Gate Ventures' latest 2026 outlook identifies five emerging frontiers that are rapidly reshaping the industry landscape and leading the next phase of Web3 development. First, on-chain market "real-time information aggregation layers" are rapidly emerging, becoming core intelligence infrastructure integrating fragmented data and liquidity. Second, decentralized payment and foreign exchange settlement networks are replacing traditional neobanks, enabling cross-border, real-time, and borderless value settlement. Third, with the accelerated proliferation of autonomous robots, "machine-native" financial systems are taking shape, enabling robots to collaborate and trade on-chain. Fourth, institutional DeFi is moving towards an integrated "meta-yield" platform, building a unified yield and risk engine by integrating diverse on-chain yield sources. Fifth, the crypto mining industry is transforming into a provider of distributed computing power and energy infrastructure for the AI era, becoming a crucial component of high-performance computing and energy networks. Gate Ventures states that these trends collectively indicate a structural transformation in global value flows, computing power scheduling, and intelligent system collaboration, while also demonstrating that more and more crypto and ecosystem companies are accelerating their move into public capital markets to expand pre-IPO investment channels. The crypto industry will reach a significant turning point in 2026: after more than a decade of infrastructure development, Web3 is deeply intersecting with the world's fastest-growing industrial sectors. The coming year will be driven by entirely new demand, not minor improvements: on-chain real-time information aggregators will become the intelligent foundation of the crypto market; borderless payments and FX networks will replace older fintech infrastructure; autonomous robots will collaborate and trade on-chain through machine-native financial systems; institutional-grade DeFi will integrate into a unified risk and return engine; and miners will evolve into globally distributed AI computing power and energy providers. Gate Ventures looks forward to connecting with more outstanding teams for projects that are deeply involved in the aforementioned areas. Relevant teams can contact Gate Ventures through the X platform @gate_ventures, or send project proposals to [email protected]. 1. Real-time information aggregation layer of on-chain market A new type of on-chain "information aggregator" is becoming one of the most critical foundational layers of Web3. With the surge in on-chain activity, prediction markets, governance data, social dynamics, transaction flows, and AI signals are constantly being generated on platforms such as Polymarket, Hyperliquid, Kalshi, and Hedgehog, and across multiple chains. The question is no longer whether there is data, but how to understand it. Each platform generates its own set of probabilities, incentives, and narratives, but this information is not aligned and cannot form a unified view. The next key breakthrough will come from infrastructure capable of integrating these signals and transforming them into a clear and consistent panorama. These aggregators are capable of much more than just presenting charts. They can ingest fragmented event data, standardize probabilities and sentiment from different sources, merge on-chain telemetry data with social context, and transform scattered activity into clear insights that traders, institutions, DAOs, enterprises, and automated systems can directly use. This transformation is similar to Bloomberg's role in traditional markets, organizing chaotic information into truly actionable intelligence. This has become increasingly important with the rise of AI agents. Intelligent agents need clean, structured, real-time data to manage risk, allocate liquidity, respond to events, and execute strategies without human supervision. As autonomous systems begin to enter the market, the need for "integrated intelligent information flows"—a capability that simplifies the entire information landscape—will become inevitable. By 2026, the most competitive platforms in this field will be those infrastructures capable of massively integrating decentralized information and providing rapid and interpretable intelligence. In an era of overwhelming noise, the ability to unify and interpret various signals will be the most critical advantage and one of the most undervalued opportunities in the Web3 space. 