Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi published a category-by-category set of 2026 crypto predictions on X late Monday, arguing next year will “surprise, both to the upside and to the downside” even if “the trend lines mostly continue.”
Bitcoin And Crypto Predictions For 2026
His headline macro call pairs a bullish bitcoin target with a broader market rebound. “BTC is > $150K by year-end, but BTC dominance decreases in 2026,” Qureshi wrote. But he rejected the idea that this automatically implies a blow-off alt cycle: “I don’t think it will be wild enough to call it alt season. I think alts will rebound nevertheless, just not to crazy highs.”
Moreover, Qureshi said “the recent crop of fintech chains” will not meet expectations on usage and value flow. “Despite the excitement around the recent crop of fintech chains, their metrics will underwhelm,” he wrote, pointing to “daily active addresses, stablecoin flows, and RWAs.” He named Tempo, Arc, and Robinhood Chain as likely laggards, while adding that “Ethereum and Solana will overdeliver” and that “best developers will continue to build on neutral infra chains.”
On enterprise rails, he expects more large companies to launch networks, skewing toward regulated incumbents. “Many more Fortune 100s launch blockchains, although increasingly concentrated among banking and fintech players,” he wrote, adding: “Expect Avalanche to be a standout here, alongside OP stack, Orbit, and ZK Stack.”
Qureshi also predicted a major distribution move from consumer tech: “A big tech company (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.) launches or acquires a crypto wallet in 2026.” And he offered a contrarian timing call on Monad: “Monad gets written off as dead by CT, but metrics take off in the latter part of the year after analysts have already forgotten about it.”
On infrastructure, he said DoubleZero adoption broadens: “At least 3 other chains connect to DoubleZero to improve their latency & throughput metrics. DoubleZero hits 80%+ stake on Solana.”
DeFi And Stablecoins
Qureshi forecass a more concentrated perpetuals market structure. “Perp DEX market share consolidates to something like 3 big venues a la HBO (market share something like 40 / 30 / 20), followed by a long tail of smaller players who compete over the leftovers (last 10%),” he wrote.
He also expects product expansion into equities. “Equity perps take off, becoming >20% of total DeFi perp volume by EOY,” he wrote, alongside “significant growth in RFQ compared to CLOBs/AMMs, both on spot and perps.” He added a reputational tail risk: “Some DeFi-related insider trading scandal hits mainstream media.”
Qureshi predicts a large expansion in stablecoin supply while remaining overwhelmingly dollar-based. “Stablecoin supply expands by ~60% in 2026, and USD remains 99%+,” he wrote. He expects Tether to cede some share: “USDT dominance declines moderately to ~55%.”
His strongest distribution claim centered on payments. “Stablecoin-backed cards grow 1,000% in 2026—insanely fast growth,” Qureshi wrote. “Becomes the dominant way that stablecoins land and expand in emerging markets. Rain is the biggest winner here.”
Regulation And Prediction Markets
Qureshi predicted a US legislative deal next year, but with caveats on what the industry gets. “Clarity Act gets signed into law in 2026 after some significant markups and horse trading,” he wrote. “A bit of buyer’s remorse from crypto insiders.”
He also forecast political scrutiny if Democrats take the House. “Dems win the house, and there is a parade of hearings about anything in crypto that touched TRUMP / WLFI,” Qureshi wrote.
“The underlying deals get subpoenaed.” In his scenario, Trump distances himself: “Trump insists he was never involved and didn’t know anything about it (and thus these deals are not protected by executive privilege). Anyone who signed a stupid deal gets publicly embarrassed.”
Qureshi expects prediction markets to expand rapidly amid unresolved US legal fights. “Prediction markets grow like crazy,” he wrote, citing “big legal fights over sportsbetting regulation and federal pre-emption,” but adding that “nothing major gets resolved next year, so status quo continues through 2026.”
He argued Polymarket extends its cultural edge and distribution. “Meanwhile Polymarket continues to steamroll the culture,” Qureshi wrote. “Prediction markets are perceived as cool and smart, and so are allowed to throw up odds everywhere.” He added that as domestic expansion ramps, “it starts winning more and more domestic market share from Robinhood and sportsbooks.”
Most competitors, in his view, will not matter. “The explosion of other platforms tacking on prediction markets mostly flop,” he wrote. “90% of prediction market offerings are totally ignored and then wind down by EOY.”
Qureshi said “B2B partnership-driven distribution underperforms, direct-to-consumer outperforms,” with demand concentrated in “Polymarket, Robinhood, and Kalshi frontends (plus traditional sportsbooks).”
AI And Privacy
Qureshi argued crypto’s practical AI use remains narrow. “Primary AI use cases in crypto remain within software engineering and security. Everything else remains a prototype,” he wrote. “Wallet automation remains minimal.” He added: “AI agents will still not be ‘paying each other’ or spending any meaningful money in 2026.”
On spam and identity, he dismissed the near-term feasibility of a Worldcoin-style gate despite theoretical promise. “Worldcoin has verified 17 million identities—that’s 1 in 500 people,” Qureshi wrote. “Being at 1/500 distribution is way too small of an identity base for any service to transition to using Worldcoin as an identity gate.” He suggested an alternative path: “ZK Passports are probably more likely in the short-medium term, because much more of the world’s population as an NFC-enabled passport and can scan it with their phones.”
Asked about privacy as a major theme, Qureshi demurred. “I think privacy is going to be a laggard,” he wrote. “Zcash will likely do well because people want to believe, and there will be some adoption of private transactions on Arc, Tempo, etc.” Still, he returned to his overarching frame: “I predict mostly people will keep doing things in 2026 the way they’ve already been doing them.”
At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.93 trillion.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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