HashKey Global 2026 Web3 Industry Forecast: The Transformation Path from Fintech to Internet Infrastructure and the Rise of the BNB Ecosystem
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HashKey Global 2026 Web3 Industry Forecast: The Transformation Path from Fintech to Internet Infrastructure and the Rise of the BNB Ecosystem
Web3 has reached the maturity stage of fintech and is transitioning toward internet infrastructure. By 2026, breakthroughs are expected in five major areas: prediction markets, fan economy, machine economy, RWA, and gaming. BNB is poised to surpass ETH, leveraging its ecosystem advantages and yield potential.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsIn November two years ago, we suggested that the development stages of Web3 might be divided in two ways when compared to the history of the internet. The first native internet application, Yahoo, completed its IPO in 1996. We believe that Web3 as fintech has already reached 1999 (with a comparable user base) and already has native applications like stablecoins and DeFi; whereas Web3 as the next-generation internet infrastructure might still be in 1994, about two years away from the explosion of large-scale applications.
A year has passed, and the Web3 industry has continued to advance steadily in all aspects. The most noteworthy development in 2025 is undoubtedly the historic breakthroughs in stablecoin legislation across various countries. Looking ahead to 2026, we are optimistic that Web3 will make progress in at least five application areas: 1) Prediction markets; 2) Fan economy and content creation in entertainment; 3) Machine economy; 4) RWA for collectibles and various value-preserving assets (primarily referring to new business models enabled by C2C transactions supported by a unified global Web3 standard); 5) Social and gaming Web3 games that provide players with truly sustainable Play-to-Earn.
We also believe that in 2026, institutions will continue to be the main driving force of the industry. Web3 is still in its early stages, covering only about 5% of the global population. To reach the remaining 95%, whether in finance or commerce, institutional power is needed in the coming years to implement the shortest commercial paths in various fields. Those who win over institutions will win the market.
For investors focused on Web3 and digital assets, we offer three suggestions:
1) Pay more attention to Web3 compared to the AI industry. Web3 and AI are two sides of the same coin in the digital economy. The upper layer of the digital economy is AI productivity, while the underlying large-scale coordination network can only be Web3. The AI industry receives high attention, while Web3 has more noise, and industry valuations are at a cyclical low. It may be necessary to consciously increase allocation;
2) Capturing Beta is more important than searching for Alpha; buy leading assets and hold them long-term. We especially recommend long-term holdings of three "one of its kind" digital assets: BTC, ETH, and BNB;
3) BNB has the highest ecological efficiency advancement but the lowest institutional holding ratio. Over the next three years, we are relatively most optimistic about BNB.
We have seven views on the industry's development in 2026 for your reference:
1. The ratio of BNB's total market cap to ETH will continue to rise over the next three years, eventually surpassing ETH. We have already launched a prediction on the BitX platform: the BNB/ETH price will rise from the current 0.28 to 0.4 in 2026.
As pointed out in the YZi Labs research report, the BNB ecosystem is the primary provider of liquidity in the global digital asset market. The number of unique addresses on BNB Chain has reached 720 million, while exchange registered users have reached 300 million. The BNB ecosystem is currently the only truly internet-like financial infrastructure. As the core value carrier of the BNB ecosystem, BNB has become the power engine of the entire Web3 and digital economy. In the next decade, all things going on-chain will seek liquidity from the BNB ecosystem, and BNB is becoming the primary pricing benchmark for many digital assets after they go on-chain. We believe BNB will become the biggest beneficiary in the era of everything on-chain.
BNB Chain is the fastest-growing and most vibrant ecosystem in 2025. Here are some numbers:
1) The total number of stablecoin addresses on BNB Chain has surged to 230 million, second only to Tron's 260 million, ranking second and surpassing ETH's 50 million; monthly active stablecoin addresses rank first; daily active addresses are 3.12 million, ranking second only to Solana's 3.6 million, significantly surpassing ETH's 700,000.
2) Although on-chain TVL still lags significantly behind ETH ($6.6 billion vs. $72 billion), the more important metric—DEX trading volume—has consistently ranked first since June this year, surpassing Solana and ETH.
3) In October, BNB Chain's network monthly revenue reached $76 million, surpassing ETH's $64.7 million and Solana's $40.79 million.
The efficiency of the ETH ecosystem's advancement is not high, determined by its unique operational model. We are very optimistic about ETH's long-term value; its neutrality is unique. However, within a timeframe of about three years, we believe BNB can completely surpass ETH's market cap. To what extent the future digital economy needs a fully decentralized Layer 1 network may only be known after the Web3 ecosystem is fully developed and the term "Web3" itself disappears, at which point we can determine ETH's ultimate value. It could be very large, or perhaps not as large as imagined. Having believed in this vision for so many years, we may now need to evaluate it more pragmatically. After all, there are multiple paths to the digital economy, the practical needs of the digital economy are diverse, and technical solutions always involve compromises, trade-offs, and balances. How value will materialize in the future and on which infrastructures requires us to observe more objectively.
