Compiled by: TechFlow TechFlow
Link: https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_29523.html
Disclaimer: This article is a reprint. Readers can obtain more information through the original link. If the author has any objection to the reprint format, please contact us and we will modify it according to the author's request. This reprint is for information sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice, nor does it represent Wu Blockchain views or positions.
The era of building dedicated application chains has finally arrived.
Author: Aadharsh Pannirselvam
In short: Blockchains designed, built, and optimized for applications will bring disruptive changes. And next year's best application chains will be intentionally and meticulously assembled around basic components and fundamental principles.
The recent influx of developers, users, institutions, and capital into the blockchain differs from the past: they are more focused on a specific culture (i.e., the definition of user experience) rather than pursuing abstract ideals such as decentralization or censorship resistance. In practice, this demand sometimes aligns with existing infrastructure, and sometimes it does not.
For user-centric cryptographic abstractions like Blackbird or Farcaster, certain centralized design decisions—such as co-located nodes, a single sequencer, and a custom database—that might have been considered "heretical" three years ago, now seem perfectly reasonable. The same applies to stablecoin chains and exchanges like Hyperliquid* and GTE, whose success often hinges on millisecond-level latency, price volatility, and optimal pricing.
However, this logic does not apply to all new applications.
For example, in contrast to this acceptance of centralization is the growing concern for privacy among institutional and retail users. The needs and ideal user experiences of encrypted applications can vary greatly, therefore their infrastructures should also differ.
Fortunately, building a chain from scratch that meets these specific user experience definitions is far less complex than it was two years ago. In fact, the process is now very similar to assembling a custom computer.
Of course, you can choose every hard drive, fan, and cable yourself. But if you don't need that level of customization (which is likely the case for most people), you can use services like Digital Storm or Framework, which offer a range of pre-built custom PCs to meet different needs. And if your needs fall somewhere in between, you can add your own accessories to their selection of compatible components. This approach not only provides greater modularity and flexibility but also eliminates unnecessary components while ensuring the final product runs efficiently.
In assembling and tweaking fundamental components such as consensus mechanisms, execution layers, data storage, and liquidity, various applications are creating culturally unique forms that continuously reflect different needs (i.e., different definitions of user experience), serve their unique target audiences, and ultimately achieve value retention. These differences can be as pronounced as the differences between rugged ToughBooks, business-oriented ThinkPads, powerful desktops, and beautifully designed MacBooks, but they also converge and coexist to some extent—after all, not every computer has its own independent operating system. Furthermore, each necessary component becomes a "knob" that applications can flexibly adjust, allowing developers to optimize freely without worrying about disruptive changes to the parent protocol.
Given Circle's acquisition of Malachite from Informal Systems, it's clear that having autonomy over customized block spaces has now become a broader priority. In the coming year, I eagerly anticipate seeing applications and teams define and control their own chain resources around the underlying components and reasonable defaults provided by companies like Commonware and Delta. This model is similar to HashiCorp or Stripe Atlas, but applied to the blockchain and block space space.
Ultimately, this will enable applications to directly control their cash flow and leverage the uniqueness of their architecture to deliver the best user experience under their own conditions, creating a lasting competitive advantage.
The market is predicted to continue innovating (but only some of it will be successful).
Author: Tommy Hang
In this cycle, prediction markets have emerged as one of the most watched applications. With weekly transaction volume across all crypto sectors reaching a record high of $2 billion, this category has clearly taken a significant step towards becoming a mainstream consumer product.
This momentum has fueled a range of related projects attempting to complement or challenge current market leaders, such as Polymarket and Kalshi. However, amidst this frenzy, distinguishing genuine innovation from noise will ultimately determine which projects deserve our continued attention in 2026.
From a market structure perspective, I am particularly looking forward to solutions that can narrow spreads and deepen open interest. While market creation remains permissioned and highly selective, liquidity in prediction markets remains relatively low for market makers and traders. Significant opportunities exist in improving optimal routing systems through products such as lending, different liquidity models, and collateral efficiency.
Trading volume categorized by sector is also a key factor in determining which platforms succeed. For example, over 90% of Kalshi's trading volume in November came from the sports market, demonstrating that some platforms have a natural competitive advantage in vying for superior liquidity. In contrast, Polymarket's trading volume in crypto-related and political markets is 5 to 10 times that of Kalshi.
However, on-chain prediction markets still have a long way to go before they become truly widespread. A good reference point is the 2025 Super Bowl, which alone generated $23 billion in trading volume in the off-chain betting market in a single day—more than 10 times the total daily trading volume of all current on-chain markets.
