Wintermute: Five ways the $3tn crypto industry will transform the internet in 2026

Cryptocurrency is shedding its reputation as a speculative asset and will become the internet’s financial transaction layer in 2026, according to Wintermute Ventures.

For decades, data has moved freely across the internet while financial value has remained trapped behind borders, intermediaries, and other corporate gatekeepers.

But Wintermute says that’s about to change.

“The infrastructure that enables value to move as freely as information is no longer theoretical,” Wintermute said on X on Wednesday. “It’s being built, deployed, and used at scale.”

At the moment, cross-border financial transactions are subject to intense government enforcement and corporate scrutiny, while other information moves with little oversight.

“Crypto is becoming the clearing and settlement layer that the internet economy has always needed; one that operates continuously, transparently, and without requiring permission from centralised gatekeepers,” the firm said.

Here are five predictions from the firm.

Everything becomes tradable

In 2026, markets will expand into outcomes, events, and information itself, Wintermute said.

“This shift provides a liquidity layer for areas that historically had no markets at all,” the firm said.

Prediction markets are poised to expand their user base by turning previously unpriceable outcomes into tradable instruments, Wintermute said.

Another sector ripe for disruption is insurance, the firm predicts.

Instead of buying broad regional coverage, users can hedge against specific risks, such as wind speed at a specific location over a defined timeframe.

“Entirely new categories of data products emerge around topics that were never priced before,” the firm wrote.

Stablecoins for settlement

Stablecoins are increasingly the default settlement asset of the internet economy, Wintermute said.

But fragmentation is now the bottleneck, creating a clear business need for a platform that can aggregate stablecoin settlements across all asset types.

“Demand is growing for an interoperability layer that can reliably compose these assets,” the firm wrote.

The winning model resembles “onchain correspondent banking,” the firm argues. Conversion and credit risk move to issuers, with settlement happening in seconds.

Hype dies off

Investor speculation in various cryptocurrencies will dull in 2026, the market maker predicts.

The firm argues that valuations will be made based on sustainable earnings rather than short-term hype.

Annualising interim fee spikes no longer works.

“Tokens without a credible path to value capture will struggle to sustain demand beyond speculative phases,” Wintermute wrote.

As a result, fewer companies will launch tokens — at least initially.

Instead, many will move to equity-first structures, using blockchains quietly as backend infrastructure, the firm said. When tokens do appear, they arrive after product-market fit, proven unit economics, and aligned incentives.

DeFi converges with fintech

The future of finance, argues Wintermute, will be a melding of DeFi and traditional finance rather than operating as two distinct sectors.

“Dual-rail architectures allow fintech applications to route transactions dynamically based on cost, speed, and yield,” the firm said.

Consumer crypto products will look more like familiar fintech apps, with wallets and chains fully abstracted away.

Regulation eases

Regulatory frameworks such as MiCA in Europe and stablecoin regimes in the US and Asia provide institutions with clear rules to replace legacy plumbing with onchain rails, Wintermute said.

“In 2026, the story is no longer about whether institutions can use blockchains, but about how they are using these guidelines to replace legacy plumbing for high-velocity onchain rails,” the firm said.