Jay Yu, Director of Research and Investment at Pantera Capital, shared 12 key predictions for the cryptocurrency sector by 2026 in a comprehensive assessment he published. According to Yu, the sector is undergoing a radical transformation in many areas, from financial infrastructure and artificial intelligence to tokenization and payments.
The report emphasized that consumer loans with high capital efficiency will come to the forefront, and that on-chain and off-chain loan modeling, along with AI-powered analytics, will bring a new dimension to the crypto lending market. It also predicted that prediction markets will branch into two distinct areas: finance-focused models integrated with DeFi, and those catering to more cultural and local interests.
Yu stated that artificial intelligence will become an “interface layer” in the crypto world, and that AI-based trading and analysis tools will become widespread, but large language model (LLM)-powered trading bots will still remain in the experimental stage.
Another notable headline was the rise of tokenized gold as a significant hedge against inflation and dollar weakness.
The report also stated that Bitcoin would not be affected by quantum threats in the short term, but developments in this area would prompt institutions to take precautions.
It was noted that data access tokens (DATs) will eventually merge or evolve into ETFs, grouping under a few large structures, while governance tokens will face an existential test.
Jay Yu predicted that decentralized futures exchanges like Hyperliquid would gain power, Prop AMM models would migrate to multi-chain structures, and stablecoins would become essential tools for international payments thanks to fintech giants like Stripe and Brex. According to Pantera, 2026 will be a year in which structural transformation accelerates for the crypto ecosystem.
*This is not investment advice.
