From Hell to Lara, it was hard to judge 21 mainstream encrypted narratives in 2025
Original title:My Cripto Narratives Tier List for 2026
Original by Defi Warhol, Encrypted KOL
Original language: Tim, PANews
Hell
DIPLOMATICIZATION: RWA HAS BEEN ON AN INNOVATIVE SCALE (ABOUT $20 BILLION) AND IS INCREASINGLY BEING MONETIZED IN EQUITIES AND COMMODITIES. AS MAINSTREAM FUNDS AND CUSTODIANS CONTINUE TO EXPAND ACROSS MAJOR TRADING PLATFORMS, THIS IS NO LONGER MERELY AT THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL。
Stable currency: As a market value of $310 billion, the Stable currency is gradually becoming the infrastructure in the areas of foreign exchange, payments, credit cards and digital banking distribution, the best bridge from the encrypted world to practical application。
Predicted markets: The number of transactions and users of projected markets is constantly high. Its spread is accelerating with the integration of mainstream encryption applications and traditional financial institutions。
Renewable contracts: Renewed contracts continue to dominate the volume of encrypted market transactions, with derivatives trading well above the value available. The monthly turnover of the chain-continuing contractual platform is equal to that of centralized transactions, exceeding $1 trillion。
Top
BTCFi: Bitcoin is being transformed into productive capital and billions of BTCs are being used for pledge, gain and collateral, with Babylon and Lombard accounting for a large share of BTC pledged TVL。
Privacy: As more traditional financial capital shifts to the chain, selective disclosure becomes essential, and institutions need to achieve compliance-friendly privacy protection in terms of payments, identification and business financial flows。
AI: AI AND ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGIES CONTINUE TO DEVELOP WITH GREAT POTENTIAL AS IMPORTANT TOOLS FOR PROCESSING DATA, DRIVING INTELLIGENCE AND ACHIEVING VERIFIABLE COMPUTING. THE SIZE OF THE INDUSTRY CANNOT BE IGNORED。
DeFi: DeFi is moving towards consumer applications, Coinbase is currently providing DEX transactions and USDC lending services through Morpho, DeFi TVL is at an all-time high and new consumer applications are rapidly emerging。
People
Chain abstraction: Smart accounts, intent and embedded wallets reduce user use friction and block chains are becoming invisible. Significant improvements in user experience are essential for adoption, albeit slowly。
InfoFi: Despite recent market concerns, uncertainties and challenges, InfoFi is still a refinery for data markets, incentives and trading signals. InfoFi is about to make significant progress. Is InfoFi 2.0 coming
Robots: Their prospects are greater than actual progress. Hardware and deployment cannot be developed at a pace comparable to encrypted currency, so it is more like an early infrastructure phase。
ZK: IT IS UNDOUBTEDLY A CORE TECHNOLOGY, BUT IT IS MORE COMPLEX AS THE SUBJECT OF INVESTMENT. MUCH OF THE VALUE WILL ACCUMULATE IN ECOSYSTEMS THAT CAN APPLY ZK TECHNOLOGY ON A LARGE SCALE, RATHER THAN EXIST AS INDEPENDENT CONCEPTS。
SOFTWARE INFRASTRUCTURE: DEMAND REMAINS STABLE (E.G., RPC, INDEXING, INTEROPERABILITY, DATA AVAILABILITY, ETC.), BUT COMPETITION HAS BECOME SUPER HOT. NEVERTHELESS, THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR HIGH-QUALITY PROJECTS IN THIS AREA。
NPC
Pledges and re-commitments: The re-commitment does work, but the rate of return continues to shrink, the risk of punishment is real and the complex operation discourages ordinary investors. This track story was overheated from the start。
DePIN: DePIN should ideally be integrated and cooperate with the real world, but many projects are still difficult to achieve. Regulatory pressures and the lack of sustainable business models are hindering their development。
L1 and L2: Rollup is already a mainstream extension programme, but the new public chain is less dynamic. Most of the value is now shifting to applications, mobility and ecological distribution, rather than just another bottom-up agreement。
SocialFi: Despite occasional peaks in user activity, the convergence between the product retention and sustainability of the user market has not been achieved and is likely to remain elusive in the short term。
Pull
GameFi: The Play-to-Earn model is fundamentally flawed. Although part of the game chain is still running, most GameFi projects simply add operational steps and experience worse skin replacements。
NFT: WE HAVE WITNESSED SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO WARM UP THE NFT MARKET, BUT THE MARKET REACTION HAS SHOWN THAT IF THE LIMITATIONS OF JPEG'S PICTURES AND IMAGES ARE NOT BROKEN AND NEW APPLICATIONS ARE CREATED, NFT WILL REMAIN TRAPPED IN THE CURRENT SITUATION. EVEN INTEGRATION ATTEMPTS IN THE FIELD OF GAMES HAVE TODAY FAILED TO ACHIEVE A BREAKTHROUGH。
Memeco: While the Memeco super-cycle is booming, liquidity is shifting to decent projects, with market dominance continuing to decline. They are tired of being repeatedly harvested and chasing the next 100 times myth。
Modular block chain: critical architecture, bad narrative. Users are not concerned, and investors are only concerned about the existence of clear and sustainable earning effects, which are not currently available in most modularization projects。
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