Crypto in 2026 looks very different from the industry people talked about five or six years ago.
Back then, the dominant narratives were:
- censorship-resistant money;
- decentralised applications;
- replacing financial intermediaries;
- user-owned digital infrastructure;
- open participation.
Today, a large part of the market is built around:
- ETFs;
- institutional custody;
- tokenized securities;
- stablecoins;
- corporate treasuries;
- regulated exchanges;
- yield products.
That is not necessarily a negative development.
Institutional adoption brings liquidity, infrastructure, better custody, and wider access.
But it also raises a fundamental question:
Is crypto becoming more useful, or simply becoming another layer of traditional finance?
Bitcoin is increasingly treated as a macro asset.
Stablecoins are becoming settlement infrastructure.
Ethereum and other smart-contract networks are being used for tokenization and financial applications.
Meanwhile, many consumer-facing Web3 products still struggle to reach mainstream usage outside speculation.
I think the answer probably differs by sector.
Stablecoins clearly solve a real problem.
DeFi has genuine utility, but remains complex.
NFTs proved digital ownership was possible, but much of the speculative market disappeared.
Payments remain fragmented.
Which crypto use case do you think has proven real product-market fit outside speculation?
And which narrative do you think the industry overestimated the most?