Bankless - 12 Big Crypto Predictions for 2026 | Ryan & David

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Ryan and David skip a quiet holiday weekly rollup and instead break down the biggest 2026 crypto forecasts from Bitwise, Coinbase, Galaxy, Grayscale, CoinShares, Fidelity, a16z, and Pantera. They lay out the clearest consensus, stablecoins as real payment rails, tokenization scaling beyond pilots, and ETFs expanding institutional access, then hit the big debates around regulation, prediction markets, token value capture, and the growing quantum question for Bitcoin. ------ 📣M0 | THE UNIVERSAL STABLECOIN PLATFORM https://bankless.cc/m0 ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN  https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | CONTINUOUS CLEARING AUCTIONS  https://bankless.cc/uniswap-cca 🛞MANTLE | GLOBAL HACKATHON 2025 https://bankless.cc/mantle-hackathon 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 2:14 Predictions for Stablecoins 6:42 Tokenization Trends 11:27 ETF Explosion 11:45 Market Structure Legislation 14:06 Prediction Markets Rise 15:20 Quantum Concerns 20:29 Broad Themes Emerge 24:11 Hybrid Finance Concept 28:02 Privacy in Crypto 33:27 DEX Transition Predictions 35:09 Tokenomics Evolution 39:43 Controversies in Predictions 42:58 Market Cycles & Macro Trends 48:12 Year-End Reflections on Ethereum 1:01:08 Bitcoin's Performance Overview 1:10:03 Future Visions for Crypto 1:10:40 Closing & Disclaimers ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Bankless Nation is the night before Christmas instead of doing our weekly roll-up. It is, right? Yeah, it's Christmas Eve. We are recording this, the Christmas Eve, and it will be distributed to your podcast player, Christmas Eve. Happy Christmas Eve. Thank you guys for spending it with us.

Yeah, that's right. I guess you think, are you picturing families all around the world just gathering around and listening to the bankless podcast and Christmas Eve instead of like the fireplace, there's stockings, people are opening their stocking presents, and then there's Ryan and David talking. talking about the 2026 predictions for crypto. All right.

So here's what we're doing. Instead of our weekly roll-up, we wouldn't leave you without a weekly roll-up of some form. This is the adopted version because it wasn't a lot to cover in the week, and we're recording this a little bit early. So we'll get a weekly roll-up out next week. But this week, we're going to do something different. We'll do the weekly roll-up for this week because it's very, very quiet.

Here are there two things. Ave Dow versus Ave Labs currently in a civil war, and Nick Carter is riling up all the Bitcoins talking about quantum-com. quantum and how it's a threat. That was everything that happened this week. There you go. So with that done, we thought we would zoom out and focus on 2026. In fact, David, you've brought us some juicy content to this episode. You did a meta analysis of all of the different predictions. So rather than give you just our predictions, what we thought we would do is we would look at all of the predictions that people have made for crypto in 2026 and draw some analysis from them.

Yeah. Yeah. Seeing where they overlap. seeing where they diverge and any interesting tidbits that I can find. And so let's see, how many did I do? Bitwise, Coinbase Institutional, Galaxy, Grayscale, Coin shares, Fidelity, the A16 newsletter, and then a Pantera article in CoinDust. These are the sources that I aggregated and then tried to find the where predictions were congruent, maybe where they were not perfectly congruent but directionally similar, and then also where there were divergences.

And so that is the three categories of the different types of predictions from all of these sources that I have aggregated for us on the show today. I'm like you're doing that so we don't have to read all these predictions. This is like a best of the predictions. All right.

Now, before we get into these predictions, we know next year is going to be a big year for stable coins. That's one of the predictions. I don't care what anyone says. The prediction I'm making. And we should thank our friends is a stable coin maker over at M0.

what are they up to? M0 is a pretty unique on-chain sable coin architecture design, if you will. They separate people from issuing the money from people validating the reserves. So there's like the one meta architecture of M0. And then there are all the brands, issuers issuing sable coins. The current system of sable coins is fragmented, just, you know, USCC is siloed from USD, which is siloed from the next sable coin. And M0 has come up with a simple solution. So if the general predictions that everyone agrees with in this episode that stable coins are going to just continue to expand, M0 should be pretty well positioned.

If you want to learn more about M0, bankless lot CC slash M0 is the place to go. What a thousand stable coin experiments bloom. I think that's what M0 is up to. All right, predictions, David. Give us the, you said highly congruous predictions. Are these are predictions that? $10 word right there? That's a $10 word.

All right. So these are the predictions that sound really similar across all of, across your meta-analysis of all of the predictors. Consensus predictions, correct. All right. What are these? Give us the first. Stable coins shift from just basic crypto plumbing to real payment rails. I think we started to see the beginnings of this in crypto.

And maybe people think, well, that was what happened this year. And I wouldn't say that's what happened this year. They are not yet real payment rails. We are still building out the infrastructure for real payment rails. The broad strokes of everyone's predictions is that the real. Payment Rails comes in 2026. And so here are some quotes from four of the different predictors. Galaxy stable coins will overtake ACH in transaction volume.

Oh, wow. Yeah, large. Coinbase institutional. We expect to see growth in cross-border transaction settlement remittances and payable payroll platforms, pretty broad. A16CZ, stable coins will fundamentally shift to the foundational settlement layer of the internet. Very A16C of them. Probably was written by Chris Dick.

And then lastly, bitwise, perhaps the most specific and interesting predictions, stablecoins will be blamed for destabilizing an emerging market currency. At least one is what they are predicting, which is certainly just a byproduct of the growth of the growth of dollar payment rails on the internet. Stable coins being a killer app. And it seems to me on the consumer front, I'm not sure that many consumers actually notice what's under the covers here in all of these predictions. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess if you're in a regime that's being disrupted, that's being destabilized, you'll certainly notice that. But in the developed world, you may not know you're even using stable coins. It'll be fused into the experiences that we have with our crypto wallets. I mean, an example of this is just the coin-based wallet, right? You could send money to anybody under the covers. It's USCC. It's a stable coin, but it feels just like Venmo. I mean, Venmo adopting stable coins, too. I guess it's all the same and you won't really feel the difference, except transactions go faster, lower fees. Maybe we start to pay for things in stable coins as well and bypass visa altogether.

All of that seems to be poised on the horizon for 2026 and beyond. Yeah, for the average consumer who just still will not interface with stable coins, they can still be benefited by stable coins by platforms that use stable coins in the back end and they just show you the normal integers on the website, but is stable coins in the back end? but like not everyone's going to adopt this like Ryan do you think Wells Fargo is going to because whenever I try and send money in my Wells Fargo it's either Zell or Wire and a wire cost me $25 which is an insane fee to charge me to send $25. Do you think you will be able to integrate stable coin payments in Wells Fargo?

