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From Coinbase’s perspective, the 2026 crypto market may no longer be driven by "grand storytelling"—such as the lofty visions of a specific blockchain, a new token, or a trending market concept. Instead, it will mirror mature financial markets, where crypto trends hinge on "which core scenarios attract concentrated capital and whether their trading plumbing is robust enough." They contend that the traditional cycle model—from retail speculation to new token issuances, then to single-protocol catalysts—is breaking down. Wall Street’s institutional players, focused on ETF assets, are now more deeply involved in trading, and market pricing is increasingly dictated by trading mechanics like positioning, risk management, and liquidity. This research implies that future crypto price swings will depend more on positions, funding rates, liquidity, risk controls, and real-world capital use cases—rather than散户情绪 (retail sentiment) and grand narratives alone.
For traders, this "institutionalization" trend points to one likelihood: extreme, year-long double-digit rallies will become less "normalized"—rarer and more dependent on specific catalysts. Derivatives and institutional risk controls make markets easier to hedge, short, or offset, while funding rates and leverage constraints can quickly deflate narrative-driven bubbles. Meanwhile, as crypto’s market cap grows, the net new capital required to double the prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptos has ballooned.
Perpetual futures, increasingly anchoring price discovery, remain one of the crypto market’s core sources of trading volume, with prices largely driven by positioning, funding rates, liquidity, and margin constraints. After the massive deleveraging/liquidations in late 2025 (particularly in derivatives), leverage was "largely washed out," yet the perpetual futures market showed remarkable resilience. The market has entered a new normal of "tighter margins and stricter risk controls." Coinbase identifies perpetual futures as a cornerstone of crypto market activity, noting that crypto derivatives now account for most trading volume on major exchanges. This shift has redirected price formation toward positioning, specific funding rates, and liquidity conditions—moving beyond the growth momentum long fueled by retail investors. The report states that leverage dropped significantly post the late-2025 liquidation events, especially in crypto derivatives. Coinbase describes this decline as a structural reset rather than a retreat, arguing that while excessive speculation was purged, perpetual futures participation retained strong resilience.
Senior analysts Duong and Basco from Coinbase write that stricter margin practices and enhanced risk controls at crypto exchanges are fostering markets better equipped to absorb shocks—even as derivatives continue to dominate liquidity.
Coinbase’s senior researchers note that prediction markets are evolving from experimental products into more enduring, far-reaching financial infrastructure. The institution highlights rising notional volumes and deeper liquidity metrics as signs that these markets—where wagers are placed using cryptos like Bitcoin or stablecoins—are increasingly used for information discovery and risk transfer. Coinbase also points out that fragmentation among prediction platforms is driving strong demand for aggregation and greater overall efficiency. This dynamic, the report suggests, is attracting more sophisticated participants—such as top Wall Street asset managers and hedge funds—expanding usage beyond native crypto traders, particularly as regulatory clarity improves in certain jurisdictions.
Prior to Coinbase’s report, analysts at prominent Wall Street financial institution Citizens Financial Group Inc. projected that prediction market companies like Polymarket could see their collective revenue surge fivefold by 2030, exceeding $10 billion—a sign that the era of "betting on everything" may soon arrive. Statistics show that global leading paid prediction firms like Kalshi Inc. and Polymarket have recently seen a spike in trading volume for their event-based contracts. These contracts offer a regulated, paid betting mechanism, allowing people to wager on sports, politics, and cultural events using Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stablecoins like USDC—exemplified by Polymarket’s global popularity during the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Devin Ryan and his team of market analysts at Citizens estimate the industry’s current annual revenue at approximately $2 billion. They note that on Robinhood Markets Inc.—the retail-favorite online brokerage platform offering Kalshi contracts—this prediction business is the fastest-growing product in the platform’s history, already contributing about 10% of its revenue. Citizens analysts argue that prediction markets provide a direct, binary way to bet on economic and corporate events, potentially useful for a broad range of investors. They attribute potential success partly to prediction market exchanges’ ability to launch event contracts far faster than traditional trading platforms, and "because they offer unmatched precision in expressing unique views and hedging idiosyncratic risks that traditional tools struggle to isolate."
Coinbase’s analyst team emphasizes that the final major pillar of 2026 growth centers on stablecoins and their closely linked cross-border payments, describing them as crypto’s most enduring real-world use case. Analysts Duong and Basco highlight that stablecoin trading volume continues to grow, driven primarily by settlement, cross-border transfers, and liquidity management—rather than speculative trading of meme coins or newly issued tokens. Coinbase notes that global stablecoin/crypto payment activity is increasingly intertwined with other parts of the crypto ecosystem, including automated trading strategies and emerging AI-driven applications (such as AI agents with automated payment capabilities). The institution does not view artificial intelligence as traditional financial industry competition; instead, it sees these developments as reinforcing blockchain-based payments as foundational infrastructure for digital markets. Coinbase states that 2026 will test whether these trading markets can continue expanding and managing risks under macro conditions like tighter liquidity. The outcome, it argues, will shape crypto’s future returns more profoundly than the fading of a new crypto price rally cycle.
Stablecoins—a form of digital currency backed by traditional assets like the U.S. dollar—are a specialized type of cryptocurrency/crypto asset that has seen rapid adoption in recent months, particularly in the U.S. market. Some Wall Street analysts even predict their scale could swell to $2 trillion. Proponents hail them as a blueprint for the 21st-century global payment system, while others warn they could create new cracks in the financial system. Designed to maintain a constant value, typically pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, stablecoin usage has surged in recent years—especially among crypto traders moving funds between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other tokens, and in accelerating cross-border financial services penetration.
As a unique crypto category, stablecoins maintain stable value ratios by pegging to core reserve assets like the U.S. dollar, euro, or gold. With key legislation to establish stablecoin regulatory frameworks advancing rapidly in the U.S. Congress, these price-stabilizing cryptos are entering the mainstream of global financial markets.本质上 (In essence), stablecoins are "on-chain dollars," backed 1:1 by highly liquid U.S. dollar assets (cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries). By combining "dollars" with "blockchain," stablecoins offer a new payment vehicle that balances stability and efficiency, revealing to capital markets the commercial potential of "digital dollarization."
