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

Original Title: 2026: The Invisible Revolution

Original Author: Paul Veradittakit, Pantera Capital

Original Compilation: 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 those that leverage blockchain technology to boost product efficiency by an order of magnitude, unlocking hundred-billion-dollar markets, and hiding complex technology entirely.

Crypto Tech Wins the “Weekend”

When the Iran conflict erupted, 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 is not an isolated case—last month, when China announced 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.

Nevertheless, 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 completely different: regulations are becoming clearer, institutional funds are entering, and infrastructure is improving rapidly.

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

Key points for Asia in 2026:

· Cross-border payments via stablecoins, especially in B2B. 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 on DeFi. Driven by retail traders, development may outpace 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 main theme of 2026 is shifting from “crypto as an industry” to “crypto 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.” They will be companies that use blockchain to boost product efficiency tenfold while hiding the technology entirely, unlocking trillion-dollar markets.

This perfectly 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 Novig’s $75 million funding 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 decentralized order books—they just know they can get 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 Hyperliquid’s 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 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 Doppler’s $9 million seed round, 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, through prediction markets and verifiable data, provides AI agents with a trusted “truth layer,” enabling autonomous and trustworthy interactions with digital assets.

· Agent payments will accelerate all this. Standards like x402 allow AI agents to transact directly with crypto assets. Gradually clearer regulation of stablecoins makes this payment track smoother.

Advice for Entrepreneurs

If you’re planning to start up 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 page on consensus mechanisms comes before the one on customer returns, 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.