Closing this gap requires sharp and insightful teams to address the core challenges of prediction markets. Over the next year, I will be closely monitoring these potential industry players.
Smart agent curators will drive DeFi expansion
Author: Eskender Abebe
Currently, the curatorial layer of DeFi exists in two extreme forms: one is entirely algorithmic (hard-coded interest rate curves, fixed rebalancing rules), and the other relies entirely on humans (risk committees, active managers). Agentic Curators represent a third model: AI agents (including Large Language Models (LLMs) + tools + cycles) manage curatorial and risk policies in vaults, lending markets, and structured products. This involves more than just executing fixed rules; it involves reasoning and decision-making regarding risk, return, and strategy.
The role of a curator in a Morpho marketplace can be used as an example. Here, someone needs to define collateral policies, loan-to-value (LTV) limits, and risk parameters to generate yield products. Currently, the human element in this process is a bottleneck. Intelligent agents can extend this process. Soon, intelligent agent curators will directly compete with algorithmic models and human managers.
So, when will DeFi's " Move 37 " moment arrive?
When I talk to crypto fund managers about AI, they typically give two drastically different answers: either they believe LLMs are about to automate every trading table, or they see these tools as nothing more than "illusionary toys" incapable of handling real markets. But both views overlook a crucial architectural shift: intelligent agents can bring emotionless execution, systematic policy compliance, and flexible reasoning to domains where human performance is noisy and pure algorithms are too fragile. They are more likely to supervise or combine low-level algorithms than to completely replace them. In this scenario, LLMs are more like "architects" designing a secure framework, while deterministic code continues to handle the high-latency-sensitive core path tasks.
When the cost of deep reasoning drops to a few cents, the most profitable vaults will no longer belong to those with the smartest humans, but to those with the strongest computing power.
Short videos are becoming a new type of "storefront".
Author: Katie Chiou
Short videos are rapidly becoming the default interface for people to discover (and ultimately purchase) content they like. TikTok Shop achieved a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of over $20 billion in the first half of 2025, nearly doubling year-on-year, quietly transforming global users' entertainment consumption habits into a "storefront" experience.
In response, Instagram has transformed Reels from a defensive feature into a revenue engine. This short-video format has not only brought more exposure but has also captured an increasingly larger share of Meta's projected advertising revenue by 2025. Meanwhile, Whatnot has proven that sales conversion rates based on live streaming and personal charisma are unmatched by traditional e-commerce.
The core logic is very simple: people make decisions faster when watching content in real time. Every swipe of the screen becomes a decision point. Platforms understand this well, so the line between the recommendation feed and the checkout process is disappearing. The news feed has become the new sales point, and every creator has become a distribution channel.
Artificial intelligence has further fueled this trend. AI has reduced video production costs, increased content output, and enabled creators and brands to test new ideas in real time. More content means more conversion opportunities, and platforms are responding to this change by optimizing the purchase intent for every second of video.
Cryptocurrencies play a crucial role in this trend. Faster content demands faster, more efficient payment tracks. As shopping becomes seamless and directly embedded in content, we need a system capable of handling micropayments, programmatically allocating revenue, and tracking contributions across complex chains of influence. Cryptocurrencies were born for this kind of liquidity. It's hard to imagine a hyperscale commercial era, native to streaming, without the support of cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain will drive new rules for AI.
Author: Danny Sursock
Over the past few years, the focus of AI has been on a multi-billion dollar arms race between hyperscale enterprises and startup giants, while decentralized innovators have been forced to explore in the shadows.
However, as mainstream attention shifts, some crypto-native teams have made significant progress in decentralized training and inference. This quiet revolution is gradually moving from the theoretical stage to testing and production environments.
Today, teams like Ritual*, Pluralis, Exo*, Odyn, Ambient, and Bagel are poised for their moment in the spotlight. This new generation of competitors promises to have an explosive and disruptive impact on the fundamental trajectory of AI development.
By training models in a globally distributed environment and leveraging novel asynchronous communication and parallelization methods that are being validated in production-scale operations, the scalability limitations of AI will be completely broken.
At the same time, the combination of the new consensus mechanism and privacy-preserving components makes verifiable and confidential reasoning a real option in the on-chain developer toolbox.
Furthermore, the revolutionary blockchain architecture will truly combine smart contracts with a highly expressive computing structure that can simplify the operation of autonomous AI agents by using cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange.
