Coinbase Ventures' outlook for 2026 outlines the four main areas of focus and investment for Coinbase in 2026 and provides an interpretation.
There’s so much useful information that it’s practically being served on a plate.
Let me highlight a key point and share my thoughts:
1⃣ RWA perpetual contract
Tokenizing houses and stocks is too troublesome; it's easier to trade with Perps directly.
This tactic is quite clever; liquidity comes quickly, essentially circumventing regulation through a roundabout way.
In the future, we may trade Apple Inc. stock price Perps on-chain, or even U.S. CPI Perps, which will completely connect the crypto market with traditional macro.
This is a key entry point for incremental funds, but also a gray area for regulation, with huge opportunities and risks.
2⃣ Professional Exchanges & Trading Terminals
The market has started to refine its focus.
Especially for prediction market trading terminals, I am extremely optimistic.
Currently, each prediction market is like an isolated casino, with a fragmented experience.
In the future, there will inevitably be an aggregator like Bloomberg Terminal that integrates liquidity, real-time odds, and professional charting tools from across the network.
This is the next super entry point for traffic and trading volume; whoever creates the best product will dominate the prediction market.
3⃣ Next Generation DeFi
① The Composability of Perps
Your collateral is no longer stagnant; it can be used for both lending and earning interest at the same time.
Hyperliquid and Lighter are already in progress; this is another extreme enhancement of capital efficiency.
② Uncollateralized Lending
This is the Holy Grail of DeFi.
If on-chain reputation + off-chain data can enable uncollateralized loans, that would truly disrupt the traditional banking sector.
The most challenging yet the most attractive; successful protocols will have trillion-dollar potential.
③ On-chain Privacy
Big players and institutions cannot expose themselves nakedly on a transparent chain.
Technologies like ZKP and FHE will shift from being nice to have to being necessities.
Privacy is not optional; it will be a standard feature of the next generation of DApps.
4⃣ AI and Robotics
① Robot Data Collection
The idea is very advanced; using a model similar to DePIN, crowdsourcing the physical world data needed for robot training.
This is very long-term, but the landscape has opened up.
② Proof of Humanity
In a world flooded with AI, proving that you are a real person will become extremely valuable.
This is not just Worldcoin's iris; there may be more solutions.
③ AI Empowering Development
This is the imminent game-changer.
Imagine describing business logic in natural language, and AI helps you generate, audit, and deploy smart contracts.
This will greatly lower the barrier to entry for on-chain activities and spark application innovation.
This is a key step in taking Crypto from a tech geek paradise to an ordinary toolbox.
The narrative of 2026 has shifted from creating new assets to deconstructing and restructuring the traditional world with more advanced financial Legos and AI tools.
The improvement of infrastructure is clearing obstacles for a major explosion at the application layer.
The future is full of hope; do not fall in the darkness before dawn!