2. New types of banks, borderless payment infrastructure, and on-chain foreign exchange settlement While neobanks have improved the user experience, they remain constrained by traditional financial infrastructure such as ACH, SWIFT, card networks, correspondent banking systems, and custodial payment service providers (PSPs). These systems are essentially designed for human users and office hours, not for machines, global commerce, or real-time settlements. In contrast, blockchain networks now enable borderless, 24/7 value transfers globally. Stablecoins are becoming global settlement assets, while decentralized liquidity layers and smart contract routers provide continuously programmable foreign exchange conversions between currencies such as USDC, EURC, and JPY-denominated stablecoins. This opens the door to a completely new financial architecture, allowing payments and foreign exchange to flow as freely as data. Businesses can automate cross-border payroll, invoicing, treasury management, and hedging operations; merchants can price in one currency but settle in another instantly; machines can complete transactions autonomously without bank accounts. As an open, permissionless system, this type of network is becoming a universal settlement layer connecting real-world commerce with the on-chain economy—not a replica of a new type of bank, but a payment and foreign exchange infrastructure that traditional fintech can never provide. 3. Robotic infrastructure and machine-native financial networks The Web2 era of AI and robotics is rapidly evolving, with companies like 1X, Figure, Skild, and Unitree making significant progress, and investment in Physical AI continuing to grow. As robots transition from scripted machines to embodied autonomous agents, a critical gap is emerging: different manufacturers and models cannot communicate or collaborate through a unified, neutral layer. This has created a demand for an open, cross-device operating layer, which is precisely what Web3 can provide. On-chain identity (DID) enables robots to self-identify without vendor dependence; smart contract registries allow them to publish their functions, status, and telemetry data; and immutable logs provide verifiable accountability for robot behavior. Smart contracts can also coordinate tasks and workflows across multi-vendor robot clusters, providing an interoperability foundation lacking in current traditional robot software stacks. Autonomous robots require a machine-native financial system to pay for electricity, data, computing power, and services, but the traditional financial system is completely ineffective for them: robots cannot open accounts, pass KYC (Know Your Customer) checks, or use human-centric payment networks. Web3 empowers robots with direct economic capabilities, enabling autonomous settlement without intermediaries through wallets, signatures, and global micropayments. Blockchain provides instant, low-cost settlement capabilities, while standards like x402 allow agents to automatically pay access or service fees. Smart contracts further provide escrow, conditional payments, insurance, and credit systems, constructing a programmable, borderless financial layer designed specifically for machine-to-machine transactions. In this system, cryptocurrency is no longer an add-on but the only viable settlement infrastructure supporting the autonomous robot ecosystem. 4. The Rise of Institutional-Grade DeFi and Meta-Yield Platforms The new generation of platforms integrates perpetual contracts with the lending market and strategy vaults, allowing collateral to generate continuous returns while supporting leveraged positions; and the shared margin system that runs through spot, perpetual and options markets gradually transforms these platforms into 24/7 multi-asset prime brokers. However, at the underlying structure, on-chain returns remain dispersed across various sources, including: staking and restaking rewards, perpetual contract funding fees and basis, MEV and order flow returns, market-making fees and impermanent loss, stablecoin and FX basis, RWA and off-chain net asset value differences, and liquidity premiums in prediction markets and InfoFi markets. The key opportunity in 2026 lies in treating these return sources as composable "return atoms" and encapsulating them into meta-return products. Aggregation strategies can integrate market structure returns (funding fees, basis, MEV, FX spreads), layering hedging and arbitrage on top of basic returns, and using prediction markets and AI agents as dynamic configuration signals. Ultimately, this transforms fragmented returns into structured, transparent on-chain fixed-income products, upgrading CeDeFi platforms from single trading venues into complete return and risk engines. 5. Crypto miners act as distributed AI computing power and energy providers. With the rapid development of AI, its energy demand is surging, while existing power supply capacity is struggling to keep up. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data center power consumption is projected to more than double from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh in 2030, accounting for 2.5%–3% of total global electricity consumption. However, new power supply is often constrained by complex grid connection procedures, stringent site selection requirements, and lengthy construction and approval cycles. The imbalance between energy supply and computing power demand has become a new pain point in the AI era. Against this backdrop, crypto mining companies with abundant energy reserves and efficient electricity cost models accumulated over the past decade are becoming increasingly attractive. These miners typically hold existing power supply licenses, have signed long-term, low-cost power contracts, and possess mature infrastructure including substations, cooling systems, and emergency response