The groundwork has been completed.
The challenge now is to scale this infrastructure to the production level and demonstrate that blockchain can drive fundamental AI innovation that goes beyond philosophical, ideological, or superficial financial experiments.
Real-world assets will see true widespread adoption on blockchain.
Author: Dmitriy Berenzon
We've heard discussions about asset tokenization for years. However, with the mainstream adoption of stablecoins, the emergence of smooth and robust fiat-to-cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal channels, and increasingly clear regulatory support globally, Real World Assets (RWAs) are finally beginning to see widespread adoption. According to RWA.xyz* data, the total value of tokenized assets across all categories has now exceeded $18 billion, compared to just $3.7 billion a year ago. I expect this trend to accelerate further by 2026.
It is important to note that tokenization and Vaults are two different design patterns for RWAs: tokenization moves the representation of off-chain assets onto the chain, while Vaults bridge the gap between on-chain capital and off-chain earnings.
I look forward to seeing tokenization and vaults provide on-chain access for a wide range of physical and financial assets, from commodities like gold and rare metals to private credit for working capital and payment financing, to private and public equities, and more global currencies. Of course, we can also be bold and innovative! I'd love to see assets like eggs, GPUs, energy derivatives, advance payroll, Brazilian government bonds, and the Japanese yen all move onto the blockchain!
However, it's important to clarify that this isn't just about putting more things on the blockchain; it's about upgrading how global capital is allocated through public blockchains. Blockchain can make obscure, slow, and isolated markets more transparent, programmable, and liquid. And once these assets are on-chain, we can enjoy the significant advantages brought by composability with existing DeFi primitives.
Finally, many of these assets will inevitably face challenges in terms of transferability, transparency, liquidity, risk management, and distribution during the on-chain process. Therefore, the infrastructure that can alleviate these problems is equally important and exciting!
A product revival driven by agents is on the horizon.
Author: Ash Egan
The future of the network will be determined less by the social platforms we swipe through and more by the intelligent agents we converse with.
Today, bots and intelligent agents constitute a rapidly growing segment of online activity. Roughly estimated, this currently accounts for approximately 50%, encompassing both on-chain and off-chain activities. In the crypto space, bots are increasingly involved in trading, curating, assisting, and scanning contracts, and acting as our agents in tasks such as token trading, fund management, smart contract auditing, and game development.
This marks the arrival of a programmable, agent-driven network era. While we have been in this phase for some time, 2026 will be a turning point, with cryptographic product design increasingly serving intelligent agents rather than directly addressing humans (in a positive, liberating, and non-dystopian way).
This vision of the future is gradually taking shape. Personally, I hope to reduce the time spent clicking between different websites and instead manage on-chain smart agents more through chat-like interfaces. Imagine an interface like Telegram, but with smart agents tailored to specific applications or tasks. These agents can formulate and execute complex strategies, search the network for the most relevant information and data, and provide feedback on transaction results, risks, opportunities, and filtered information. I simply give them the task, and they find opportunities, filter out noise, and execute at the optimal time.
The on-chain infrastructure is already in place. By combining a default open data graph, programmable micropayments, on-chain social graphs, and cross-chain liquidity tracks, we have everything needed to support a dynamic, intelligent agent ecosystem. The plug-and-play nature of the crypto space means that agents here face fewer cumbersome processes and inefficient paths. Compared to Web2 infrastructure, blockchain provides ideal conditions for this intelligent agency.
This is perhaps the most important point: it's not just about automation, it's about liberating people from the silos of Web2. It's about liberating them from friction. It's about liberating them from waiting. We're seeing this shift happening in the search space: currently, about 20% of Google searches generate AI summaries, and data shows that when people see AI summaries, they're significantly less likely to click on traditional search result links. Manually navigating pages becomes unnecessary. Programmable intelligent agent networks will further extend this trend to the applications we use, and I think that's a positive change.
This era will reduce pointless spamming and panic trading. Time zone differences will gradually disappear (no more "waiting for Asian markets to wake up"). Interacting with the on-chain world will become simpler and more expressive, for both developers and ordinary users.
As more assets, systems, and users gradually move onto the blockchain, this cycle will continue to expand:
More on-chain opportunities → Deploy more smart agents → Unlock more value. A vicious cycle.
But what we build now, and how we build it, will determine whether this intelligent agent network becomes a thin layer of noise and automation, or ignites an empowering and vibrant product renaissance.
*Note: Some of the companies mentioned in this article are Archetype portfolio companies.