ETH's price rebound in 2025 mainly came from purchases by various DAT companies. We believe that although ETH's fundamentals are continuously improving, based on the current development stage of the Web3 industry and the actual situation of its on-chain revenue, its valuation is not low. The holdings of many DAT companies may become a resistance to sustained price increases in the future. After the mNAV premium of some DAT companies disappeared, they have already begun an unwinding process. In contrast, BNB is the only top-ten digital asset supported by scaled external ecosystem revenue. Holding BNB in 2025, just calculating Launchpool收益 yields 13.3%, and ecosystem buyback and burn destroyed about 6 million BNB, approximately 4.2%, totaling 17.5%. This high return comes from BNB's monopolistic ecological position in the industry and the BNB team's continuous construction and exploration over more than eight years. BNB is organically bound to every aspect of the BNB ecosystem, fully realizing the alignment of interests among all ecosystem participants and near-perfect value capture. BNB's current institutional holding ratio is only 0.4%, while ETH's exceeds 9%. Therefore, we tell traditional institutional investors, "Current BNB is like Moutai in 2004; only retail investors who enjoy drinking Moutai know how fragrant it is. It's time to buy Moutai stock and drink Moutai."
2. The low-risk returns brought by the high efficiency of on-chain financial ecosystems are expected to be rapidly promoted to Web2 C-end users through app stores and traditional financial channels, achieving a commercial transformation from "geek financial tools" to "financial products for the general public's savings."
With the gradual improvement of fiat-to-stablecoin bidirectional exchange infrastructure, there are two scenarios we believe have completed proof-of-concept and can be scaled up first:
1) Risk-controlled on-chain收益 distribution围绕 stablecoins. We anticipate the emergence of a batch of mobile applications targeting user profiles in different countries and regions, focusing on "fool-proof" services, packaging various DeFi protocols as "liquid money management" products entering the traditional consumer-grade wealth management market. Chainbase, which we have invested in, is building such products (currently in closed beta,敬请期待);
2)币本位收益 distribution围绕 centralized platforms, allowing off-chain investors to also gain on-chain ecosystem收益. The "exchange launchpool" provided by BNB is a typical example of off-chain investment while obtaining stable Web3 ecosystem收益. The BNB收益 Fund we co-operate with YZi Labs is designed based on this. We aim to help traditional off-chain investors share in the收益 of Web3's largest financial ecosystem in the most convenient, secure, and low-cost way. Such examples will become increasingly common.
3. Prediction markets will率先 become a breakout Web3 native product, much like Yahoo back in the day. Prediction market products have several characteristics:
1) Crypto-native, able to fully leverage Web3 technical特性;
2) Possess discovery functionality for the value of消息 and events;
3) Have social传播 attributes,符合年轻人使用习惯.
Prediction market products have high extensibility and are the main presentation form of future information finance. 2026 is a World Cup year, and we look forward to seeing the emergence of UGC prediction market products. These products will allow users to create their own topics, have stronger social attributes, and also need to incorporate internet product operation thinking, which is precisely an area where Chinese Web3 entrepreneurs excel. BitX, in which we have participated in investment, is one such example.
4. Web3 will see商业模式 sustainable products in the fields of fan economy, IP, and content creation.
Such projects will combine Web3's technical特性,展开 from areas requiring global or cross-regional operations; especially those needing to establish long-term, credible mechanisms for利益分配. The entertainment industry has a large user base and influence, yet faces many pain points in value distribution models. We are optimistic about the化学反应 between the industry with the greatest influence (entertainment, culture, sports) and the most efficient capital infrastructure (Web3).资深互联网产品经理梁宁 said internet product value has three types: functional value, emotional value, and asset value. We believe Web3 can achieve all three types well, whereas Web2 can only achieve functional value and partial emotional value. The Meet48 team说要 create cultural products that realize process value, not just outcome value. Web3 can perfectly achieve process value.
AI technology has already率先 achieved a true value闭环 in content creation (e.g.,漫画 adaptation). We believe that because network-based technologies need to cross a user threshold, Web3 may lag behind AI in completing the商业闭环 by 1-2 years, but will also see entirely new business models emerge较早 in this field.
We have already made investments in IP, music, performances, live streaming, and other areas. We are assisting these project teams in思考 how to use Web3 technology to build a unified global fan system, apply Web3 for payment, acquiring, and distribution, and exploring whether Web3 can assist流量分发 and realize data value, etc. In 2026, we look forward to seeing the emergence of fan-co-created IP business models built on Web3 technology. We really like the term used by Acemeta founder Shawn: Fanvestment.