mechanisms. Furthermore, switching equipment from cryptocurrency mining to handling AI computing loads is technically relatively simple. Therefore, in 2025, the stock prices of several major mining companies, including IREN Limited, Core Scientific, and Hut 8, reached new highs after strategically expanding into high-performance computing (HPC) and AI cloud services. It's worth noting that most of these mining operations are located in North America. Mining companies located in the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the world, undergoing similar transformations, still possess considerable growth potential and room for valuation appreciation. These five cutting-edge themes—real-time information aggregators driving on-chain markets, borderless payment and foreign exchange infrastructure, machine-native bot networks, institutional-grade meta-revenue systems, and crypto miners transforming into AI computing providers—collectively outline the path for Web3 to evolve into a "general coordination and computing layer" in the AI-driven economy. Meanwhile, an increasing number of ecosystem companies are achieving substantial revenue and maturing in regulatory compliance, enabling them to access public capital markets through IPOs, De-SPACs, and mergers and acquisitions. As the industry moves into 2026, the true leaders will be the teams building products at key intersections where blockchain demonstrates structural advantages in liquidity, computing power, collaboration, and settlement. With these forces converging, Gate Ventures believes the coming year could be one of the most transformative in crypto history, unlocking a new generation of investable opportunities for entrepreneurs, institutions, and users worldwide. About Gate Ventures Gate Ventures is the venture capital arm of Gate.com, focusing on decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications, and dedicated to driving global innovation and transformation in the Web 3.0 era. Gate Ventures works closely with global industry leaders to support teams and startups with innovative visions and technological capabilities, helping them reshape the way we interact with society and finance in the future. Website | Twitter | Medium | LinkedIn Disclaimer: This content does not constitute an offer, solicitation, or investment advice of any kind. You should seek independent professional advice before making any investment decisions. Please note that Gate Ventures may restrict or prohibit users in certain regions from using some or all of the services. Please refer to its applicable user agreement for details. Gate Ventures' latest 2026 outlook identifies five emerging frontiers that are rapidly reshaping the industry landscape and leading the next phase of Web3 development. First, on-chain market "real-time information aggregation layers" are rapidly emerging, becoming core intelligence infrastructure integrating fragmented data and liquidity. Second, decentralized payment and foreign exchange settlement networks are replacing traditional neobanks, enabling cross-border, real-time, and borderless value settlement. Third, with the accelerated proliferation of autonomous robots, "machine-native" financial systems are taking shape, enabling robots to collaborate and trade on-chain. Fourth, institutional DeFi is moving towards an integrated "meta-yield" platform, building a unified yield and risk engine by integrating diverse on-chain yield sources. Fifth, the crypto mining industry is transforming into a provider of distributed computing power and energy infrastructure for the AI era, becoming a crucial component of high-performance computing and energy networks. Gate Ventures states that these trends collectively indicate a structural transformation in global value flows, computing power scheduling, and intelligent system collaboration, while also demonstrating that more and more crypto and ecosystem companies are accelerating their move into public capital markets to expand pre-IPO investment channels. The crypto industry will reach a significant turning point in 2026: after more than a decade of infrastructure development, Web3 is deeply intersecting with the world's fastest-growing industrial sectors. The coming year will be driven by entirely new demand, not minor improvements: on-chain real-time information aggregators will become the intelligent foundation of the crypto market; borderless payments and FX networks will replace older fintech infrastructure; autonomous robots will collaborate and trade on-chain through machine-native financial systems; institutional-grade DeFi will integrate into a unified risk and return engine; and miners will evolve into globally distributed AI computing power and energy providers. Gate Ventures looks forward to connecting with more outstanding teams for projects that are deeply involved in the aforementioned areas. Relevant teams can contact Gate Ventures through the X platform @gate_ventures, or send project proposals to [email protected]. 