Experts also predicted the emergence of a new media format.
By 2026, the digital asset market will focus on integrating its tools, such as prediction platforms and cryptographic proofs, into traditional business and infrastructure. This forecast was shared by analysts at a16z crypto.
According to them, crypto-native tools are increasingly penetrating industries far beyond decentralized finance. This trend is fueled by advances in cryptography, artificial intelligence, and the creation of new economic systems and rules, allowing blockchains to serve as foundational infrastructure rather than just end products.
a16z forecasts that prediction markets will become larger, broader, and more complex due to the intersection of crypto technologies and AI.
By the end of 2025, the combined trading volume on the two largest platforms — Polymarket and Kalshi — will reach $28 billion.
Scientific advisor Andy Hall noted that future development will be determined not just by the growth in the number of contracts, but by the improvement of truth-establishing methods in resolving disputed outcomes.
He cited recent conflicts in political and geopolitical markets as examples, which clearly demonstrated that centralized arbitration mechanisms struggle with scaling. This creates a sustained demand for decentralized governance models and AI-driven oracles for more objective and transparent outcome determination.
a16z also believes that 2026 could be a pivotal year for ZK-proof technologies, which will begin to be widely adopted in traditional industries not related to blockchain.
Research team member Justin Thaler emphasized that due to growth in the zkEVM field, the cost of generating proofs is sharply decreasing. This makes it economically viable to use computations even for cloud CPU tasks, and eventually for consumer devices.
According to the expert, this technological shift will pave the way for long-discussed applications like verifiable cloud computing. Businesses will be able to obtain cryptographic guarantees that computations are performed correctly, without the need for reruns or costly audits.
As the overhead for proof generation continues to decrease and hardware performance increases, cryptographic verification may cease to be an “exotic” blockchain feature and become a standard component of digital infrastructure overall.
The third trend is the emergence of staked media. The idea is that content creators use tokens and smart contracts to create publicly verifiable commitments that directly link their reputational incentives to their own claims and predictions.
“Since AI has made it cheap and easy to generate endless content — claiming anything from any perspective or on behalf of any character, real or fictional — simple trust in people’s (or bots’) words may not be enough,” explained Robert Hackett from a16z’s editorial division.
According to him, this mechanism will allow media figures to prove their neutrality and objectivity. For instance, when stating their position or prediction, an expert can lock tokens to show they are not engaging in speculation or a Pump & Dump scheme.
“Or an analyst can tie their forecasts to public markets, thus forming a verifiable track record,” added Hackett.
He emphasized that the new format will not replace traditional media but “will become an important complement to them.”
