Author: Maartje Bus @ The Medici Network; Source: Messari 2026 Crypto Thesis; Translated by: Jinse Finance
For years, we have viewed cryptocurrencies as a single asset class because its past market performance did indeed conform to this characteristic. But today, this label has become misleading.
The era of great differentiation has arrived.
Cryptocurrencies are gradually shedding their "single asset class" status, primarily because the price trends of their various asset classes are no longer converging, and their risk-return characteristics are no longer uniform—and these two points are precisely the core elements that define an asset class.
Bitcoin's current performance is more akin to a macro-level store of value: its volatility has shown a structural decline, institutional participation continues to deepen, and its price movements are increasingly correlated with other cryptocurrencies.
In contrast, Ethereum and mainstream public chains and layer-2 network ecosystems are more like high-growth technology infrastructure targets . Their value performance is directly linked to the applicability and implementation of the ecosystem, transaction fee revenue, and application layer activity, rather than being subject to overall market sentiment.
Pragmatism transcends ideology
Beyond market performance, this divergence reflects a deeper structural transformation.
The core underlying technologies of blockchain and cryptocurrency are gradually losing their ideological halo as "alternatives to the existing financial system" and are instead being defined as the infrastructure for reconstructing financial services and empowering new digital-native applications.
The early idea of "decentralization" as the ultimate goal is giving way to a more pragmatic development orientation that focuses on practicality, reliability, and cross-system compatibility.
Stablecoins are the most direct manifestation of this transformation: they are widely used, deeply integrated into the existing financial circulation system, and have achieved a high degree of "invisibility" for end users at the technical level.
Increasingly, crypto-native functions (including lending, clearing and settlement, liquidity supply, etc.) are no longer presented to users as independent decentralized products, but are embedded as underlying modules in centralized or regulated application systems.
Cryptocurrency: A Newcomer to the Tech Sector
If we exclude Bitcoin, which has already established its own distinct category, then from both an economic and investment perspective, the other sectors of the cryptocurrency industry no longer resemble a single asset class, but rather are closer to the technology industry track—which is extremely similar to the development path of the internet industry.
The core link that holds these sectors together is no longer convergent price fluctuations, but rather shared infrastructure such as blockchain, wallets, middleware, and decentralized finance protocols.
Value creation and investment opportunities are distributed across multiple levels of the industry and can be realized through various forms such as tokens, publicly listed stocks, derivatives, credit products, and structured instruments, rather than being limited to a single, homogeneous trading instrument.
Future Outlook
This transformation process is expected to accelerate further in 2026.
Blockchain infrastructure is being rapidly embedded into real-world financial applications, rather than being limited to standalone decentralized products—stablecoins are already leading the way, with payment, lending, clearing and settlement following closely behind.
The trend of asset tokenization will continue to drive the on-chaining of traditional assets, thereby blurring the traditional boundaries of various assets.
The pipeline of IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) for crypto-native companies is growing, which will further broaden the scope of investment targets. At the same time, financial super applications built on digital wallets and blockchain underlying networks are gradually taking shape. These applications integrate multiple services such as asset brokerage, payment, and credit into a single interface to achieve one-stop service.
As cryptocurrencies gradually grow into a fundamental infrastructure in the financial sector, the characteristics that once defined their industry attributes (such as meme-driven industry narratives, ideology-first application design logic, and synchronous boom-and-bust cycles) will no longer occupy a core position.
Capital and R&D resources will increasingly concentrate on products with clear economic value and that can create tangible benefits for users, rather than on applications that are simply decentralized for the sake of decentralization or tokenization for the sake of tokenization.
Conclusion
The core significance of this transformation lies in its complete redefinition of "applicability to cryptocurrencies".
The widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies no longer depends on users actively purchasing tokens or deliberately "using crypto products," but rather on whether blockchain infrastructure can become the core anchoring layer for value transfer—currently using stablecoins as the carrier, and in the future, it will carry an increasingly rich array of tokenized assets.
Although these assets will increasingly migrate to the blockchain, user access and interaction will be completed through wallets and various platforms, completely shielding the underlying technical complexity of the blockchain .
In this way, even if cryptocurrencies gradually fade from public view, the scale and economic influence of on-chain activities will continue to expand— this is the core sign of cryptocurrencies evolving from a transactional asset class to a foundational technology track.
