Three Key Digital Asset Trends to Watch in 2026

Three Key Digital Asset Trends to Watch in 2026

– From Speculation to Utility: A Turning Point in Financial Infrastructure -

[Looking Back at the 2025 Digital Asset Market]

– A Year That Laid the Foundation for Mass Adoption

The digital asset market in 2025 can be summarized as follows:

• Infrastructure entered a phase of maturity, driven by performance improvements, cost reductions, and the rapid expansion of stablecoins.

• Distribution channels were secured through increased institutional capital inflows.

• For the first time, the contours of a regulatory framework began to take clear shape.

As a result, digital assets are no longer confined to “technical experiments” or “speculative instruments for retail investors.” Instead, they are steadily evolving into a foundational layer of modern finance.

Maturation of Infrastructure, Scalability, Privacy, and Security

Advances in rollups and modular chain–based Layer 2 stacks have significantly reduced transaction costs while improving throughput to levels competitive with traditional financial systems. Consequently, high-frequency financial models—such as derivatives, prediction markets, and micropayments—have moved from experimentation into live production environments.

Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) are no longer limited to niche blockchain implementations. They are becoming core infrastructure across the digital economy, spanning rollups, compliance tools, and identity systems.

Institutional Adoption and Structural Market Shifts

Global asset managers, banks, and fintech firms are now participating in the market through custody, trading, on-chain funds, bonds, and RWA products. This has materially deepened liquidity and improved the depth of derivatives markets—particularly perpetual futures and options.

Perpetual futures, prediction markets, and RWA tokenization have rapidly become mainstream narratives. This shift clearly indicates that digital assets are transitioning from pure speculation toward real-world usage, hedging instruments, and information aggregation tools.

Regulatory and Policy Transition (U.S.-Centric)

In the United States, the passage of the GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act (House approval), and Executive Order 14178—along with the establishment of a dedicated digital asset task force—has initiated the formation of a bipartisan, standing regulatory framework.

This framework addresses stablecoins, market structure, and supervisory principles, aiming to balance innovation with investor protection. As a result, market entry by builders and institutions within the U.S. is accelerating.

Stablecoins and the Strengthening of Dollar Dominance

The total supply of stablecoins has surpassed USD 300 billion, reaching an all-time high, with USDT and USDC accounting for approximately 87% of the total.

As of September 2025, roughly USD 772 billion in stablecoin transactions were settled on Ethereum and Tron alone, representing approximately 64% of all on-chain transaction volume.
Stablecoins can therefore be credibly described as the “digital dollar settlement rails” of the global economy.

[2026 Outlook – The First Year of Mass Adoption and the Emergence of Utility Finance]

Building on this foundation, 2026 is likely to mark the point at which financial applications that people use in everyday life truly emerge. It is highly likely to be the year in which the market fully transitions from speculation to utility.

• Stablecoins expand the speed of money.

• RWAs expand the scope of money.

• AI expands the agency of money.

Together, these three forces are expected to form a fundamentally new layer of financial infrastructure.

1. Stablecoins: Evolving into the Reserve Currency of the Web

[Outlook]

• Market capitalization exceeding USD 1.2 trillion by 2028

• Evolution into instant settlement infrastructure at the web and API level (e.g., x402)

[Facts and Rationale]

Bernstein projects that the stablecoin market could grow to approximately USD 2.8 trillion by 2028. Starting from a base of roughly USD 200–300 billion at the end of 2025, sustained annual growth of 40–50% makes this projection well within reach.

The HTTP 402 (“Payment Required”) concept—defined in the early days of the internet but never implemented at scale—is now becoming technically viable through stablecoins. This enables instant payments directly at the web and API layer without relying on traditional banking applications.

[Extended Interpretation: The Rise of PayFi]

• Standardization of B2B Payments
  In 2026, stablecoin adoption is expected to accelerate faster in B2B payments than in B2C. Legacy SWIFT-based T+2 settlement structures are likely to shift toward T+0 real-time settlement, fundamentally reshaping corporate liquidity management.

• Growth of Yield-Bearing Stablecoins
  Stablecoins that automatically distribute yield from U.S. Treasury assets have the potential to substitute traditional deposit products and become a key driver of stablecoin market expansion.

2. RWA: From “Safe Assets” to “High-Efficiency Assets”

[Outlook]

• Expansion from government bonds into private credit and commodities

• Establishment as core collateral assets within the DeFi ecosystem

[Facts and Rationale]

Tokenized government bond markets—led by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund—have already entered a phase of structural growth.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) projects that the tokenized asset market could reach USD 16 trillion by 2030.

[Extended Interpretation: Collateralization Innovation]

The defining shift in 2026 will be the collateralization of RWAs.
Structures that use tokenized Treasuries as collateral to borrow stablecoins for reinvestment will connect the liquidity of traditional assets to DeFi, dramatically improving capital efficiency.

This does not imply indiscriminate tokenization of high-risk assets. Rather, it points toward improved accessibility and utilization while preserving the legal and financial structures of regulated assets.

Tokenization of private credit instruments—such as receivables and shipping finance, historically limited to institutional investors—is expected to create entirely new investment markets.

3. AI × Crypto: The Dawn of the Machine Economy

[Outlook]

• Autonomous trading by AI agents and the mainstream adoption of agentic payments

[Facts and Rationale]

Autonomous agents are already initiating early forms of economic activity on-chain, leveraging identity, incentive, and settlement primitives.

In August 2024, Coinbase demonstrated that an AI agent could independently create a wallet and transact using USDC without human intervention—a landmark example showing that AI can function as an independent economic actor.

Account abstraction (ERC-4337) and low-cost Layer 2 environments provide the technical foundation for AI agents to execute micropayments at scale.

In summary, blockchain serves as the core infrastructure that enables AI to earn, hold, and spend money.

4. Key Risk Factors for the 2026 Digital Asset Market

• Regulatory divergence: Slower institutional and regulatory progress in Korea and parts of Asia compared to the U.S. and EU

• Stablecoin trust risk: Ongoing debates around reserve management and the legal classification of yield-bearing stablecoins

• AI liability ambiguity: Unclear attribution of legal responsibility in cases of autonomous agent transaction or payment failures

5. Implications from a Korean Perspective

South Korea possesses world-class payment and financial infrastructure. However, in the next-generation financial layer—where stablecoins, RWAs, and AI agents converge—the country remains closer to a consumer than a standard-setter.

The year 2026 will be a critical strategic inflection point at which South Korea must decide whether to position itself as:

• A global PayFi hub

• A designer of digital asset standards

• A provider of next-generation financial infrastructure

[Summary Table: 2026 Outlook]

Conclusion

The defining change in the digital asset market in 2026 will not be price—it will be structure.

The long-term competitive advantage will not belong to those who trade faster, but to those who design services and lead standards on top of this new financial layer.

This is not a time for passive observation.
It is a critical moment to participate in the early design of utility-driven finance.