The 4 Big Crypto Trends Coinbase Ventures Is Betting On for 2026

Coinbase Ventures outlines 4 strategic themes it expects to drive crypto innovation in 2026. The funding arm shared its outlook in a brand new weblog publish, figuring out the precedence areas wherein it goals to speculate.

These embrace Real-World Asset (RWA) perpetual contracts, specialised buying and selling infrastructure, next-generation decentralized finance (DeFi), and synthetic intelligence (AI) and robotics.

1. RWA Perpetuals Unlock Synthetic Market Exposure

The first theme centers on Real-World Asset (RWA) perpetual derivatives. These present artificial publicity to off-chain property.

Unlike conventional tokenization, perpetual futures present a sooner and extra versatile solution to ship on-chain publicity with out requiring groups to custody the underlying asset.

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“Because perpetuals don’t require securing an underlying asset, markets can type round just about something, enabling the ‘perpification’ of the whole lot,” the blog learn.

Coinbase Ventures expects development in two instructions:

• On-chain macro exposure, which provides merchants a solution to place round vitality costs, inflation expectations, credit score spreads, and volatility with out touching conventional monetary rails.
• New classes of markets, together with non-public corporations, area of interest datasets, and different metrics which might be tough to tokenize however straightforward to copy synthetically.

It is price noting that RWAs have experienced outstanding development this 12 months, growing from roughly $13.8 billion to round $36 billion in on-chain worth. At the identical time, the variety of asset holders has risen to 550,194, a 7.58% improve over the previous month.

2. Specialized Trading Infrastructure

The second theme focuses on specialised exchanges and buying and selling terminals, with Proprietary Automated Market Makers (Prop-AMMs) rising throughout Solana. These fashions shield liquidity suppliers from dangerous flows.

According to Messari, proprietary AMMs dealt with 13% to 24% of Solana’s complete DEX quantity by 2025. Moreover, in September, they surpassed conventional AMMs in Solana’s DEX quantity for the primary time. HumidiFi alone generated practically 50% of all SOL–stablecoin DEX buying and selling quantity that month.

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“This prop-driven method might meaningfully advance market construction innovation forward of base-layer enhancements and has potential functions past Solana’s spot markets,” Coinbase Ventures added.

Meanwhile, the agency emphasised that prediction market aggregators might emerge as a “dominant interface layer,” combining fragmented liquidity. They might provide instruments presently lacking from the sector, reminiscent of superior orders, cross-venue routing, arbitrage insights, and unified analytics. These developments mark larger market sophistication.

3. Next-Gen DeFi Elevates Composability and Privacy

DeFi’s subsequent chapter, in keeping with Coinbase Ventures, revolves round deeper integration between protocols and extra subtle monetary tooling. Perp platforms are starting to attach with lending markets, permitting collateral to generate yield whereas additionally backing leveraged positions.

With month-to-month on-chain derivatives quantity reaching $1.4 trillion, the agency expects extra programs that allow customers hedge, earn, and leverage concurrently with out fragmenting capital. Unsecured lending is one other space with important potential, probably tapping into the $1.3 trillion US credit score market.

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“Unsecured credit-based cash markets are DeFi’s subsequent frontier, and 2026 may even see breakthrough fashions that mix onchain popularity with offchain knowledge to unlock unsecured lending at scale. For builders on this sector, the problem is designing sustainable danger fashions that scale. Success right here turns DeFi into real monetary infrastructure that may outcompete conventional banking rails,” Coinbase wrote.

For wider institutional adoption of DeFi, privacy is crucial. Coinbase Ventures highlighted the need for cryptographic tools that allow confidential transactions. The agency sees momentum behind applied sciences like zero-knowledge proofs, totally homomorphic encryption, multiparty computation, and specialised privateness chains.

4. AI Integration Positions Crypto for Next-Gen Coordination

The ultimate class expands past finance, exploring how crypto could assist the following technology of AI and robotics. Robotic programs undergo from a scarcity of real-world interplay knowledge, particularly for duties involving precision or deformable objects.

Coinbase Ventures recommended that crypto-native incentive fashions, much like Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN), might assist acquire the amount of information wanted to coach embodied AI at scale.

Proof-of-humanity protocols are additionally gathering traction. As AI-generated content material spreads, it’s extra vital than ever to differentiate people from machines.

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“We consider a mixture of biometrics, cryptographic signing, and open supply developer requirements will likely be essential to establishing a “proof of humanity” answer that enhances AI within the new human/laptop interface mannequin. Worldcoin (portfolio firm) has been forward of the curve on seeing and dealing towards this downside,” the weblog said.

Lastly, the agency additionally anticipates that AI agents will become central to on-chain growth, writing contracts, checking them for vulnerabilities, and monitoring them after deployment. This might dramatically scale back the barrier to launching new on-chain initiatives and speed up experimentation throughout the ecosystem.

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“As we sit up for 2026, we’re energized by the builders taking large swings and pushing the onchain economic system ahead. These concepts replicate the place we see big potential,” the workforce remarked.

While the 4 classes replicate present conviction, the agency stresses that lots of crypto’s most transformative concepts typically emerge from sudden instructions.

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