Every cycle of prosperity in the crypto market has its own unique storyline. Remember the "Digital Gold" craze from 2013 to 2017? Then, from 2020 to 2021, DeFi and NFTs became topics of national discussion. Now, many analysts are beginning to predict that the next cycle in 2026 may be driven by entirely different narratives.

What will be the main protagonists this time? Industry experts generally favor four major directions: Layer-2 scaling solutions, real asset tokenization, the improvement of stablecoin ecosystems, and the deep integration of AI and blockchain.

Among these, L2 scaling almost always appears on the priority lists of institutions and research organizations. Many research teams expect 2026 to be the turning point for large-scale adoption of L2 solutions. Taking Ethereum as an example, the two mainstream solutions—optimistic rollup and zk-rollup—are continuously being optimized and matured, with transaction efficiency and costs gradually approaching the levels of mainstream payment networks. This is not just a technical upgrade; it also signifies that the user experience of the entire ecosystem could see a qualitative leap.

In other words, the "scalability trilemma" that once troubled crypto assets now seems to have a more realistic solution. Market attention is also shifting from hype to actual application deployment—perhaps this is the true beginning of the test.