I don't think so. No, I think they'll just be disrupted by literally anyone else who's a little bit more innovative and they can use stable coins to transfer payments but it's just a send money button. that actually works in that app. One thing I like about stablecoins, too, is for the person the skeptico is always like, oh, crypto hasn't done anything. Crypto has no use cases. You're always just like stablecoins.

It's a congressional bill. Like, it's going to trillions of dollars. It powers everything. That's going to be the future. All right, what's the second? Second, tokenization goes from just experimental pilots to totally scaled issuance and collateral. I wouldn't call BlackRock Biddle's fund a pilot. That's a real product.

But I think everything else is still kind of in pilot mode in 2025. And in 26, the broad stroke of everyone's predictions is that tokenization is going to be a breakout year. That's a literal quote from coin shares. Galaxy says a major bank or broker will accept tokenize equities as collateral. Grayscale says asset tokenization is at an inflection point and they expect rapid growth facilitated by regulatory clarity. And then Coinbase says 2026 might be the year that tokenization makes a similar jump into the mainstream as stable. coins did, nearly $20 billion already tokenized could balloon to nearly $400 billion is the prediction from Coinbase.

And so everyone else, other than Black Rock, I'll say, is still kind of in a pilot program, still kind of experimenting, still trying to figure out what to do about it. But the broad strokes is everyone's predictions, like these become real products that aren't just like inert tokens that you own in your wallet, but become actual like collateral utility across different lenders or borrowers or apps. What's the benefit for the crypto native, do you think? Or like, how will people feel this change? I guess equities go 24-7. I guess maybe there's a world where we start to be able to use these tokens inside of decentralized finance. I don't know that that's 2026. It seems like there's still some fusion of tradfi and defy that are necessary to make that happen. I guess you can start to bring your own assets to your wallet and you're not kind of locked into the siloed garden of your, your brand. brokerage, which is a really nice feature of defy.

It's sort of just bring your assets to the interface that you want, and the interface loads them up. We've enjoyed that in defy from the beginning. Those are some of the benefits, maybe. Are there others that you think average crypto users will feel? I think the average crypto user and also defy will be probably one of the most slow parts of this sector. I think the defy plus tokenized assets, security tokens, integration will take the most

amount of time because it's the most complex. and we might need more white glove, like specific, verticalized DFI apps in order to make that work because can you really put a tokenized security inside of Avey? Like maybe the big ones, like the Biddle Fund, but after that, then you start to need to account for more legal complexities.

Yeah. And so, like, I think it's still going to be pretty white glove and pretty narrow at first, but then maybe 2027 is that is the year of security tokens in DFI. A lot of these predictions that I'm reading, it feels like it's a best of fusion between sort of the best of defy and the best of tradfi. One thing I'll give TradFi fantastic credit for. You mentioned the AVE debate is they got their investor rights down.

Yeah. Right? Like, that's a huge benefit of securities. Like, I know what I'm buying, and I know the management team behind what I'm buying, has a fiduciary responsibility and legal responsibility to return their upside to the equity, to the asset that I'm purchasing. We don't have that in Defi yet. So we get kind of a best stuff of that.

But Defi has all of these features that TradFi doesn't. And hopefully that starts to come together in 2026 around tokenization. All right. What else we got? Number three, ETFs. Bitwise predicts more than 100 crypto-linked ETFs to launch in the United States this year. Galaxy said more than 50 spot all-coin ETFs plus another 50 crypto ETFs. What they mean by that is like non-single coins.

So like a basket ETFs, basket of crypto assets launched in the United States. So pretty congruous between Bitwise and Galaxy, just the explosion of ETFs. Galaxy predicts U.S. spot crypto ETF net inflows exceed $50 billion in 2026. And a major asset allocation platform adds Bitcoin to standard model portfolios, which effectively means that like Bitcoin ETFs get embedded into model portfolios at strategic weights, like half a percent, 1%, 5%, hopefully 5%. And then coin shares. Four big U.S.

wirehouses open solicited Bitcoin ETF allocations in discretionary portfolios. So that's like Morgan Stanley, Merrill, UBS, Wells Fargo actually pushes Bitcoin in certain portfolios. And then also one major 401K provider allows Bitcoin allocations via ETFs. That's like people like Fidelity or Vanguard or Principal or MPA. But they're not doing that yet? You can't get a Bitcoin ETF inside of your, uh, Fidelity 401K? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't pay attention to my 401k too much. All right. So more ETFs and more saturation of crypto ETFs into mainstream. Yes. Yes. Is any of this a surprise to you, Ryan?

So far we've got stable coins, tokenization, and ETFs. Not at all. That's more of the same. Okay. But a continuation, right? Of course. How about number four? Is that going to surprise me?

Market structure legislation is plausible, plausible and the base case for 2026. So coin shares, this is really about the Clarity Act or a market structure bill. Yeah. I've heard controversy around this, more controversy than what this meta-analysis of predictions says. Coin shares just straight up predicts is that Clarity Act will pass.

Well, it's just going to pass. Grayscale didn't name the Clarity Act, but they expect bipartisan market structure legislation to become law in 2026. Sure. Coinbase Institutional says clear regulation is a core reason 2020. could become transformative and changes how institutions handle strategy, strategy, risk, and compliance around crypto. And then, but bitwise then specifically ties upside scenarios for Ether and Solana to

Clarity Act passing and doesn't actually give a statement about if they think it will pass. I don't know, I'm 50-50. This is a political prediction. I'm still 50-50 on it. And I think that it would make sense to pass it. I'm wondering if we have used crypto. in general in Trump, the Trump administration, and anyone pro-crypto,

has used its political capital for the genius bill and has, I guess, levered up its political capital in the form of like meme coins and Trump crypto businesses to an extent that it becomes a bipartisan issue. And Democrats really push back on it. They don't want crypto legislation or particularly they say, fine, you can have your Clarity Act legislation, but, you know, politicians Trump can't continue his crypto businesses.

And if that's a deal killer. That's like, this is why I'm 50-50. It would make sense for it to pass. But I'm not sure the politics of the moment will allow for that in 2026. It's an election year. How much are we really banking on the fact that Trump has to agree to not start any more crypto businesses? Like, to what degree does clarity reside just on that nuance? I mean, this is a whole political calculation.

Midterm year, right, these things. And Trump is definitely losing momentum, right? Republicans feel like they lost us and the key elections in 2025. So they're maybe vulnerable. We'll have to see. That's why this is 50-50 to me. All right. Next one, prediction markets.