1. Real-time information aggregation layer of on-chain market A new type of on-chain "information aggregator" is becoming one of the most critical foundational layers of Web3. With the surge in on-chain activity, prediction markets, governance data, social dynamics, transaction flows, and AI signals are constantly being generated on platforms such as Polymarket, Hyperliquid, Kalshi, and Hedgehog, and across multiple chains. The question is no longer whether there is data, but how to understand it. Each platform generates its own set of probabilities, incentives, and narratives, but this information is not aligned and cannot form a unified view. The next key breakthrough will come from infrastructure capable of integrating these signals and transforming them into a clear and consistent panorama. These aggregators are capable of much more than just presenting charts. They can ingest fragmented event data, standardize probabilities and sentiment from different sources, merge on-chain telemetry data with social context, and transform scattered activity into clear insights that traders, institutions, DAOs, enterprises, and automated systems can directly use. This transformation is similar to Bloomberg's role in traditional markets, organizing chaotic information into truly actionable intelligence. This has become increasingly important with the rise of AI agents. Intelligent agents need clean, structured, real-time data to manage risk, allocate liquidity, respond to events, and execute strategies without human supervision. As autonomous systems begin to enter the market, the need for "integrated intelligent information flows"—a capability that simplifies the entire information landscape—will become inevitable. By 2026, the most competitive platforms in this field will be those infrastructures capable of massively integrating decentralized information and providing rapid and interpretable intelligence. In an era of overwhelming noise, the ability to unify and interpret various signals will be the most critical advantage and one of the most undervalued opportunities in the Web3 space. 2. New types of banks, borderless payment infrastructure, and on-chain foreign exchange settlement While neobanks have improved the user experience, they remain constrained by traditional financial infrastructure such as ACH, SWIFT, card networks, correspondent banking systems, and custodial payment service providers (PSPs). These systems are essentially designed for human users and office hours, not for machines, global commerce, or real-time settlements. In contrast, blockchain networks now enable borderless, 24/7 value transfers globally. Stablecoins are becoming global settlement assets, while decentralized liquidity layers and smart contract routers provide continuously programmable foreign exchange conversions between currencies such as USDC, EURC, and JPY-denominated stablecoins. This opens the door to a completely new financial architecture, allowing payments and foreign exchange to flow as freely as data. Businesses can automate cross-border payroll, invoicing, treasury management, and hedging operations; merchants can price in one currency but settle in another instantly; machines can complete transactions autonomously without bank accounts. As an open, permissionless system, this type of network is becoming a universal settlement layer connecting real-world commerce with the on-chain economy—not a replica of a new type of bank, but a payment and foreign exchange infrastructure that traditional fintech can never provide. 3. Robotic infrastructure and machine-native financial networks The Web2 era of AI and robotics is rapidly evolving, with companies like 1X, Figure, Skild, and Unitree making significant progress, and investment in Physical AI continuing to grow. As robots transition from scripted machines to embodied autonomous agents, a critical gap is emerging: different manufacturers and models cannot communicate or collaborate through a unified, neutral layer. This has created a demand for an open, cross-device operating layer, which is precisely what Web3 can provide. On-chain identity (DID) enables robots to self-identify without vendor dependence; smart contract registries allow them to publish their functions, status, and telemetry data; and immutable logs provide verifiable accountability for robot behavior. Smart contracts can also coordinate tasks and workflows across multi-vendor robot clusters, providing an interoperability foundation lacking in current traditional robot software stacks. Autonomous robots require a machine-native financial system to pay for electricity, data, computing power, and services, but the traditional financial system is completely ineffective for them: robots cannot open accounts, pass KYC (Know Your Customer) checks, or use human-centric payment networks. Web3 empowers robots with direct economic capabilities, enabling autonomous settlement without intermediaries through wallets, signatures, and global micropayments. Blockchain provides instant, low-cost settlement capabilities, while standards like x402 allow agents to automatically pay access or service fees. Smart contracts further provide escrow, conditional payments, insurance, and credit systems, constructing a programmable, borderless financial layer designed specifically for machine-to-machine transactions. In this system, cryptocurrency is no longer an add-on but the only viable settlement infrastructure supporting the autonomous robot ecosystem. 