Pantera Capital: What changes have we made as crypto becomes a service?

2026: The Invisible Revolution

Author: Paul Veradittakit, Pantera Capital

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

2026 will be a pivotal year. We will see “cryptocurrency as an industry” completely transform into “cryptocurrency as a service.”

Over the past decade, the crypto world has been full of hype. The approval of Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 brought mainstream financial recognition. In 2025, everyone focused on building the underlying infrastructure. By 2026, true value will belong to companies that use blockchain to solve longstanding problems in traditional industries while making users completely unaware of blockchain’s presence.

The future crypto unicorns will no longer rely on hype to get started. They will be companies that leverage blockchain technology to boost product efficiency by an order of magnitude, unlocking hundreds of billions in market value, while hiding complex technology entirely.

Crypto Tech Wins the “Weekend”

When conflict erupted in Iran, U.S. stock markets closed for the weekend, unable to respond to sudden global risks. But the crypto market didn’t stop—Bitcoin surged to $74,000. Decentralized prediction markets like Hyperliquid led the way in price discovery, even before traditional markets opened. This isn’t an isolated case—last month, when China introduced new policies, the same happened.

Traditional hedge funds are increasingly entering this space. The “7x24 hours nonstop” crypto market is no longer just a slogan but a structural advantage that traditional finance cannot match.

Despite this, the current valuation of the crypto market remains far below what its fundamentals warrant. We are undoubtedly in a bear market (my fourth), but this time is different: regulations are becoming clearer, institutional funds are entering, and infrastructure is improving.

This feeling was especially strong at the recent Hong Kong Consensus conference. The vitality of Asian markets contrasted sharply with the West. Support from both parties’ governments, new institutional entrants, and a focus on consumer applications are fueling strong bullish sentiment.

Asian Highlights in 2026:

• Cross-border payments via stablecoins, especially in B2B sectors. For Asia’s more decentralized economies, crypto payments are a natural choice.

• Tokenization of gold, stocks, and real estate. Asian banks and fintech companies are catching up with the US.

• Perpetual contracts trading on DeFi. Driven by retail traders, growth may surpass that of the West.

• Prediction markets are expected to become an important sector, though their form may differ from Western models.

Core Trend: “Crypto as a Service”

The core theme of 2026 is shifting from “cryptocurrency as an industry” to “cryptocurrency as a service.” The goal is no longer for users to see blockchain but to completely forget its existence.

Over the past decade, we’ve been obsessed with creating “crypto spectacles”—gas fee wars, TPS races, modular stacks, ZK proofs. The 2024 ETF approval was a sign of mainstream recognition. By 2025, infrastructure was laid out. 2026 is the time to turn the page.

Farewell to the “Casino” Era

The next generation of unicorns won’t be those “L3 networks built for AI-NFTs.” Instead, they will be companies that use blockchain to increase product efficiency tenfold while hiding the technology, unlocking hundreds of billions in market value.

This explains our recent investment logic:

Novig: Moving Beyond the “Fee-Extracting” Era ($75M Series B)

Traditional sports betting is a monopolistic, distorted market. Bookmakers take high commissions from each bet, resulting in a user profit rate of only 2%. We led a $75 million funding round for Novig because they treat sports betting as a high-frequency financial product. Through peer-to-peer trading, Novig users achieve an average profit rate of 23%. Most users don’t care about whether the backend uses a decentralized order book—they just want the best odds in the US. This is a vivid example of “crypto as a service.”

Based: Consumer-Grade Super App ($11.5M Series A)

We recently led Based’s Series A. It’s a composable Web3 consumer super app built on the Hyperliquid ecosystem. “Consumer-grade crypto” has often been associated with “clunky experiences.” Based is changing that, making on-chain interactions as smooth as top fintech apps. Complex operations like cross-chain bridging and gas fees are abstracted away, unnoticed by users. They only need to focus on the social and financial value of their assets.

Doppler: Default Asset Issuance Infrastructure ($9M Seed)

If Based and Novig are cool new cars, Doppler is the high-performance fuel system. We led a $9 million seed round for Doppler, aiming to become the default infrastructure for on-chain asset issuance. It enables developers to issue assets with institutional-grade security and compliance standards without building everything from scratch. Doppler is like Stripe for on-chain assets—practical features wrapped in a simple API.

Why “Invisible” Matters More Than “Viral”

This trend of “invisibility” runs throughout our entire portfolio:

• Real-world assets: Tokenized government bonds are no longer just crypto experiments—they are becoming the backbone of global trade liquidity.

• AI agents: Blockchain provides a trusted “truth layer” through prediction markets and verifiable data, enabling AI agents to interact with digital assets autonomously and reliably.

• Agent payments will accelerate all this. Standards like x402 allow AI agents to transact directly with crypto assets, and clearer regulation of stablecoins makes this payment pathway smoother.

Advice for Entrepreneurs

If you’re planning to start a business in 2026, my simple advice is: Stop obsessing over technology and talk more about the real problems you can solve. If your pitch deck’s consensus mechanism slide comes before the customer ROI slide, you’re still thinking in 2022.

We’re looking for teams building the next Novig, Based, or Doppler—those who truly understand what “mass adoption” means: When a technology becomes so seamless that people forget it exists, it has truly entered millions of households.