Pretty similar predictions here. Basically everyone predicted billion-dollar plus weekly volumes on polymarket throughout 2026. Not every single week, obviously, but like over one point, who Galaxy says 1.5 billion in weekly trading volumes on polymarket, bitwise and Coinbase institutional say both expect billion dollar plus weekly volumes on polymarket and prediction markets. And so that Polymark is just the poster child here, but I think everyone's just saying that like prediction markets are just going to continue to like become a staple of institutional actual usage is is one of the nuances there.

It's more interesting if these same firms predicted that like four years ago or three years ago or even two years ago than it is now. This definitely feels like an extrapolation type of prediction. Are we doing safe predictions this year? It's all safe predictions. Is that what you found in your research? Well, okay. So what we're doing is we're seeing where everyone agrees.

Oh, this is the congruous category. This is everyone agrees. Yes. There's a little bit, there's some debate further down. So maybe this is the boring section. We started with a boring section. Let's get to the next. This is actually interesting in the congruous section.

Quantum. This is a growing risk, but not a threat in 2026. So what are the predictors saying? Yeah, so this is Grayscale BlackRock and a couple others, basically all saying that Quantum is going to become a growing subject, but it's not a risk in 2026. We know it's not a risk in 2020s. Yes, that's also very safe.

Very safe prediction. But a growing threat, what does that mean? Like a perception type of threat? Like you talked earlier in this episode, if we were going to do a roll-up, it would have been the Nick Carter article on this and sort of raising the attention. And he's very concerned about it. I mean, some have called him an alarmist in kind of a negative way. What's the sense, do you think, from the predictors around the quantum concern? Do they all agree that it's a real concern, just not in 2026?

I think Nick Carter would say, and many other, he would say about the people that he is fighting on Twitter, that they are saying that it's flat out not a concern. Like the concern just does not exist. That makes me more concerned. How about you? Whether that's true or not, like maybe they are on the side of not a threat in 2026. And so Nick Carter is like pulling the fire alarm like right now saying,

hey, we need to deal with this. And everyone else that he's debating with is like, this is not real. This is not a real concern. Maybe it's just a difference on timeframes. Because Nick Carter, part of his assumption is that, you know, Bitcoin moves so slow. That is turning.

A gigantic chip. It moves so slow and also this is a pretty big upgrade. Like, this is the biggest upgrade. Bitcoin has ever done and will ever do. Yes. And it is at the most, most calcified and decentralized point in Bitcoin's history with the most amount at stake. And so it's just such a monumental task. And so Nick Carter is like, we need to deal with this today.

We need to start dealing with this today because it's going to take five plus. plus years for Bitcoin to have consensus. And if we get to 2030, then the amount of risk is very different than it is in 20206. So like it could be like a difference of time frame opinions. But like people are calling Nick Carter like an alarmist who's trying to sell its VC bags. I think I'm interesting your take on this, right? Just like you can record it. Because I think it is a big freaking deal.

Like it's a really big deal, particularly if Bitcoin developers don't come up with solutions for this now and don't admit that it's. something that they need to navigate because there is this myth that Bitcoin, they've started to almost believe their own narrative a little too much, which is like Bitcoin literally is gold. Gold is this element, this base element,

it's not software at all. I guess it's a software that the universe created, right? Which it has no changes. There is no social layer. There is no Bitcoin core. There is no quantum threat against gold. Like there's no developer her can go tweak it and change it. Bitcoin is not that. It is a social consensus technology like

gold. But at the end of the day, it is software and it is vulnerable to something like quantum on the horizon. And there is a path towards fixing that if they take it or partially fixing it. But they have to take it. And I think there has been a movement within Bitcoin for a long time to sort of, let's say, gaslight people, but just to propagate this myth that Bitcoin is completely ossified. It doesn't need any changes into the future. Bitcoin is bestowed upon humans by God, and therefore it is perfect. Yeah. It doesn't need to be changed in any way. Anyway, I think that could come to bite them. It's been a strength from a store value narrative propagation perspective, right? And that's why Bitcoiners are so hardcore and that's why it feels so

like pure and it propagates so easily, but it's also weakness when it comes to quantum. I think it's a serious, serious threat. And it also is like if you start undermining the store of value nature of Bitcoin, how does that propagate through the rest of crypto, the good and the bad? It's a major subject. And I don't know if 2026 is going to be the time we fully discuss it, or if it'll be put back on the back burner for another year or two. But I guess we'll see. Yeah, I think there's enough momentum to have it. Like if you want to be a specialist in the subject, you'll be consistently supplied with information to talk about over the next year about quantum. Like it's worth note, I think it's both your and my opinions that like if Bitcoin does nothing, then it divides by zero when quantum eventually comes.

Like if it truly just sticks his head in the sand and it makes zero changes, eventually quantum will come and it will like ultimately end Bitcoin. Like you won't find it in the top 10 market cap assets because quantum actually destroys Bitcoin wholly and completely if Bitcoin does nothing. And so it has to do something and it can't wait too long. Like it needs to do something sooner than a decade. Yeah, I completely agree with that. All right. So that's the consensus type takes.

What's the next category? Broad strokes, broad themes, not things that are like specifically in agreement with each other, but things that are like, you know, directionally correct. There's three here. Coin chairs coined this concept of hybrid finance. We also have to talk about privacy and also sex to decks transitions, the bankless transition. We're going to talk about all these,

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It's not perfectly similar, but they kind of call it just an intersection of crypto ecosystems, public blockchains, you know, smart contracts, apps, etc. And tradify infrastructure. So tokenized markets, stable coins, tokenized funds, custody, basically putting conventional tradify services on blockchains. And I would say that was the broad strokes of everything above that we talked about. Stable coins, tokenization, basically these,

Blockchains, public blockchains and smart contract tools become TreadFi infrastructure to do what they want to do. So if I would actually summarize the whole of everything about all these predictions, this idea of hybrid finance of like Wall Street learning to do business logic on chain is like the net sum of it. Yeah, you've got this line. The public chains become the settlement composability layer while Tadfai supplies the regulation scale distribution custody and product wrappers, right? I was thinking about this. a little bit in the context of preparing for our conversation with the founder of the Canton Network.

Remember we discussed that in the roll-up? This is blockchain. I don't really know what to do with, but the DTCC is like tokenizing securities on it in kind of a pilot-type way. And what's interesting to me is like there are some things that are just in crypto that are incompatible with securities

or with the way nation states want to like run things. And one of those is you can't really have have securities that are bare assets. Correct. You cannot. You cannot. This is a challenge. And it's just like run through the scenario where Apple shares are bare assets.

