Death of the four-year cycle: research firms see a fundamental change in the markets in 2026

Source: Yellow Original Title: The End of the Four-Year Cycle: Research Firms See a Fundamental Shift in Markets by 2026

Original Link: Major cryptocurrency research firms published 2026 reports indicating a consensus that the traditional boom and bust market cycles are coming to an end.

Delphi Digital, Messari, Coinbase, Four Pillars and A16Z Crypto released reports predicting structural maturity driven by liquidity convergence, infrastructure development, and institutional adoption.

Together, the firms present 2026 as a turning point where value is accumulated in projects with revenue-sharing models and real-world utility, rather than short-term narratives.

Several reports highlight the shift from four-year “halving” cycles to sustained institutional capital flows.

Death of the speculative cycle

Research firms agree that the traditional Bitcoin “halving” cycle model no longer fully explains market dynamics.

A trading platform highlighted that 2026 marks the year when policy becomes “a slight tailwind” rather than a headwind for digital assets.

Messari’s report places 2026 as the transition from speculation to system-level adoption across the entire crypto infrastructure.

Delphi Digital cited the end of quantitative tightening on December 1 as the start of the first genuinely positive liquidity environment since early 2022.

The firms expect institutional capital through ETFs and corporate treasury adoption to replace retail-driven speculation.

Agentic finance and AI integration

The consensus among the reports highlights AI agents as key economic actors requiring blockchain settlement rails.

The research emphasized that agentic systems need an open, programmable payment infrastructure for autonomous transactions.

The reports predict AI agents will manage DeFi portfolios, execute arbitrage strategies, and handle continuous microtransactions between machines.

Know Your Agent (KYA) identity protocols emerge as critical infrastructure, as AI agents require cryptographically signed credentials to transact.

Several firms expect “agentic trading” to become a dominant narrative by the end of 2026.

Shift towards privacy and “Ownership Coins”

The reports noted that protected transactions reach new cycle highs amid institutional demand for confidential settlement.

It was highlighted that privacy assets like Zcash are being repurposed as necessary hedges against surveillance and financial control.

The reports introduce “Ownership Coins” as a new classification combining economic, legal, and governance rights in legally enforceable digital assets.

This model aims to address DAO accountability issues through native blockchain corporate structures.

Consolidation in super‑apps and Tokenomics 2.0

Four Pillars predicts that fragmented crypto applications will collapse into super‑apps driven by stablecoins that abstract blockchain complexity.

Several reports expect protocols to focus on revenue-sharing, buybacks, and burn mechanisms linking token value to platform usage.

The firms forecast regulatory clarity enabling tokenomics tied to revenue, rather than models driven solely by narratives.

Digital Asset Trading 2.0 emphasizes professional acquisition of sovereign space on-chain as a vital asset.

Asset tokenization of real-world assets is expected to expand from the current $18 billion to trillions, through US Treasury bond markets and private credit markets.