According to Foresight News , a16z crypto released 17 industry outlooks for 2026. These include more sophisticated and intelligent stablecoin deposit/redemption channels; thinking about RWA tokenization and stablecoins in a way that is more in line with the native crypto philosophy; stablecoins initiating a cycle of bank ledger upgrades and giving rise to new payment scenarios; the internet becoming the bank; and universal wealth management.
Furthermore, this includes the shift from "Know Your Customer" (KYC) to "Know Your Agent" (KYA); leveraging artificial intelligence for substantive research tasks; the emergence of hidden taxes on the open network; privacy becoming the most important moat in the crypto space; the (near-term) future of instant messaging requiring not only resistance to quantum computing but also decentralization; the "secret as a service" model; the shift from "code as law" to "regulation as law"; the scaling, wide-reaching, and intelligent development of prediction markets; the rise of staking media; crypto technology providing a new foundation for applications beyond blockchain; transactions serving as a transit point rather than a final destination for crypto businesses; and blockchain unleashing its full potential when the legal architecture finally aligns with the technological architecture.
