2026 may become a pivotal year for full on-chain finance. At this turning point, the importance of stablecoins and Ethereum is increasingly evident, having become indispensable infrastructure. Recently, leading projects in the market have shifted BTC positions to ETH, reflecting a common judgment among many institutional investors.

From the perspective of stablecoins, three development paths for mainstream stablecoins like USD1 are worth noting. First, the potential for scale expansion is enormous—recently surpassing 10 billion has become a reality, with a mid-term expectation of reaching 100 billion to 1 trillion, and long-term capturing a significant share of the entire trillion-dollar stablecoin market. Second, the prospects for payment applications are broad. Compared to traditional payment giants like Visa, on-chain stablecoins have inherent advantages of higher efficiency and lower costs. Collaborating with internet giants could enable billions of users to be integrated into the blockchain ecosystem. Third, in the long wave of bringing hundreds of trillions of financial assets on-chain, stablecoins with strong branding, compliance, and ToB capabilities have the opportunity to become core infrastructure.

It is based on these market expectations that many investors are increasing their holdings of Ethereum and leading stablecoin projects. This is not merely speculation but a rational layout for the future transformation of the financial system.