Looking ahead to 2026, here's how I see the landscape shaping up for crypto and tech.

First, we're going to witness a major pivot. Consumer-facing applications will take center stage while many of those complex, niche DeFi protocols get weeded out. The market's moving beyond raw financialization toward products people actually want to use.

Second, AI and robotics won't just develop in isolation anymore. We'll see meaningful intersections emerging between these fields and blockchain technology. That convergence could unlock entirely new use cases we haven't even imagined yet.

Third, the infrastructure layer keeps expanding. More blockchain platforms and layer-2 solutions will launch, each competing to capture developer attention and user adoption.

Beyond these, institutional adoption continues its upward trajectory, and interoperability between different blockchain ecosystems becomes less of a nice-to-have and more of a necessity.

The through-line connecting all this? The industry's maturation. We're moving from hype cycles to actual value creation. That's the real story of 2026.