Looking back from January 2026, the story of the past 24 months has been nothing short of crazy—2024 saw a massive infrastructure explosion, 2025 marked the landing of the AI Agent era, and what’s next? The game rules of the market are changing.

The key shift is this: no longer obsessing over "technical parameters" (like breaking 100,000 TPS), but instead betting on "real value creation." Simply put—can it generate actual economic growth? That’s the real reason to buy in.

**The 5 major trends of 2026, with underlying logic explained:**

**1. AI-Fi Wave—From "AI Signal Calling" to "AI as Financial Manager"**

Last year, we saw AI Agents chat, issue tokens, and do a lot of tricks. This year, the plot thickens—these Agents will evolve into the largest on-chain fund managers. Imagine this scenario: hundreds of millions of AI Agents holding wallets, constantly arbitraging, lending, and market-making 24/7, leading to explosive growth in on-chain transaction density.

A core breakthrough behind this is the resolution of trust issues. Last year, people still worried, "Can I really entrust my money to AI?" By 2026, the combination of TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) and ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proofs) technologies will allow you to fully trust—within a fully decentralized framework—giving asset permissions to AI management.

Keywords: AI Asset Management Protocols, Non-Human Economies, Trustless Agents. These niche sectors will produce star projects.

**2. Deepening of DeFi "Financialization"**

DeFi has been around for several years, but true financial innovation is just beginning. In 2026, we’ll see more complex derivatives, more refined risk pricing mechanisms, and even some advanced traditional financial strategies transplanted onto the chain.

**3. Breakthroughs in Cross-Chain Interoperability**

The fragmentation problem in multi-chain ecosystems will accelerate resolution. True liquidity aggregation and cross-chain interactions will no longer be just "imagination."

**4. Intensified Competition for Compliance Stablecoins**

As policy environments become clearer, stablecoins backed by real assets will become an important infrastructure.

**5. Divergence in Application Layer of Public Chains**

General-purpose public chains will gradually focus on the base layer, while vertical application chains and Layer 2 solutions will each carve out their own space.

Overall, the market logic in 2026 is very clear: technical parameters are no longer the main focus. Projects and protocols that can truly generate economic value and have practical use cases will thrive. This round of reshuffling will be more ruthless than ever before.