They get hacked by North Korea. North Korea now has 5% of Apple. Would never be allowed. And then Tim Cook's like, oh shit. We got like, we got North Korea on the, on our governance board, right? It's like that's not going to happen. have governance and bare assets at the same time. Those two things don't work.

And so that is kind of the Tradfai layer. They're going to use smart contracts, but those smart contracts will be a bit more like stable coins in that there'll be some sort of logic that has reversibility or the ability to do something. It puts governance essentially in the hands of some entity that is not like a bare asset, okay? Yeah.

But the contention of crypto is you can build centralized things on top of decentralization, decentralized settlement layer, but the opposite is not true. You can't build something decentralized on top of something that's centralized, right? So at the root of it, and this is the way physical objects work as well, the root of it is bearer assets that are settled by something, right? In the case of the real world, it's ultimately settled by the nation state, but we've abstracted that it used to be settled by violence. I'm stronger than you so I can go take your stuff, right? Well, now we have a very asset for me, but not for you.

Right. Anyway, so that's an example of how these things are going to work together, but also it's pretty bullish for crypto in that you have to have the most decentralized thing at the bottom, particularly when you have two parties that don't trust one another and they're trying to engage in some sort of interaction, right? You know, where's the place where China's securities can exchange with the United States' securities and their geopolitical adversaries. Well, the only place to do that, something decentralized, essentially. So that's an example of how these things come together, I suppose. Next one, privacy. Privacy was a pretty broad strokes theme that, like, everyone kind of agrees that we need it without too much similarity in how or what that looks like.

Coinbase says with institutional adoption, rising users want greater control and confidentiality, we expect to see continued build out of technologies like ZK Proofs, fully homomorphic encryption, as well as a meaningful surge in on-chain privacy usage, which aligned with a gray scales line of the rising of adoption of confidential transactions on Ethereum and Solana. And then Galaxy predicted something kind of different. The combined market cap of privacy tokens will exceed $100 billion

by the end of 2026 as investors park more money on chain. Wow. Different, different prediction of privacy, 100 billion in private. privacy tokens. I can name Ryan, I can name two privacy tokens. Yeah. ASEC, it's not ASEC, uh, Zcash and Monaro. Okay. And yeah, what do you look? What's the market up is $7 billion right now,

which is incredible, like up, uh, significant amount from the beginning of this year, it was a billion. So it's, you know, no, actually. Yeah, just as, um, the beginning of this year, it was, yeah, under a billion dollars. What's Manaro? Oh, God. I don't, you know, I want to think about. XMR. XMR. Minero is Wow.

8.2. 8.2. Wow. That's also doing a very strong price performance. Yeah. Yeah. I can't name a single privacy coin beyond those. And like Monaro is the Well, AsTech is more The infrastructure. Still a privacy coin, I think.

Totally. What are these? Is Aztec a store of value? Because like Zcatch and Minero I consider it to be store of value privacy coins. They are, but like, why do you need a store a Do you know what you mean? Like why, like, remember that it means Soleimani Quip, which is just basically I shouldn't have to invest in your Ponzi scheme, your store of value in order to like get privacy, right? And so if you look at the utility.

I mean, I agree with that. But like, nonetheless, people are doing that with Zcash. And there is something to the effect that like, well, if you have a privacy app chain, which Zcash and mine are, you have better privacy in that scenario than you do it. But that's what Aztec is. Which is sort of what I mean. Like does something, is privacy a feature? Does it need its own app chain?

Right. So like a use case of Zcash right now is if I have Solana on Soul, right, I can use like near intents and convert my soul or any asset on Solana to Zcash, like through Zcash and the other side and get my privacy and then come back out. I don't have to keep my asset parked in Zcash. I'm just using the Zcash blockchain for some. utility, in a temporary basis.

And you can use ASTAC that same way. But if you can have your store of value be Bitcoin or ether or some other crypto asset, do you really need to park in the local app chain store of value asset? Yeah. Yeah. Is it a feature or is it like, you like,

I don't know that you need store of value in that case. The only people that I really think would really use that, do you use the value of that is like North Korea or people like them, like pariah states that want to, park value inside of privacy for an ongoing basis. Sure. So I don't know, it could be an issue's case. Anyway, but this prediction,

the galaxy prediction specifically says that's going to get to $100 billion, which is, I mean, where it weighs away from that. I would listen to learn what they mean by privacy tokens. Like, do they, are they narrow to, like, privacy store value tokens, or are they including things like Zama? I think they include all that. You think so?

But even so. But even so, that's a huge, that's a six-sexual- increase in privacy. Yeah. Next year in a bear market. I don't know. That's a surprising.

In a bear market? What do you mean in a bear market? Is that a prediction? I hope you have some predictions on whether we're in a bear market in 2026. But let's get to the next one. So that's privacy. What else? Wait, one more privacy quote that I thought was pretty interesting is from A16 and Z.

That is pretty nuanced. Privacy, it will be the most important moat in crypto, critical for world's finance to move on chain and almost every. blockchain lacks it. They argue that privacy creates chain lock-in and network effects because bridging secrets is hard. And then they broaden privacy beyond payments into data and key management secrets as a service to end making privacy more core infrastructure. So I think they're calling for like, yo, whichever chain can solve privacy acquires a huge technological moat, which I can see that argument. That makes sense to me.

That's interesting. I also think there's degrees of privacy in the same way that there's degrees of security. Like, do you need privacy that's nation state, like resistant privacy? Or do you just want it to not be public? Are you fine with it being confidential to some trusted entities? You and your, yeah, your service provider. Exactly. And so that all depends. That's also on a And your accountants because you have like a reveal key. What are those called? Like a reveal key? Yeah. There's like on some privacy things, you can share a key with someone so they can view transactions so they can do your accounting for you. Zcash has this.

Manaro does not have this. Yeah, that's right. Okay, nuanced conversation there. We'll have to see how that evolves, but picking up privacy as a theme, certainly. What's this next one? Sex to Dex transitions. Galaxy says today's Dexes

account for roughly 15 to 17% of spot volume. They say that by the end of 2026, dexes will capture more than 25% of combined spot trading volume by the end of this year. Coin chairs directionally agrees. Dex volumes are structural. Dex volumes will be structural, not the 2021 mania.

They will exceed $600 billion per month, which is far beyond the speculative media observed in 2021. So, Coinshares, a secular, structural increase in on-chain decks trading volumes. This is bullish. I agree with this. A long-term trend, I think Dex's from a take-rate perspective are so much lower than sexes right now. And over the long run, sexes, as long as

decks, liquidity and user experience increases, the centralized exchange business model for the actual trading of assets will not be sustainable over the long run. And so I even see sexes are pivoting away a little bit. I mean, they still make the bulk of their revenue from

trading on the centralized exchange, but Coinbase going into base. They're very happy to disrupt themselves. Yeah, I think they see the writing on the wall. If they don't do it, then the dexes will eat their lunch. Right. Yeah, eat their lunch. Right.

