories etc. And so like you already saw in 2025 um you know rounds like FOMO got done by really bigname uh trades. I think that will just continue. This is like the era of fundamentals as we mentioned as well.

So, I do think that there'll be some sharp elbows with web 3 and web 2 VCs in in 26 and yeah, potentially some interesting deals that get done by crypto VCs early that get marked up by more trades and that in in my opinion is is a great opportunity for many VCs out there. So, yeah, super interesting time I think for cryptoc. But just to finish, I do think um it is also really really tough still and Mike to your point around maybe some numbers being reported etc. like unfortunately you know there are some funds out there that have had a harder time and you know this is just unfortunate around the time that they raised the money and the valuations etc but probably there'll be many that officially die out I think in 2026 if if they're not dead yet they might be dying

out in 26 so um that will definitely I think continue to happen and then and that will then start the next cycle for venture I think in crypto >> can I add one one more thing too I think partially also the reason outside of the distribution that more traditional VCs have is they're um a lot of there's more institutional knowledge about how to build and scale companies in more traditional VCs than in crypto VCs specifically. And I think this comes down to where the opportunity has been for cryptovc, which is to be very early um in in projects to understand narratives and to understand

cryptonative things like smart contracting safety and things like that. But I I think a lot of those are sort of solved problems. Um and and I don't think that that skill set is quite as valuable or as much of a moat anymore. And I'm also speaking, you know, I'll shout out our primary investor, uh, you know, 50T, um, who kind of positioned themselves as being later stage and hired a bunch of operators to give support. And I don't know, like my personal experience as a founder too is generally, you know, it's your job to understand positioning and product and that like if you can't do that as a found, if you're relying on your VCs to help you with that, like you're kind of cooked, I think. Uh, but what isn't as obvious, especially for a bunch of

first-time founders, which is what crypto mostly is, is how do you build and scale companies? How do you structure things? Um, how do you make difficult employee decisions? That's the type of stuff that, you know, often when you're analyzing companies, you view it purely from where did they position themselves strategically, but generally when I look at the companies that made it versus didn't, you all internal people decisions. Um, and and I just think that the more traditional VCs are better set up to help founders scale companies. And I think the great crypto VCs, there are crypto VCs that can do that. And I think that they'll lean into that um, as a value proposition. But that's where I I just think if we're in the scale up phase, then that skill set and core competency is going to be

continuously important. um just purely from my own founder perspective like that's what's attractive to me about those firms. Okay, let's uh do you want to end on prediction markets and we also didn't really talk about AI and I know we only have about 10 minutes here so uh maybe we can rip through these but I've just got I've got two on prediction markets which are I frankly like such a cool category win for crypto that outside of stable coins I think it's kind of the only thing in crypto that's really made it mainstream this last year but it made went mainstream in a really big way. Um, I think next year will be a good year for prediction markets, but my prediction is we're at a little bit of a local maxima. Um, you know, I don't know if you guys caught the Shane Copelan 60

Minutes glowing interview uh the other day, but just having watched these things for a long time, nothing goes up in a straight line forever. And I think some of the legal challenges around prediction markets and how closely it intersects with gambling. I also think you're going to start to see you're I you know we saw an announcement from DraftKings getting into prediction markets. I think there's going to be both increased competition and legal challenges and I think there will be a a we're going to face a little bit of a bump in the road um around prediction markets this next year but the structural trend is definitely still bullish I would say and I also am continue to be bullish on both Poly Market and Kelshi. But again, the kind of meta theme for me in my predictions is that winners keep winning. And I

think that those two have really cemented themselves. And um I think I know that there's a million new uh prediction markets that have gotten funded. I not to be a hater, I I don't see many of those taking off or being successful. Uh but where I do see there is being uh inroads is um I think this like everything exchange meme is going to be super powerful. Um, and I think there's going to be inroads from sexes, um, potentially on the crypto side of things, although it's still a question mark for me. Prediction markets are pretty different from the markets that they're used to. I'm unsure. Again, Robin Hood has made great traction here.

Um, hard to see where their product chops end. Uh, but and sorry, the last thing, but I don't think new startups um are going to be super successful here. Um, also like the DraftKings of the world and audiences, uh, you know, apps that have big retail audiences, especially in sports, they're all going to launch prediction markets and probably be somewhat successful. That would be my prediction for >> Yeah, I guess the the the the big thing for prediction markets is like, can you break out of uh sports betting and politics? Um cuz I think like outside of those two like subcategories of things to bet on, there's um you know not been a ton of adoption, not a ton of volume like you know the the hedging for like you know um serious institutional like

use cases uh like hedging as a use case has not really like come um don't really see that prediction markets quite yet but I don't think like and that was the original promise right that like Robin Hansen like wanted prediction markets for um so Yeah, that would that's a big like um question mark if they can break out of that and if they can't break if like that's where new prediction markets need to focus, right? Like new pockets of activity that are not fully saturated by the winners. Like you're not going to come in and beat you know um Koshi and like Susana market makers on Koshi for sports betting like it's just you know too too liquid and efficient already.

