My Crypto Narratives Tier List for 2026

S:

Tokenization: RWA is hitting new highs (≈$20B) and more stocks and commodities are tokenized. With major funds and custodians expanding at major venues, it’s beyond just a narrative now.

Stablecoins: Stablecoins are a $310B market, and they’re becoming the default rails for FX, payments, cards, and neobanks distribution. The clearest bridge from crypto to real-world adoption.

Prediction Markets: Prediction markets are constantly hitting new volume & users’ all-time high. Distribution is accelerating with major crypto apps & TradFi firms integrating PMs.

Perps: Perps still dominate crypto volume, with derivatives far outpacing spot. Onchain perp platforms are matching CEX volumes, over $1T monthly.

A:

BTCfi: Bitcoin is turning into productive capital, with billions in BTC used for staking, yield, and collateral, with Babylon and Lombard capturing a large share of BTC staking TVL.

Privacy: With more TradFi capital moving onchain, selective disclosure is essential: institutions need compliance-friendly privacy for payments, identity, and corporate flows.

AI: AI and crypto are still evolving into tools for data, agents, and verifiable compute, with insane potential. This industry is just too big to ignore.

DeFi: DeFi is shifting to consumer apps, Coinbase now offers in-app DEX trading and USDC lending via Morpho, DeFi TVL hit new all-time highs, and new consumer apps are emerging quickly.

B:

Chain Abstraction: Chains should become invisible as smart accounts, intents, and embedded wallets reduce friction. A major UX boost is crucial for adoption, though development is slower

InfoFi: Despite the recent FUD, InfoFi is still the refinery of data markets + incentives + tradable signals. Manifesting crucial changes in InfoFi soon. InfoFi 2.0?

Robotics: The story is bigger than the progress. Hardware and deployment don’t move as fast as crypto, so it’s more of an early infrastructure play.

ZK: ZK is undeniably core tech, but as a trade, it’s messy. Most value accrues to the ecosystems that ship ZK at scale, not to ZK as a standalone narrative.

Infrastructure: Necessary, constant demand (RPC, indexing, interoperability, data availability), but super overcrowded. Still, strong projects may be emerging here.

C:

Staking / Restaking: Restaking is real, but yields keep compressing, slashing risks are real, and the complexity is turning off retail. The narrative was super overhyped in the first place.

DePIN: Best-case DePIN is real-world integration and partnerships, but a lot of projects still struggle to do that. Regulation + lack of a sustainable flow is keeping it down.

L1 / L2: Rollups are already well-established, but new chains are weaker. Most value shifts to apps, liquidity, and distribution rather than yet another base layer.

SocialFi: Despite occasional spikes in activity, retention, and durable PMF have not been reached yet. I doubt it will anytime soon.

D:

GameFi: The P2E model is fundamentally broken. Despite some gaming chains still operating, most GameFi projects are just DeFi with extra steps and worse UX.

NFTs: We had several attempts at an NFT comeback, but the market was clear. Without new use cases beyond JPEGs and PFPs, NFTs are stuck in a crisis. Even the gaming integrations aren’t a thing anymore.

Memecoins: The memecoin supercycle was fun, but liquidity is rotating into legitimate projects, and memecoin dominance is dropping. Retail got tired of getting rekt and chasing the next 100x.

Modularity: Important architecture, terrible narrative. Isers don’t care, and investors only care when there’s a clear, defensible value-capture path; most modular bets don’t have one.

What narrative did I miss?

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