Which is why Coinbase integrated Solana and Jupiter. But on base, they integrated Aerodrome, which they bought a ton of tokens of. And so that is an interesting way to, like, retain value by directing a lot of the volume to a decks that you own 30% of or something, however much they own. That's right. Yeah. a noteworthy thing. Basically, tokenomics, all these people, Coinbase Galaxy, Coin shares, Grayscale,

all kind of predicts that the trend that value capture will become explicit. Grayscale called a focus on sustainable revenue as a top 2026 theme. Coinbase talked about tokenomics 2.0 protocols are leaning into value capture, fee sharing, buybacks, buy and burn, and a shift towards durable revenue-tied models.

And then Galaxy said, application revenue to network revenue will double the ratio will double from where it is, accelerating value capture at the app layer and they invoked the fat app thesis, which there used to be a fat chain thesis, fat L1 thesis, which is like the chain gets all the value.

They are saying that this trend is going to do to the app layer, so at the fat app thesis. This one, I could critique all of them and say, this works, maybe this is a prediction, but it's also a hindsight, 2025 year in review statement as well. Like this definitely happened in 2025. Well, it did happen.

I think, but aren't they saying more than this? Aren't they saying that basically our crypto-native tokens become value-capture mechanisms and start returning the revenue to investors? Isn't this the token reform that we have to do in crypto? Isn't this back to kind of the AVE Labs versus AVE types of debates that we've been having? I don't know if that's true, because AVE as a token, has been capturing and returning value to AVE token holders for a long time now. Right.

But how much value? And like, is that all of Stani's efforts and all of the Avey Labs efforts as well? I mean, if you buy an asset like Amazon, you're getting all of what Jeff Bezos puts into the thing, plus all of the product lines, plus all of the user interface. And it's not clear that you're getting the same thing with an AVE token right now. And I think investors like want that. Yeah. Or at least want that clarified. It's not clear that they're getting all of it.

they're getting some of it. They're getting the on-chain components and then not the off-chain components. But I think that's a conversation that is currently being had and needs to be had. I'm going to have a conversation with Jake Shravinsky in next year. Does he have a solution to this?

He has a, yeah. So his general broad strokes is like, you know, tokens get the on-chain value capture. But if it's not on-chain, then it goes to the labs or equity entity. And there are some models like Morpho, for example, that actually there is no off-chain equity. there's only the token because the equity is owned by the foundation,

so that flows to the foundation. But then Jake says, like, well, that's not appropriate for all circumstances. So it is a very nuanced conversation. I would love to hear that conversation. I mean, I feel like the problem with that is with these models, you don't know where the value is going to accrue. Like so let's say, for example, with AVE, let's say, for example, with AVE, that rule, like, moves forward.

And so they're completely within the realm of Avey Labs to take a cut on their interface because that's not necessarily, I guess that's not on-chain revenue. Correct. The interface is not on chain revenue. Okay, so it's not on chain revenue, right? Now, AVE gets all the on chain revenue. There's a conflict of interest there, but then also you don't know which layer of the stack is going to have the value capture. Right.

Exactly. And so it might be the case that the user aggregation layer captures all of the revenue, and that completely limits the upside of the Avey token. And like, as an investor, what I want, I simply want to capture all of it. I want one asset that captures all of it. Yes. And I want that asset to be on chain. So like Jake's vision, well, that helps from a clarity perspective, I suppose.

I don't love that as an investor. Yeah, because you are a token bull or want to be a token bull. And if I'm an investor and I have some capital to allocate and I look at TradFi and I look at Google and Invydia and Tesla, I'm like, oh, I get 100% of the value. being created. And if I look at tokens, I look at like, oh, I get some of the value being created, but then there's another equity asset that I don't own if I buy this token elsewhere that is also sharing the value and I don't get that. And so just like, it's impure. It's imperfect is kind of what you're saying. Yeah, it's kind of frustrating, right? It's like, imagine if Amazon, they spun off AWS and was a separate equity vehicle. I'm like, oh my gosh, shit. Like, I want to all have to buy

AWS. Exactly. Okay. What about the controversy or disagreements that you found in the predictions? Two core disagreements about DATs and about cycles. I think you can see why there would be disagreements here. Coinbase thinks that DATs will evolve. They call and calling for a DAT 2.0 model. Future iterations of Dats will move beyond simple accumulation

and specialize in professional trading, storage, and procurement of sovereign block space. The shift is predicated on the view that block space is a unique commodity and an essential structural input for the digital economy. Consequently, we think that a successful debt business model will revolve around a deep understanding

of the duration risks and cyclicality inherent in the block space economy. So basically saying that, like, if you're a debt, you sell block space, you sell block space because if you're an eTH, you stake and you sell some amount of blocks to the market. And so then what are, the benefits of being able to do that frequently across time.

And they are saying that they are not just accumulation, but you will start to provide value in services to the fact that you can produce a lot of blocks. That's what Coinbase says. Galaxy on the other side says five or more digital asset companies will be forced to sell assets be acquired or shut down completely. And Grayscale says, Dats are a red herring and not a major factor in 2026.

which there could be some overlap here so like the coin base thing of like Dats could evolve will be like yeah evolve one or two will successfully evolve and the rest are dying is like maybe maybe there isn't some controversy here yeah I'm not sure that there is

a controversy because I could see all three of these playing out right so Dats will evolve it depends on the type of debt so if you're Bitcoin you're not necessarily getting into the mining game are you as a a debt. I suppose you could. But that makes much more sense to be in kind of infrastructure

and validating and block production, the block production supply chain if it's a proof of stake asset, right? Because then you're kind of getting yield. So maybe proof of stake assets is it'll be more so that way. I definitely think some dads are going under. And I agree with Grayscale that dats are not going to be a major factor in 2026 because I don't think 2026 is going to be a secular bull market. And when that's are, dats will be a major factor in a secular bull market.

Once again, I don't think they're dying. I agree with that, that they are momentum vehicles more than they are bare market vehicles. A hundred percent. And some of these dads are structured well and for the long term. And they can batten down the hatches and weather a bare market

without any problem whatsoever. Only the weak ones will die. I mean, I think the big question is, how many, what percentage are weak ones versus strong ones? Is that the big question? I mean, there's a percentage of how many, but there's also a percentage of like, there's a power law, right?