Um, so what you got to pick your niche. Um, then the other thing I would say like, uh, maybe this bleeds into the AI conversation, but I think we're going to see LLM judges, um, a lot more integrated into prediction markets, um, in all different types of applications. Honestly, I think they will like totally replace probably the weakest point of prediction markets right now, which is like relying on this, you know, UMA oracle for poly market or requiring you to have like these licenses if you're going to do it in house, right? LLM judges are a really nice sort of like um you can you can stay unlicensed, but you can also move much faster and with much less dependency on like, you know, the price of UMA's token moving up or down

or some other oracle, you know, uh service. So, um, yeah, I'll pause there, Z pop in. >> Yeah, I think my great prediction. I think this one's we're going to look back on, um, and see that it was very, very correct. My only point to add maybe is that I do think that there could be room for a kind of like interface for prediction markets, which is almost like a hyperlquid or like an axiom, uh, that like does a lot in volume and captures a bunch in fees. So I I think the opportunity is still up for grabs and we could see a winner there in 2026 um which ends up doing very well. Don't know if it gets acquired by Poly Market or or Kash or something like that, but I

think the outcome could be very very sweet. So yeah, I think in general though the the trends here to stay so couldn't agree with you more mine. >> I have one just comment. Uh I Miles, I love your uh prediction on LLM judges there. Um, but I would say I don't think prediction markets should actually stray that far outside of politics or sports. If I were in the driver's seat of one of those orgs, I would just double down on that category. And I actually want to it's funny how much we've memoryhold this. Um, I hate to do this. Such a lame thing to do, but I'm going to bring up one of my tweets from uh July um of this past this past year, which is or sorry, of 2024, which is Poly Market should add sports betting. Um, this is why I think

it would be good. 10 to 100x larger market blah blah blah what am I missing and all of the comments if you if you'll see back then is sports uh you know it doesn't it already exists on poly market but it's not used draft kings is going to eat their lunch blah blah blah so it's only within the last really year or so that sports betting has taken off and it's a huge category so I I actually would say I think I think it's actually fine to just continue to focus um on on that category um >> agree agree and I I was going to say maybe like one more comment um that is sort of related to what Z was saying with like aggregators and just like um for these sort of markets like I think um this my last one on AI is that like I

think most major apps will have a chat interface um you know as like the primary mode of interacting with them by the end of 2026 and this could mean like [clears throat] you know there's like this is not what a lot of people think about when they think about aic finance um or what they think about like when they think about intense right like the intense meta I think is finally finding like you know its moment with agents um yeah and shout out to oh yeah chat uh I think save uh awesome porto of yours uh that's building like I think what you'd see is like an early indication of what this could be right but you'll go into like you know u a poly poly market or koshi or even like a coinbase and I think like the first thing you know

people are going to do is like you know uh converse with like a in a chat module with an agent. Um, and that is going to come, you know, more quickly than people think. That's my prediction for 2026. I think that, um, you know, it will start bottoms up in sort of like retail lower stakes settings. Um, and the real big question mark is how quickly it, you know, gets adoption in like really like high stakes settings like treasury management, you know, things like that. And that's where I think, you know, just like LLM judges need some sort of like verifiability, like that's where, you know, verifiability uh and intents are going to like finally have their their day in the sun. Um is when it comes to

like, you know, uh native AI integrations into like every app. >> Yeah, I totally agree with you, Miles. Um I'm not I'm hoping that it's a big thing in 2026. I think it'll start seeing adoption and growth. I don't know. it'll be like massive by the end of the year, but I do think that it will start and at the intersection of AI and prediction markets. So what Miles was talking about which will be possible in 2026 is using like an LLM to understand more about these markets on poly market for example and then actually executing trades via that same interface. I think that is an opportunity in itself and I think Mars was talking about it a bit just then and that could be a super

interesting sort of intersection of of AI and prediction markets which we haven't really seen just yet. So yeah, and I think, you know, I guess we haven't touched on it as much, but crypto AI as a sort of topic as a whole, I do think that we will start seeing agents putting money to work. And I want to really simplify the problem that needs to be solved in crypto, which I think is actually being solved right now and will be solved in 2026. And I feel pretty strongly about this prediction. Like I do think that guard rails will be built in 2026 which make LLM more deterministic and more appropriate for crypto um you know and reduce hallucinations and that's really what we need the most in crypto for agents to work in the first place as well as like

really great contextualized data and we we now have great guard rails and contextualized data on chain and so we actually have all the info that we needed for agents to get there in the first place and it's only getting stronger. So I do think that now 2026 it's been like a speedrun of impro for AI agents to catch up to where we are and what is needed for blockchain for it to actually be applicable. But I think yeah 2026 I'm very bullish on initial AI applications going live. I know that's a bit anti what you're saying Mike in terms of timelines but it' be interesting to see if I'm I'm I'm crossing my fingers I'm right here [laughter] because we're working with some I agree it's like I wrote down it's going to be like the year of AI safety.

