a16z releases "17 Crypto Trends for 2026," focusing on key areas such as RWA, AI agents, and privacy chains.

PANews reported on December 11 that the a16z crypto team's annual outlook indicates that in 2026, the crypto industry will focus on native RWA issuance, stablecoin payment infrastructure upgrades, the rise of AI agent economies, on-chain privacy infrastructure construction, and new application scenarios such as prediction markets and "Staked Media".

The report points out that stablecoins have reached an annual transaction volume of $46 trillion, far exceeding PayPal and Visa, and are becoming a new global settlement infrastructure. Meanwhile, structured RWAs will move from "tokenization" to "native on-chain issuance," improving efficiency and transparency. a16z also emphasizes that privacy will become a key factor in inter-chain competition, and chains with truly privacy features may form a "winner-takes-all" pattern.

In addition, AI agent identity verification (KYA), smart contract embedded payment rules, and on-chain verifiable media "staking opinions" are also considered key development directions for 2026.