And so the ones with, I mean, Tom Lee has what, I mean, he's got probably 3x, all the other dats combined for either, at least, and he's continuing to stack. As long as that one stays alive, that's a massive bull catalyst for the next bull might. Simply just consume all the little debts. And that will probably happen as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, market cycles and macro trends. So two different positions here. Bitwise and Grayscale, pretty similar. Bitwise says Bitcoin will break the four-year cycle and set new all-time highs. Grayscale says we expect to the end of the so-called four-year cycle, and Bitcoin will likely reach a new all-time high in the first half of the year. So those two agree with each other.

Galaxy and Coinbase, Galaxy's core stance is 2026 is too chaotic, to predict with very wide price ranges, even if new highs are possible. So they do give... But I will add, I did read the Galaxy predictions. They did say 2027, new all-time highs. It was like Bitcoin at 250K.

So they took the pass of 2020. Okay, okay. And then Coinbase says, 20206 is a macro-driven cycle with a plausible trading range between 110 and 140K as their central case. What do you think?

Did you read my article that I put out called the yearly, the yearly candles? Yes, I enjoy looking at the yearly candles, actually, on an annual basis. I like to look at that once a year. What was your divination from that? Yeah, so to visually describe to the listeners

what the yearly candles, actually, maybe you can pull up the article. But for the podcast listeners who are going about their day, not looking at a screen, again, happy New Year's, glad you're doing that. Excuse me, New Year's, happy Christmas Eve, glad you're doing that.

The yearly candles is just like when one year of time comes into one candle, And Bitcoin has this pretty similar pattern of like two or three green candles followed by one medium to large red candle. Is that the four-year cycle in candle form? Yeah, four-year cycle and candle form. That's right. There's a red and then two greens and a red and then three greens and a red and three greens

and a red and a red and two greens. And now we have a red. So that could either be followed by another red. Usually red candles are large. This is the, the 2026 year is the smallest red candle in Bitcoin history. So it's so tiny that if it follows the pattern, you're going to get another red in 26, right? No, because there's only ever been one red candle in a row.

And so like there's that interpretation, Ryan, where like, if there's only ever one red candle in a row, there's never ever two red candles in a row. And we just had the smallest red candle of all time, which means we got the red candle out of the way and it wasn't that bad. and now we are primed for like, it doesn't even have to be a large green candle to be good. We just need like, you know, a medium.

It could be a small, small to green candle and we're all kind of happy. Or it was such a small red candle that we got more red to come. Maybe another tiny red candle. It's hard to see a big red candle, yeah. It's hard to see a big red candle next year. I agree with you.

I agree with that. It's hard to see a big red candle next year. Okay. It's also hard to see a big cream candle next year. I think it's hard to see big candles with Bitcoin. ever. What?

I'm not sure about ever. I don't think ever. Yeah, like a... Look, dude. Gold went up 65%. And that's like a... Now it's a 30 trillion dollar asset. That's a big ass green candle.

Okay, so the first two big green candles, the one in 2011 and the one in 2020... We're not going to see that. We're not seeing that anymore. No, you're not going to see a 10x in a year. A 3x, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, but okay, so I could see that.

So your prediction is basically baby green. My prediction is, my bear case is another red sliver candle. Like it just goes down just 5 to 15% up to plus 50% is my range. Okay. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, I guess that's what bit wise and gray scale are essentially said. So from the yearly candle perspective is not that crazy. Yeah, maybe an add-on to that prediction is that the red part happens in the first.

half of the year and the green part happens in the second half of the year. Okay. I can see that. How about Galaxy? Galaxy. Oh, I think I said that. 2K.R. 2KR.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I could see that. Do you have any prediction for Eith? Is it just that it follows Bitcoin? Yeah. Same predictions for both Bitcoin and Ether. Okay.

Do you know... Oh, but I do really like BitWise's asterisk, which is if the clarity Act passes, that looks so good for Ethereum. tokenization is so good for Ethereum. The whole plan starts to really come together. Ben Cowan had a take on ETH next year that it could actually hit all-time highs, even a world where Bitcoin does not. And his take was basically like keep the ratio the same.

Bitcoin has sort of a return to the 50-week simple moving average that it usually does, even during kind of bearish years. that takes Bitcoin to 100K and the ratio is about the same, maybe improved slightly for ether, and we see 5,000 K

or your 5K plus ether for some brief window of time before it goes back down. God damn it. Why can't just stay there? Goes back down and resets again and then 2026 is kind of an off year. But he said that's a

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It's currently available to U.S. customers, except New York. And additional collateral types and increased loan limits are coming soon. Want to learn more? Click the link in the show notes or visit Coinbase.com slash borrow. should do. Those are the predictions. As we conclude this, David, maybe I want your thoughts on the core assets, the biggest assets in the space, the ones that we've been talking about on bank lists since the very beginning, the ones that we have called crypto monies and that we believe our store value assets, the layer once, essentially. That's settlement layer,

the most important layer in the space. And the layer that's what's still like 80% of all of the value in crypto, at least. So let's talk about Ether. that is near and dear to our hearts. And I want to give you my takes. I want to hear yours. So there's Ethereum, which is the network, and there's ether the asset. And I think you have to look at those

at times independently, and other times they're interrelated. Looking at them independently, I feel like Ethereum, the network, had a good year. I will not say a great year. And here's how I justify a good year. Shipping, the momentum is back.

There were two hard forks this year, and they fit in a lot that was beneficial to Ethereum. There's a much clearer roadmap in the priorities. We're back to scaling the L1, and that feels really good. And I feel like ZK Tech, which has been almost the gambit bet for Ethereum, is starting to show up and is starting to compound. It's in the early phases of that. But the Lean Ethereum roadmap is all about that. and it uniquely positions Ethereum as a bet on ZK decentralization. And that's been their bet that they were hoping would happen, and it is starting to happen.

Like there were some major breakthroughs in ZK this year, and I think those will compound in the future. And if Ethereum does ship the lean Ethereum roadmap in two years time, three years time, four years time progresses along that, I think it's incredibly bullish for the Ethereum ecosystem. Might I add, all quantum resistant as well, right? So at a time where Bitcoin is going to struggle with that. Likely not a problem for Ethereum.

So a good year from my perspective, not a great year. I'm not going as far as saying that this was a great year. What would have made it a great year? Why didn't it achieve great year status? I think there's still some malaise out there. I think that the EF is course corrected, but I don't know that we're fully there. and I guess I haven't seen enough on the ZK lean Ethereum roadmap to just be like,

oh shit, that was a great year. This was not, and great years I reserve for years like for the network, 2022, which was like the year of the merch. That was a great year for Ethereum. Yeah. When Ethereum launched, that was a great year for Ethereum. Not every year could be a great year.

