CT spent the first half of 2026 talking about AI, RWAs and DePIN.

Together, those three sectors were about 10% of all spot volume traded. Every month. Without exception.
Layer 1s took 58 to 66%.
✦ What are the biggest takeaways from checking 2026 volume?
> Total volume across nine sectors fell from roughly $660b in January to $508b in June, down 23%.
That part is not surprising. Q1 2026 saw the total crypto market cap fall 20.4% to $2.4 trillion. Liquidity left.
What is surprising is where it left from.
1️⃣ Layer 1 share went up during the drawdown, from 58% in January to 66% in June. In falling markets, liquidity does not rotate outward into new themes. It consolidates inward into whatever is easiest to exit.
That is still valid today, when we consider RWAs and AI and other newer age narratives to be more solid.
2️⃣ Meme was the only sector that structurally broke. Roughly $100b in January to $45b in June, with share cut from 15% to 9%.
The listings data agrees: meme coin listings on centralized exchanges fell from a peak of 196 in Q4 2024 to just 41 in Q2 2026, a 79% decline.
Maybe it is different in July after Robinhood's memes brought some momentum back to the memes game.
3️⃣ AI, RWA and DePIN did not move. RWA drifted from 4.8% to 5.5% of volume. AI sat between 3 and 4% all year. DePIN did not clear 1% in a single month of 2026.
That last one deserves a pause. DePIN has arguably been the most discussed infrastructure thesis of the past eighteen months. It is one percent of what trades. But tbh, there is a lack of huge projects in the DePin space still and that is why the volume is lacking.
✦ So did the rotation happen at all? Yes, just not in volume.
It happened in listings. Tokenized assets made up nearly 19% of new CEX listings in H1 2026, against under 7% through all of 2025. It happened in funding, where prediction markets became the top-funded crypto category in H1 2026 at $1.85b, ahead of exchanges at $1.57b and AI at $1.00b.
> Narrative sectors are where capital gets committed on a multi-year view. Layer 1s are where it gets traded on a Tuesday. A fund can hold real conviction in tokenized treasuries and still route almost all of its actual turnover through majors.
Which means the tell to watch is not price. It is share of volume.
If AI or DePIN start holding 2% or more of monthly volume across several months, that is the first hard evidence that a thesis has grown a trading market underneath it. That also would be an indication that people are starting to invest with more freedom (not going to happen in a bear)
Until then, these are positions people hold, not markets people trade.