Like it's a great great year for for guardrails I think. Um and the like speed of adoption uh or like the speed of development of these guardrails and just like how uh confident people are in them um will determine whether this is like um something that arrives in one or two years um or if this is like autonomous vehicles where it's going to take you know 10 a full decade between like this works and this is safe to roll out in prod in public right um and I think you know I I hope Delta can play a big role in in in facilitating these guardrails. That's something I've been working on for for a while. Um so yeah, we'll we'll we'll see where it goes.

It's um it's super interesting and something I'm paying a lot of attention to. >> Yeah, I think um I'm fully prepared to admit that this might be a problem that I'm too close to. Um, and sometimes being close to a problem makes you less bullish on the timeline, but I just think the guardrail side of things is really difficult because at least the way that LLMs currently interact with crypto data, it's just it's really challenging. Um, and what like just as a thought experiment, right? Um, ask an LLM a really basic fact like uh how much how many fees has unis swap generated? And what it doesn't do is hit anything on chain. Um, what it

will do is pull from news articles. And so we're like a little ways away from LLM directly referencing crypto aggregate data. What LLM definitely can't do is parse raw or even indexed and formatted data. And so just just the challenge of making that first fundamental uh hop happen is huge um from my perspective. And there's a whole business model there that hasn't really been figured out. And so I I just like I can't be bullish on it for 2026. I think it's going to take longer. And that's not even, you know, before you have to solve that huge gap. And then you need to solve the trust of okay, even

assuming this data is right, there needs to be all these different types of controls um around having the LLM not hallucinate. And I I I think I would be when I hear like aentic commerce, I'm like that feels on the crypto side of things longer than it even feels like hitting an API from your bank account. Um but even then I think it's a ways away. Um I would I would say like two years. I don't mean to be a downer here, but I I think it's just uh quite challenging because um even the way that like if you were to get into the weeds of how even different data in crypto is pulled and structured, like the differences and between like how Blockworks does it versus Token Terminal versus DeFi Lama is big and a lot of it

hasn't been explicitly set up um to be good for LLMs. And yeah, I don't mean to throw cold water, but it's it's like a huge huge corpus of work. Um so that that's why I'm like ah I I I I'm a little further out on this um on this [snorts] timeline. Yeah. So my prediction was I do not think this will take off [laughter] in 2026. Uh but I do think there'll be a lot of work done. Uh I think there'll be a lot of work done and and progress made on this category in general. But >> yeah, >> fair enough.

>> All right. With that rousing uh end to I think that's uh that's all the time we have actually. Uh, but >> we're going to we're going to do a couple more episodes on this AI stuff. So, we'll we'll get into it this year. >> We will absolutely get into it. I also I you know I I want to end actually on the note that I think the way that I hear the tone and expression people people talk about crypto is like there's like a Paul and and people are people seem vaguely disappointed in a way that they can't articulate and and I think where that comes from is oh no I'm not going to be able to hit a 100 bagger on you know altcoin bag XYZ and that's probably true you will probably not be able to eat those like hit those hundred baggers

on your random alt coins anymore. I view that unequivocally as a positive. And it's possibly because I've been more focused on like the builder side of crypto for the last 8 years, but that's not good for capital formation and company building. Like having something go from nothing to a billion dollars in a couple months. That's so distracting. And it I actually view it like I just view it as a negative. Not to be a Debbie Downer. I I'm so much more excited about the long-term consolidation, building real value, moving outside of our little bubble, creating real products that the world cares about and generates value. Like honestly, you know, this used to not bug me. People being like, "Oh, your little crypto ecosystem." I'm sick of I'm doing

this for eight years. I I want to make a positive impact on the world and I want real products that work and are valuable. And I'm so much more excited about that than being able to than than what the industry has been for the last 8 years. So, you know, I I actually saw Douggee Duca posted this kind of chart of like being in the post imagination era. I think that's going to rub a lot of people the wrong way. I think we're going to need to make compromises on some of the like hardcore ideology that we've had in the past that just clearly hasn't been working. I think we're also going to need to move towards less of it. Anything is possible. New primitive every day into taking the primitives that obviously work and scaling them. It's different skill sets. It's a different mindset.

But I am so so excited for this next year and next 5 to 10 in crypto. I think it's the best time to be building or even investing in crypto. And yeah, I just I could not be more excited. Um and I genuinely mean that from the bottom of my heart. [laughter] Like I'm so pumped. um about where the space is going. So yeah, I don't want to end on a negative Nancy prediction. That that's how I genuinely feel going into >> very bullish. Very bullish. >> All right, lads. I think that's all the time we've had. We've gone for a long time. Uh folks who have joined us for both episodes here, if you are just listening to this episode, I would highly recommend go back and listen to the 2025 wrap-up episode. But Miles A,

this was a ton of fun, guys. and we'll see you back for uh maybe some we foreshadowed a little AI content, so maybe that's how we'll kick the year off. >> Yeah, that was awesome. Um >> so you guys have a great weekend and we'll [music] chat next week. >> All right, chat next week, guys.