Blockchain technology is poised to move from the margins of financial markets into their core operating infrastructure in 2026, as stablecoins, tokenized assets, artificial intelligence and regulators converge on shared, programmable rails, according to a year-end outlook published by Digital Bytes.

In a note outlining predictions for the year ahead, Jonny Fry, Founder and Author at Digital Bytes argued that the next phase of crypto adoption will be defined less by speculation and more by operational necessity, with blockchain increasingly used to automate payments, custody, compliance and capital allocation across both public and private markets.

Stablecoins Emerge As Financial Plumbing, Not Crypto Products

One of the clearest signals of that shift is the accelerating role of stablecoins.

Fry said global stablecoin supply could grow from roughly $300 billion to more than $450 billion as jurisdictions such as the UK, Canada and Australia provide regulatory clarity, encouraging broader use beyond the U.S. dollar.

Rather than serving primarily as trading instruments, stablecoins are increasingly being adopted by small and medium-sized businesses and import-export firms as settlement tools for cross-border payments, offering lower costs and faster execution than traditional rails.

As adoption widens, non-USD stablecoins are expected to play a larger role in global commerce.

Private Markets And Debt Move On-Chain To Establish Verifiable Truth

The note also points to a structural migration of private equity, private credit and sovereign debt onto blockchain networks.

Fry said the motivation is not instant liquidity, but the need for a shared, auditable source of truth as private markets continue to outgrow public ones.

Tokenization, in this context, is described as a way to encode ownership rights, cashflows, covenants and permissions directly into programmable assets.

This shift allows institutions, regulators and automated systems to verify the same data in real time, reducing reliance on manual reconciliation, PDFs and delayed reporting.

Governments and corporations are also expected to increase issuance of digital debt instruments, with global sovereign borrowing projected at more than $22 trillion and total global debt exceeding $300 trillion.

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Blockchain-based issuance offers more efficient settlement, transparency and lifecycle management.

AI Becomes An Economic Actor Requiring On-Chain Infra

A key forward-looking theme in the outlook is the emergence of artificial intelligence as an active participant in financial markets rather than a passive advisory tool.

Fry said AI systems are increasingly being tasked with allocating capital, managing portfolios and executing transactions within predefined constraints.

To operate safely and autonomously, these systems require native financial primitives such as wallets for identity and authorisation, smart contracts for enforceable rules and on-chain assets for deterministic execution.

Blockchain, the note argues, provides the only environment where machine actors can transact, be constrained and be audited without relying on human intermediaries.

Regulation Shifts From Enforcement To Execution

The report also forecasts a change in how regulators interact with digital assets.

Instead of treating blockchain as an external system to be policed after the fact, regulators are expected to adopt on-chain infrastructure as a supervisory tool.

Continuous, rules-based oversight is increasingly seen as necessary in markets that operate around the clock and are influenced by AI-driven decision-making.

On-chain compliance mechanisms, programmable permissions and cryptographic proofs are expected to replace significant parts of today’s manual reporting regimes.

The outlook suggests that 2026 will mark a transition from crypto as an asset class to blockchain as financial infrastructure, with trust shifting away from institutions toward systems that can be verified in real time.

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