What BlackRock, Coinbase and 11 other industry giants predict for crypto in 2026

The world’s top financial institutions are betting big on crypto in 2026.

Collectively, they oversee about $22 trillion in assets — or about the GDP of the entire Eurozone — and occupy systemically important roles in global markets.

Here’s what they predict in the new year.

BlackRock

Stablecoins will challenge governments’ control over their domestic currencies, BlackRock said in its annual outlook for global markets in 2026.

As adoption of stablecoin surges, there’s a risk that the use of domestic currencies in emerging markets will decline, BlackRock said.

The prediction comes on the heels of UK bank Standard Chartered cautioning in October that stablecoin adoption could drain over $1 trillion from bank accounts in emerging markets.

A similar argument can be said for US banks. They are threatened by the new Genius Act, the landmark stablecoin bill that was signed into law in July and gives crypto companies yield-like incentives that traditional lenders aren’t permitted to offer.

“Stablecoins are no longer niche,” Samara Cohen, global head of market development at BlackRock, said. “They’re becoming the bridge between traditional finance and digital liquidity.”

Coinbase

The deployment of artificial intelligence will catalyse an economic boom not yet captured by statistics, Coinbase investment research head David Duong said in the exchange’s 2026 Market Outlook report.

He argued that the growth of AI is unlike that of previous tech boom-and-bust cycles.

“We see the sustained prominence of the AI [and] crypto convergence as not just a trend but as a fundamental shift towards the next stage of technological progress,” Duong said.

The demand for privacy tokens will skyrocket, as “a growing global awareness of digital surveillance and data exploitation has raised the profile of privacy-first payment solutions,” Duong said.

The company highlights Ethereum’s privacy-focused initiative and tokens such as Zcash and Monero.

Fidelity

More and more countries will buy Bitcoin in 2026, Fidelity, the $6 trillion asset manager, said.

Fidelity named Brazil and Kyrgyzstan as two countries that have recently passed legislation enabling the purchase of Bitcoin for national reserves.

“If more countries adopt bitcoin as part of their foreign exchange reserves, then the pressure for other countries to also do it could increase, as they may feel competitive pressure,” said Chris Kuiper, vice president of research.

And Fidelity is not the only institution anticipating a sovereign buying spree.

Strategy CEO of the Bitcoin-buying business firm Strategy, Phong Le, has also predicted that countries will buy Bitcoin in 2026.

“Bank adoption, nation state adoption, is going to increase,” he said.

JPMorgan

Crypto will keep posting big wins in 2026, according to JPMorgan’s market outlook.

Despite the market having shaved roughly $1 trillion off of its total value, which once stood at $4 trillion in 2025, JPMorgan says the industry is still well-placed thanks to more lenient regulations in the US.

The Wall Street giant also noted that stablecoins are becoming a force in their own right.

“Broadly, we see digital assets gaining favour, driven in part by the search — at the margin — for alternatives to the dollar,’ JPMorgan wrote.

Andreessen Horowitz

AI agents in 2026 will revolutionise internet payments and banking, according to Andreessen Horowitz.

The firm predicts AI agents will be “paying each other for data, GPU time, or API calls instantly and permissionlessly — without invoicing, reconciling, or batching.”

A16z also predicts that privacy “will be the most important moat in crypto.”

“Privacy also does something more important: It creates chain lock-in; a privacy network effect, if you will,” it said.

DefiLlama, DL Research, DL News

Regulatory clarity catapulted stablecoins into the mainstream in 2025, DefiLlama, DL Research and DL News wrote in our joint State of DeFi report in December.

While the US and the EU have already provided clarity with the Genius Act and MiCA, other jurisdictions are set to follow in 2026, the report says.

“This regulatory alignment should accelerate the arrival of non-USD stablecoins and open the door for a new wave of institutional issuers entering digital assets at scale,” the report says.

Galaxy Digital

Bitcoin will reach $250,000 by the end of 2027, Galaxy Digital said.

“Options markets are currently pricing about equal odds of $70,000 or $130,000 for month-end June 2026, and equal odds of $50,000 or $250,000 by year-end 2026,” the firm predicted.

Galaxy also predicts that stablecoins will overtake ACH, the existing banking transaction system, in transaction volume.

The crypto asset manager also predicts that privacy-linked tokens will smash $100 billion in value by the end of 2026.

“The suits and ties have arrived,” the pair said. “Corporate adoption of crypto is accelerating confidence on both sides of the market.”

VanEck

Digital assets in 2026 will see consolidation rather than a boom or collapse, predicts Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, the investment firm that had $161 billion in assets under management in September.

According to Sigel, Bitcoin’s historical four-year cycle remains intact.

While not an immediate threat, quantum security is also becoming a key theme in the Bitcoin community, Sigel said.

The firm recommends its clients to invest between 1% and 3% of their portfolios into the top crypto.

Pantera Capital

US crypto policy will decisively shift from uncertainty to implementation, with Washington assertively creating new rules, according to Pantera Capital.

Chief legal officer Katrina Paglia said the regulatory reset under the Trump administration has clarified the industry’s direction of travel in 2026, even as key questions remain unresolved.

She points to the Genius Act, which establishes a licensing and supervisory regime for payment stablecoins, as setting a key stage for 2026.

“Crypto has almost doubled, on average, each year for the 12 years we’ve managed money in the space,” the company said.

OKX Ventures

Next year will be the year more assets go onchain, according to Jeff Ren, founder of OKX Ventures.

Speaking with DL News in December, he said that he expects gold, stocks, intellectual property and even GPUs to have blockchain-based representation.

“The goal isn’t to invent new things to speculate on, but to package familiar risks — rates, oil prices, elections, credit spreads — in intuitive formats that the everyday user can actually navigate to get exposure or hedge,” Ren said.

Silicon Valley Bank

Venture capitalists in 2026 will deploy more funds into institutional-grade crypto products from established companies, according to Anthony Vassallo and Josh Pherigo, analysts at Silicon Valley Bank.

“The suits and ties have arrived,” the pair said. “Corporate adoption of crypto is accelerating confidence on both sides of the market.”

Key sectors that will see significant disruption from both crypto and AI include payments, market infrastructure and global commerce, they said.

Mergers and acquisitions between fintech and crypto companies will also “post another banner year,” they said.

21 Shares

Crypto exchange-traded funds will surpass $400 billion in assets under management in 2026, according to 21Shares.

“These vehicles have become strategic allocation tools,” analysts at the crypto ETF issuer wrote.

“Besides individual wallet holdings, ETFs and funds represent the largest share of held BTC, reflecting the rise of patient capital.”

TRM Labs

Crypto will enter a more mature, tightly regulated phase, according to the 2026 outlook report by Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.

Regulators in dozens of jurisdictions are no longer debating whether to oversee digital assets, but how aggressively to do so and on whose terms, according to the company.

Sanctions evasion, illicit finance and state-linked activity are pushing governments to treat blockchain networks as matters of national security, not just financial innovation, the report said.

This is likely to result in sharper fragmentation between compliant, institutionally integrated crypto markets and offshore venues operating at the margins.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor, and Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email them at eric@dlnews.com and lance@dlnews.com.