Compiled by: Plain Blockchain

Setting aside price trends, 2025 is an important year for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. Many people say that this industry has made no progress since the last cycle, but I believe that is completely inaccurate. Take 2021 as an example, cross-chain transactions often required several steps; now, you can use Jumper and other cross-chain aggregators to transfer funds within minutes. Admittedly, on-chain user experience(UX) still needs improvement, but the key is that DeFi is on the right track. In this article, I will share several DeFi trends and products that I expect will gain momentum rapidly by 2026.

Retail Consumer Applications(Consumer dApps)

This may sound vague. Our goal has always been to introduce mainstream users(Normies) rather than speculators. But the problem is, so far, almost every dApp is designed for crypto enthusiasts, and UX is too complicated for ordinary internet users. Fortunately, the situation is changing. We are finally seeing new consumer-grade applications that leverage the advantages of encryption technology while providing Web2 smooth experience. I am closely watching several projects:

Aave App: A mobile-based reimagining of AAVE that allows users to earn interest in a fully encrypted environment.

EtherFi Cash: A new crypto bank(Neobank) where you can spend cryptocurrencies, book travel, earn asset yields, and perform bank transfers.

DeFi App: An on-chain “all-in-one” application that offers the experience of centralized exchanges(CEX) for buying and selling tokens, trading perpetual contracts, and managing financial statements(, while fully abstracting cross-chain and gas fees).

UR: A new crypto bank built by Mantle, with excellent UX, supporting spending, wealth management, and bank transfers. I believe by 2026, multiple crypto consumer products are likely to go mainstream.

2. Non-USD Stablecoins

USD stablecoins currently dominate the market. While I expect their growth to continue, non-USD stablecoins seem like a huge untapped market, especially as the USD depreciates against the euro by about 11% by 2025. The foreign exchange(FX) market handles trillions of dollars daily, so it’s foolish to think there’s no demand for non-USD stablecoins. Currently, they face two main issues:

Insufficient liquidity( leading to large slippage on big trades).

Low utility in DeFi. Once these issues are addressed, I expect stablecoins like the euro(EUR) and Swiss franc(CHF) will attract significant attention. Polygon is a project worth watching; they are working on on-chain foreign exchange payments.

3. Deep Experiments in Tokenomics(Tokenomics)

In 2025, many projects launched buyback programs. While in some cases(like Hyperliquid), this proved to be a wise move, large projects like Jupiter are stopping buybacks, as buyback considerations have little impact on price. My view is that in 2026, many projects will attempt to revise token economics through new experimental approaches to generate more value for tokens. Regarding buybacks, even companies like Apple only allocate part of their revenue for dividends, with most reinvested into the business for future growth. I believe that while buybacks are good, allocating all income to retirements is not a good strategy. Besides the practical issues, another pain point is the gradual zeroing out of tokens due to 99% of internal token release pressures. Paradex has proposed a performance-based team unlocking scheme to address this, which is interesting. We may see more experiments in this area in 2026.

Summary: Besides the above trends, I expect perpetual contracts DEX(Perps DEX), real-world assets(RWA), and market forecasting will continue to grow exponentially. But I think these are already market consensus, so today I prefer to share some trends I personally favor but discuss less.

Article link: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/01/6193.html

Source: