8 big ideas for 2026 (and more trends to watch)

a16z recently released its list of “big ideas” tech builders may tackle in the year ahead, according to partners across the Apps, American Dynamism, Bio, Crypto, Growth, Infra, and Speedrun teams.

So below is a selection of some of the big ideas from various crypto team members (plus a few guest contributors) for what’s ahead — on topics ranging from agents and AI; stablecoins, tokenization, and finance; privacy and security; and prediction markets and other applications. For more of what we’re excited about for 2026, read the full post.

On building

1. Trading as a way station — not the last stop — for crypto businesses

It seems like every crypto company that’s doing well today, outside of stablecoins and some core infrastructure, has pivoted to or is pivoting to trading. But if “every crypto company becomes a trading platform,” then where does that leave everyone? Having so many players all doing the same thing cannibalizes mindshare for the many, and leaves just a few big winners. This means those that pivoted too quickly to trading missed the opportunity to build a more defensible, more durable business.

While I have a lot of empathy for all the founders out there trying to make their business financials work, chasing the immediate sense of product-market fit has costs, too. This problem is particularly an issue in crypto, where unique dynamics around tokens and speculation can lead founders down the immediate-gratification path on their journey to finding product-market fit. It’s a kind of marshmallow test, if you will.

There’s nothing wrong with trading — it’s an important market function — but it doesn’t have to be the final destination. The founders who focus on the “product” part of product-market fit may end up the bigger winners.

– Arianna Simpson, a16z crypto general partner

On stablecoins, RWA tokenization, payments, & finance

2. Thinking about tokenization of real-world assets, and stablecoins, in a more crypto-native way

We’ve seen strong interest from banks, fintechs, and asset managers to bring U.S. equities, commodities, indices, and other traditional assets onchain. As more traditional assets come onchain, the tokenization is often skeuomorphic — rooted in the current idea of real-world assets, and not taking advantage of crypto-native features.

But synthetic representations like perpetual futures (perps) allow deeper liquidity and are often simpler to implement. Perps also provide easy-to-understand leverage, so they may be the crypto-native derivative with the