Yat Siu’s Web3 Market Outlook for 2026

Right before the World Economic Forum 2026 (WEF), which brings together, in smallville Davos (Switzerland), the most important world leaders and CEOs, Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, takes a look at the new year and at what it could bring for the Web3 space. Here are his thoughts.

Is Bitcoin still “the” thing in Web3?  

Altcoins could eclipse Bitcoin. Bitcoin has cemented its status as “digital gold”; however, it is the broader altcoin market that represents global innovation and utility. Many people who enter crypto do so through tokens that offer some kind of utility, whether it be in DeFi, gaming tokens, NFTs, etc. This would be somewhat analogous to the current balance of the stock market and gold. There is no company in the world with a market cap even close to that of gold; however, collectively, the global stock market is vastly larger than the total market cap of gold. The growth of the altcoin market in recent years signals that there will be opportunities in already launched tokens (and not just new tokens). This is reminiscent of the post-dotcom era of technology firms, when we saw the re-emergence and strengthening of industry titans following the dotcom crash.

2025 saw some interesting legislative steps-up. What should we expect in 2026? 

Increasing regulatory certainty will trigger further corporate adoption. While the Genius Act (US) provided an initial legal framework for stablecoins, the industry also gained much-needed guidance with the proposed Clarity Act (also in the US), which establishes a framework to define SEC vs CFTC jurisdiction over digital assets. We believe the Clarity Act will pass Congress in 2026 and will trigger a wave of tokenization for many types of companies in the US, both large and small.

Banks and financial institutions are still wanting a piece of the Web3 pie? 

Continued institutional adoption will define the next phase of growth. What started with the introduction of crypto ETFs in recent years will become a full and continued thematic around broad institutional adoption, with RWAs (real world assets) and stablecoins leading the narrative for these groups. RWAs and other financialized assets will provide users with much more democratic access, fulfilling crypto’s promise of greater financial inclusion by enabling faster, better access to financial solutions (for example, crypto wallets for the unbanked).

How do investors see Web3 with this new era? 

The funding cycle has evolved, and a new era of investing in liquid assets has begun. Similar to the years following the dotcom crash, we see a significant and growing opportunity in investing in liquid assets. In Web3, investing in tokens that are already on the market (and already have liquidity) is becoming the norm. This fits the pattern that occurred after the dotcom crash, when companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Netease, Yahoo, eBay and others all became significantly larger in the post-crash period; we will see that pattern repeating.

However, in addition to established Web3 players, major participants will also enter the space, like the Googles and Facebooks of the world. Once upon a time in Web3, most of the opportunity lay in hotly anticipated tokens that were about to launch – this is no longer the case. The situation (and opportunity) is now much more nuanced, and leveraging it requires greater analytical capabilities. Public vehicles in Web3, such as token funds, offer a critical advantage in this evolving funding cycle by providing liquidity while maintaining exposure to long-term growth potential.

Is tokenization still a niche? What’s the best and most perfect application than those inizial branded experiences? 

It’s these, for now: intellectual property, royalties, and advertising inventory. Tokenized RWAs today are fragmented across chains and marketplaces but estimates suggest they could be worth up to US$30 trillion by the coming decade. The adoption of compliant, institutional-grade tokenization frameworks in major jurisdictions, such as the EU’s MiCA regulation, makes RWAs a compelling reason for major banks and asset managers to engage with public blockchains. Crypto (in its various forms) is becoming the asset class of younger generations, similarly to how younger generations were adopters of the Internet and social media. Reaching that audience effectively will require strategies that incorporate tokenization.

Is Web3 ready for a broader audience? 

Web2 users will become Web3 users with blockchain and crypto in the background. Today, digital music has been completely integrated into our lives to the point that we no longer say, “digital music”, “MP3”, etc., we simply call it music. The same will happen with blockchain functionality as it is gradually adopted in the background of the user experience. Modern prediction markets use crypto rails, but it doesn’t matter that they use a blockchain back-end as long as they deliver a service users find appealing.

This practical approach to blockchain adoption provides users with added value and functionality across a wide variety of existing services, such as gaming (in-game assets as NFTs) and access to yield-generating products not normally accessible to end-users (RWAs and stablecoins). Over time, as blockchain technology is integrated and “fades” into the background, traditional users will enter the world of crypto-based services because of the usefulness of services that integrate crypto capabilities (for example, faster payments or digital ownership of virtual goods).

What are the main themes of 2026? 

In 2026 crypto will see a shift in audience emphasis from crypto natives to the crypto curious, and a shift from fun/entertainment to utility and value. Until now, meme-coin launches have been very much targeted at crypto natives and focused on Web3 audiences, making them not particularly appealing to the vast majority of Web2 users. Under the more friendly regulatory framework that is taking shape in the US and around the world, it becomes possible to discuss the value and utility of tokens more directly.

This allows many tokens to openly declare their value proposition, thereby removing the pressure to be “meme-coins” in the first place. The crypto market will benefit because it will be easier to differentiate between tokens meant solely for entertainment and those that aim to deliver more value. With the Clarity Act, which we believe will pass in Congress in 2026, the emphasis on token utility will be far more pronounced, to the detriment of tokens that lack real utility and value (such as traditional meme-coins).

Any suggestion for the Web3 want to be? 

Financial literacy will be king. Crypto adoption is already solving problems related to financial inefficiencies, such as reducing remittance costs, enabling participation in fast-growing opportunities, and improving yield generation. We believe crypto will continue to take deeper root in the financial solutions stacks that affect the broader public, such as student loans and other consumer loans, and (in the future) unsecured credit. The digital financialization of all sectors will increase financial literacy in a way similar to how businesses had to become digitally literate starting in the 1990s, with consumers following en masse.

Tokenization leads to financialization, requiring users to become more financially literate in order to benefit from new opportunities. The trend of tokenization and financialization follows the pattern already observed for digital literacy over the last three decades, in which people with greater digital literacy gained access to significantly greater opportunities. Tokenize or die, in a nutshell: today, companies that do not tokenize their assets to make them more accessible to AI and Web3 liquidity will become less relevant in much the same way that traditional businesses lost to Internet-savvy competitors like Amazon or Steam.