5. Machine economy completes its初步 economic闭环.
Arkreen founder Leo proposed "everything is an economy." We have always been optimistic about the combination of IoT and blockchain technology, believing that Web3 and AI can ultimately help IoT achieve a value闭环 like mobile internet, creating a machine economy with无限成长空间.
Compared to the first wave of尝试 by Helium in 2019 and the second wave of DePin in 2022, the third wave of machine economy in 2026 will focus on the feasibility of business models, no longer一味 emphasizing building various "infrastructures" that need to find demand through代币激励.
Over the past few years, we have seen many such projects fall into economic traps. "Infrastructure construction" became an excuse for代币发行, and "builders" were often mainly羊毛党;脱离 actual demand,商业逻辑混乱. The model of infrastructure first, demand later has been largely disproven. We have learned that the formation of good business models still requires specific market demand as a constraint. Users and scenarios first, then叠加代币激励, can possibly发挥 Web3's large-scale coordination network的作用.
The machine economy will be initiated by一个个 actual demand ends,依托 increasingly mature Web3 technology,叠加 the wave of stablecoin development,同时结合 AI-driven intelligence of machines and IoT devices, using open methods to achieve利益分配 within a global machine economy ecosystem, thereby completing the value闭环. We might see users in Hong Kong委托 the deployment of a power bank in Africa and receive收益分配; friends in Europe can participate in the投放 of a Robotaxi in the Middle East.
China possesses得天独厚的先天优势 in the development of the entire machine economy ecosystem. When each machine and IoT device leaves Chinese factories, they no longer just have networking capabilities; they can have on-chain identities, wallets, and accounts through the device's IoT modules. They are一个个 independent entities with financial capabilities. This is the伟大的 first step for the machine economy. The machine economy needs AI, but even more so, it needs Web3.
6. RWA告别喧嚣和各种 POC,进入务实落地阶段.
Asset parties are beginning to思考 what problems going on-chain actually solves: gaining global liquidity? Enabling抵押融资? Connecting with on-chain DeFi protocols? Enhancing cross-border融资能力? We have already seen RWA exchanges like DigiFt (https://www.digift.io/) moving various financial assets such as货币基金, bonds, stocks, funds, carbon credits, etc., onto the chain,推进速度很快. For these already highly liquid financial标品, RWA is upgrading their underlying trading infrastructure.
We are optimistic about the long-term potential of these financial innovations but also recognize that finance is a强监管 and深水区. Putting financial类 assets on-chain requires碰撞磨合 with existing regulatory policies and the established利益分配格局 of financial markets, facing较大短期阻力. Entrepreneurship in the financial field often requires处理好 adaptation to existing regulations and balancing安全 and效益, which is难度较高. General创业团队 find it difficult to build long-term competitive advantages against traditional large financial institutions, which are often just waiting for a better entry时机.
In contrast, we are more optimistic about the use of Web3's RWA technology in the商品贸易领域 to promote C2C转让和交易 of collectibles and various value-preserving assets (especially跨境), thereby激发拥有更大经济体量的全新商业模式. This type of RWA targets增量市场, aiming at the薄弱环节 of traditional internet giants' original models. Once issues like off-chain保管 and物流 are solved, Web3 can greatly enhance C-end users'收藏积极性 and交易量 between users,同时带来额外的情绪价值. In these scenarios, off-chain商业逻辑 is often more important than the new technology itself. Projects in this领域 like Tatto Wine红酒项目 (https://tattoowine.com/) and Renaiss卡牌及收藏品 RWA基建项目 (https://www.renaiss.xyz) are actively尝试. We tend to believe that compared to the financial领域,创业团队, especially those with丰富行业经验, have a better chance of succeeding in these垂直场景.
7. Web3 games may see another wave of meaningful尝试 in the细分赛道 of social博弈类 games.
These games are首先 fun on the first dimension, then feature Play-to-Earn brought by Web3 technology. Their models rely on sufficient external经济收入 and合理的生态利益分配模式 to become健康并可持续. Such games can obtain正向外部经济输入 from several aspects:
1) Using Web3's特有的传播模式, saving a large portion of the流量成本 originally投放 on Web2 platforms;
2) More precise划分 of game users and赋予 them different value. Users追求情绪价值和资产价值 can长期健康共存 within one Web3生态;
3) Using gamification to赋能 existing IP. Through社区共建, generating新增价值 for IP, which can effectively反馈生态;
4) More precise点对点和个性化的广告.
These four types of外部价值 will enable a Web3 game to become a truly "money-making" and sustainable生态,不再沦为一个不可持续的旁氏. The design of生态代币 will also be more合理 than the previous generation. We look forward to seeing the emergence of such games.
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