4. The Rise of Institutional-Grade DeFi and Meta-Yield Platforms The new generation of platforms integrates perpetual contracts with the lending market and strategy vaults, allowing collateral to generate continuous returns while supporting leveraged positions; and the shared margin system that runs through spot, perpetual and options markets gradually transforms these platforms into 24/7 multi-asset prime brokers. However, at the underlying structure, on-chain returns remain dispersed across various sources, including: staking and restaking rewards, perpetual contract funding fees and basis, MEV and order flow returns, market-making fees and impermanent loss, stablecoin and FX basis, RWA and off-chain net asset value differences, and liquidity premiums in prediction markets and InfoFi markets. The key opportunity in 2026 lies in treating these return sources as composable "return atoms" and encapsulating them into meta-return products. Aggregation strategies can integrate market structure returns (funding fees, basis, MEV, FX spreads), layering hedging and arbitrage on top of basic returns, and using prediction markets and AI agents as dynamic configuration signals. Ultimately, this transforms fragmented returns into structured, transparent on-chain fixed-income products, upgrading CeDeFi platforms from single trading venues into complete return and risk engines. 5. Crypto miners act as distributed AI computing power and energy providers. With the rapid development of AI, its energy demand is surging, while existing power supply capacity is struggling to keep up. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data center power consumption is projected to more than double from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh in 2030, accounting for 2.5%–3% of total global electricity consumption. However, new power supply is often constrained by complex grid connection procedures, stringent site selection requirements, and lengthy construction and approval cycles. The imbalance between energy supply and computing power demand has become a new pain point in the AI era. Against this backdrop, crypto mining companies with abundant energy reserves and efficient electricity cost models accumulated over the past decade are becoming increasingly attractive. These miners typically hold existing power supply licenses, have signed long-term, low-cost power contracts, and possess mature infrastructure including substations, cooling systems, and emergency response mechanisms. Furthermore, switching equipment from cryptocurrency mining to handling AI computing loads is technically relatively simple. Therefore, in 2025, the stock prices of several major mining companies, including IREN Limited, Core Scientific, and Hut 8, reached new highs after strategically expanding into high-performance computing (HPC) and AI cloud services. It's worth noting that most of these mining operations are located in North America. Mining companies located in the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the world, undergoing similar transformations, still possess considerable growth potential and room for valuation appreciation. These five cutting-edge themes—real-time information aggregators driving on-chain markets, borderless payment and foreign exchange infrastructure, machine-native bot networks, institutional-grade meta-revenue systems, and crypto miners transforming into AI computing providers—collectively outline the path for Web3 to evolve into a "general coordination and computing layer" in the AI-driven economy. Meanwhile, an increasing number of ecosystem companies are achieving substantial revenue and maturing in regulatory compliance, enabling them to access public capital markets through IPOs, De-SPACs, and mergers and acquisitions. As the industry moves into 2026, the true leaders will be the teams building products at key intersections where blockchain demonstrates structural advantages in liquidity, computing power, collaboration, and settlement. With these forces converging, Gate Ventures believes the coming year could be one of the most transformative in crypto history, unlocking a new generation of investable opportunities for entrepreneurs, institutions, and users worldwide. About Gate Ventures Gate Ventures is the venture capital arm of Gate.com, focusing on decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications, and dedicated to driving global innovation and transformation in the Web 3.0 era. Gate Ventures works closely with global industry leaders to support teams and startups with innovative visions and technological capabilities, helping them reshape the way we interact with society and finance in the future. Website | Twitter | Medium | LinkedIn Disclaimer: This content does not constitute an offer, solicitation, or investment advice of any kind. You should seek independent professional advice before making any investment decisions. Please note that Gate Ventures may restrict or prohibit users in certain regions from using some or all of the services. Please refer to its applicable user agreement for details.