2024 was a bad year from my perspective for the Ethereum Network. I feel like there was some complacency there. Was expressed in the social layer around, hey, it's been bad and we need to deal with that. And so it was a year of fighting. Yeah. So I'm locking this in as a good year. What do you think about that? I think it was a great year for the technicals of Ethereum.

The technical protocol made some of the best advances that it has made fundamentally. it was a bad year for actual layer one usage. So like the actual usage of the layer one, like gas fees are down and new apps. But gas fees are down, but have you looked to active addresses? Active addresses are like spiking up. It's all time high. Like usage is actually up. This is the thing.

Go to like grow the pie. Like L1 has never been. I don't recall L1 ever being better from the perspective of like, low cost and all the things that you can do on chain, active addresses up, transactions up. The gas fees aren't up because there's more supply. Gas, it's flat on the layer one. I see active addresses as flat on the layer one.

Yeah, but in terms of transaction volumes, all of these things, like more people are doing more things on the L1. I guess it's not like NFT frenzy, if maybe that's some of the, kind of the comparison. I just look at the low gas fees and low east bird and be like, yeah, you know, like, we made a mistake of trying to maximize that or like have that be the narrative,

but like it's still too low. It's still, I was like it to be higher than in the future. We did not get any increase in block times in 2025. Yeah. As well. And I think that is one of the big things that would be a necessary catalyst to actually increasing usage of the,

the layer one. Like, we can keep throughput the same and charge the same amount of gas, but if we get blocked speeds down

to three seconds, which is possible, and we're trying to do that, then actually it would induce more usage of the layer one if we had faster block times, and we did not get that in 2025. My take on 20205 on the Ethereum protocol

is like fundamental research turned into engineering and things are getting a shipped to production that are like, again, a pilot E and experimental, but are going to become in production in 2026. And so I expect 2026 to be leveraging a lot of the progress

that we made on the Layer 1 protocol level, but it did not yet get expressed, but it does feel the Ethereum Layer 1 is primed for a good year next year. Let's talk about ETH, the asset then, right? So this is the other piece. We were talking about the narrative. Believe that ether is a store of value.

I would still say that's a minority belief. I mean, it could express itself in like, it does have a pretty high monetary premium. So maybe there's more hidden belief of that in the asset price itself than the narrative, the popular narrative, begets. And I think that's true.

It was a good year for some things on ether the asset, in particular, Tom Lee. That was a really big move. This is a legitimacy style move. him showing up and showing himself as a long-term bull, you know, three, three and a half almost percent of all its supply, and he did that in like five or six months. That's incredible. But overall, I don't think it was a great year or even a good year for eth the asset. I mean, we traded down to 1500. Yeah, and a year that we had Tom Lee, Eath price went down on the year.

And it was down on the year, and a year with Tom Lee, and also the narrative around it, like, it was not super successful. Now, I want to show you this, right? So this is kind of the sentiment. This is the ETHVAL website, which takes into account all the different ways that people have proposed to value ETH or the asset. And I want to show you two things. If you value ETH the asset from a price to sales ratio that is like from a does it generate

enough fees, revenue capture, side of things, the value of ETH, if you take 25X price to sale, is $39. $39. That's bear it. Short that thing. Short that thing. If you think Eth should be valued as a price to sales asset, short it. I mean, the same with Bitcoin for that matter. That's the bottom. Of course.

I mean, like, if you were doing price to sale on Bitcoin, it is worth like $10. Yeah. But Bitcoin doesn't even get the sales. It's the Bitcoin miners that gets the sales. Okay. My point exactly. Yeah. Now, that's the low side of the range. This website takes into account 12 different valuation models.

That's the lowest valuation model. If you take the highest valuation model for ether of the asset, Metcalf's law, which is just some sort of derivation of transaction, throughput settlement, active addresses, all of these things, and the scaling of that, then ETH would be $9,400, ether the asset from a Metcalf's law perspective. Think about that range, David, from $40 to $9,500. And that's why you see such a division in contention in narratives around eBay

the asset, because there's a group that says Bitcoin is... It's worth $12. And there's another group that says it's worth $9,000. Exactly. And this is the war that's going on, I think, in the market. And we've seen that war play out because I am on the, for instance, Metcalf's law side of things. Right.

Yeah. I'm on the ETH is a monetary asset side of things in a similar way as Bitcoin. And there are others, the sellers or the bears for ETH, that just think that ether the asset is a price to sales, revenue generation type thing. And by the way, there's all of these other blockchains that are also that. And only Bitcoin is the monetary instrument app chain phenomenon. Ether cannot be a monetary instrument. And so the market's going to have to fight during the bear to figure out who is more correct and who is more right. And that's the struggle.

And it's a narrative battle as well. But my take, as I conclude the year, is still like ether is a triple point asset. Always has been from the beginning. The bulk of layer one value actually needs to come from monetary premium. I don't think in a world where you're expanding block space that revenue generation is sustainable for any layer one blockchain. And that's not just a principle that applies to Ethereum.

It certainly applies to Bitcoin. Also applies to Solana and Monnet and any layer one. And we'll continue to drop. But then it will spike up and it will drop. It's just not a sustain-up. These are not price-to-sales instruments. At least if it's a layer one, decentralized money type of asset.

And so I'm still of belief that ETH is either a money or bust or like go short it to, you know, $30. I think where ETH gets valued on the spectrum of like $12 to $9,000 is a function of the market dominance that it has as a smart contract platform. So in 2021, when ETH dominance, like the smart contract usage dominance was like 90 plus percent ether, it was valued 90% of the expression of like a store of value money, Metcalf's law valuation. But when ETH's smart contract transaction market dominance is only 50 or 60% wherever it is,

then it starts to move much closer to the price of sales end of the spectrum, which is where you link up the fundamental growth of the technicals of the Ethereum Layer 1, like the lower transaction times, the ZK, the ZK and the EV, being able to just outrace every other chain as a layer one actually becomes extremely relevant to where the valuation of ether shows up between price of sales versus Metcalf's law. And so I think we kind of actually have hit a bottom in terms of Ethereum market dominance because like Solana has done great, but it's not growing secularly anymore. And you do see a lot of tailwinds towards the Ethereum layer one with when it comes to tokenization

and stable coins and all the other stuff that we talked about. So I could see the combined institutional adoption of blockchains, starting with Ethereum, mixed with the actual technical growth of the Ethereum protocol, becoming very good for Ethereum's, the Ethereum Network's smart contract market share. Well, so one of the things you might be saying is you favor some sort of TVL multiple, right? So the more value that's on chain on Ethereum, the better, the higher the ETH price, right? So you do the TVL multiple. But specifically a percentage of all TVL, not just John, not just,

the raw number. Right. And this is the thing. If you did a TVL multiple like, you know, like this at Eiffel, you say ETH is worth about 4,000, 4K right now from a TVL multiple perspective. I guess the broader point is just like we still are arguing over how to value ETH the asset. And that range is like $40 to $10K. And you get to pick how you want to value the asset. We don't have that problem with other asset classes. as much. And that is what the market is trying to figure out moving forward. And I have my take on it, but other investors have their take on it.

And you get to choose your own adventure here. Let's talk about Bitcoin. How do you think that that, how do you think Bitcoin as NASA did on the year? On the year, Bitcoin is down 6%. And it's like one of those things where like, man, if that was all it is and next year is green, then that's a fantastic year to like, if that's what we had to endure. I'll take that bear market. It's a mildest winter ever.

Yeah, for real. Ryan here is still talking about bear markets next year, and so maybe we haven't gotten out of the way. I don't know if it was really all that exceptional of a year for Bitcoin. It started to reintroduce itself as like a debasement hedge, but like that wasn't really a big macro theme across the year. And like, you know, granted, you know, Bitcoin is supposed to be this like debasement hedge, the liquidity asset as, you know, Fiat,

currencies all devalue themselves. But like this is the one year where like our government did try to do austerity and trying to actually put value back into the money. And Bitcoin is down 6%. So, I mean, if that was the outcome of that, like they can't do that forever. We all know mathematically the fiat's going to zero. They can hold their breath and try and hold out as long as possible to get better yields on the bond rates and all that kind of stuff. And that's bad for Bitcoin. like financial responsibility by the Federal Reserve and by Congress is bearish for Bitcoin. And they actually did try to do that. And they tried to do some amount of that job this year.

I think my take on Bitcoin is like maybe I'll zoom out from the year and look at kind of the cycle. It's had a really, really strong cycle. Like it is doing the thing that Bitcoiners had hoped it would do, which is like institutional belief is all time high. Like every macro person I talk to has now includes Bitcoin as part. of the hedge against issuance, fiat issuance and inflation, right? And I just think the narrative market fit has been exceptional. I do think that it has some icebergs on the horizon in the form of quantum in particular. I think markets will front run. So if you look at prediction markets for quantum breaking cryptography, as that increases, as the probability increases or as the

window of time when that is probable decreases, I think that will actually affect Bitcoin price. I think that will, like, this is not a small problem for Bitcoin. I think the security budget issues are still out there as well, but I think those could be navigated in a way that maybe is not so, yes, it's not a single, you know, crisis. It's more like kind of corruption-type influence over time, and it's not going to be as noticeable something like quantum. I think quantum is a big deal. Ironically, I do think the biggest bullish catalyst for Ethereum is Bitcoin's failure to deal with quantum. You think so. I'm divided on that because I think that it could undermine the entire digital store of value narrative that is out there.

Oh, I agree. False. I agree. From grace. And that could affect. In the short term. Okay. But how long is that short term?

Is that short term like a generation of humans? Is it a decade? What? No, no, that's not the short term. That's long term. I mean, I know. I know. I know.

So you think that happens and then, and then Eith could, are you calling for... Yeah, like, the Bitcoiners are like, even Nick Carter said this. Like, if Bitcoin fails, it takes the entire crypto market down with it.

And I'm like, no, doesn't. There's no technical dependency that any blockchain has on Bitcoin. In fact, the fact that the Ethereum project dealt with quantum ahead of time

is going to provide an immense amount of investor, confidence in Ethereum specifically, if that is how this plays out. And so people will look at like, well, Bitcoin didn't deal with the issue. Ethereum did deal with the issue. As an investor, I am going to park my capital in the platform that can deal with issues effectively. And that has been proven out by the market.

So Bitcoin's failings are not Ethereum's problems. I think I agree with that. I just don't know how long that period of short term. this actually is that it would take a while for that information to be digested by the market. All right. You know, where I see things ending the year is two worlds kind of emerging. And wondering what you think of this, David. So there's like two visions in crypto at play, and you want to have some allocation across these two visions. The first vision is something that I think Bankless has been excited about since our inception, which is the United Chains of

Ethereum type vision where... Or not even of Ethereum, but just like the United Chains model. Shared security, yeah. But it happens to be Ethereum. Which is Ethereum. It manifests in Ethereum, yeah. So United Chains of Ethereum where almost everything, 80%, 90% of everything in crypto is kind of rooted in this single credibly neutral chain.

And you get all of the features and use cases on top of that chain, including store of value. And that store of value is not actually Bitcoin. It's Ether as an asset. Right. If you want privacy, well, there's Aztex. There's Aztec. You have to go for Z-P-E-E-H-C-C-C. Yeah.

Yeah, and if you want perps trading, you go to a lighter, that's on an L2. So it provides all of these things inside of one united chain, okay? And that's been the bet, I think, for Heathheads and for Ethmaxis, let's say. That bet has not fully played out. It's partially played out, but hasn't fully played out. There's another bet that's going on, which is the specialized app chain type of bet. where it's all of the app chains essentially. And what is Bitcoin?

That's an app chain for store of value. And what is Solana? Well, that's an app chain for execution. Permissionless trade execution, pretty much, right? And then what is hyperliquid? It's a app chain for perps. Which is revenue. So basically, it's all Bitcoin is a store of value,

and every other chain needs to have strong revenues. That's right. Zcash, app chain for privacy. Like you could see it all through. And that's the other version of things. And you want to have some capital deployed against that version. And this is why it often seems, I think, to people in Ethereum, like,

God, why are all the other chains beating up on us? Well, it's because Ethereum you're trying to freaking do everything. Yeah, you're trying to who's picking enemies? It's like, well, Ethereum is trying to literally blanket the earth with all possible chains as layer two's. And then there's all other chains, which is like,

I'm, fuck you guys. Yes. There's an element to that. And why all the other chains are like, well, ether is not the store of value. Bitcoin is the story of I think the truth is both of these visions have played out from inception and will continue to play out in the future. And I'm not sure that anyone can call which vision is going to dominate. Right.

Or if one vision is going to dominate, I think they will both be present into the future and certainly in 2026 and beyond. Big ying yang vibes. Like very order and chaos. As in like Ethereum is like the ordering of chains. Put them all together, stitch them together, make them interoperable. and that's order. And then there's chaos, which is just like a blanket landscape of any chain from anyone, from anywhere, about anything.

And there's no coordination or organization. The coordination is actually just centralized exchanges allowing you to go from chain A to chain B. That's right. That's how I see it. All right. Well, some predictions and some takes on the leading crypto assets. We'll leave it there for you.

Happy holidays to everyone. Of course, you know, none of this has been financial advice. you could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.