São Paulo-based crypto change Mercado Bitcoin (MB), one of many largest buying and selling platforms in Latin America, has launched a report outlining six key tendencies anticipated to outline the crypto market in 2026.
The report factors to the numerous enlargement of stablecoins, tokenization, altcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and AI-driven buying and selling as key components shaping the subsequent part of the trade.
Adjustments within the ratio of Bitcoin and gold
MB estimates Bitcoin as BTC$90,566.73 It may attain 14% of gold’s market capitalization by the tip of 2026. That ratio is at present 5.65%, which implies, all else being equal, the worth of Bitcoin will greater than double.
The report notes Bitcoin’s rising position as a retailer of worth, particularly in comparison with gold, which faces logistical challenges concerning transportation and storage. The corporate stated the cryptocurrency’s adoption by institutional buyers, who’ve amassed greater than 1.09 million Bitcoins so far, exhibits that Bitcoin is now not a distinct segment asset.
Bitcoin’s digital, borderless, and self-custodial nature has helped it entice curiosity from buyers on the lookout for an alternative choice to conventional secure belongings, the report added.
MB added that the 14% determine will not be a guess, however the results of an analysis methodology developed in collaboration with researchers on the College of California (UCLA).
“The Bitcoin Valuation Framework makes use of, amongst different methods, the Complete Addressable Market (TAM) strategy to estimate the theoretical worth of Bitcoin,” the report stated. “As an alternative of imposing conventional money movement fashions on monetary belongings, we begin with the worldwide retailer of worth market, use gold as the first benchmark, and predict what portion of this market Bitcoin will seize below completely different adoption eventualities.”
The agency’s analysts wrote that the framework results in a base case wherein Bitcoin reaches 14% of gold’s market capitalization this 12 months.
Stablecoins enhance to five trillion
MB predicts that the stablecoin sector, which already types the core of crypto infrastructure, will develop to achieve a market capitalization of $500 billion by 2026. It will partially outpace the expansion of stablecoins that aren’t depending on the US greenback.
Based on MB, stablecoins have advanced from transaction instruments to fee strategies throughout nations and sectors. “[Stablecoins]play an necessary position as a supply of liquidity for the sector, facilitating the short and safe motion of sources with out publicity to the volatility of different digital belongings,” the report provides.
The corporate notes that in 2025, stablecoin market capitalization elevated by practically 50% year-over-year, a pattern the corporate attributes to rising adoption and regulatory readability, significantly in america.
Based on knowledge from DeFiLlama, the stablecoin sector is at present price $307 billion, with Tether’s USDT accounting for 60.5% of that. It began at about $205 billion in 2025.
Altcoin ETFs stand out
Funds tied to altcoins like XRP, Solana, and Chainlink started attracting capital after U.S. regulators started approving ETFs for crypto belongings apart from Bitcoin and Ether in late 2025.
The XRP ETF alone at present manages about $1.47 billion in belongings, with the Solana ETF including one other $1.09 billion, based on SoSoValue knowledge. MB expects this market section to develop to no less than $10 billion by the tip of 2026, with XRP and SOL accounting for about 80% of recent inflows.
This evaluation considers altcoin ETFs that don’t embody Bitcoin or Ether and are listed on regulated markets.
Tokenized asset market triples
The worldwide quantity of tokenized real-world belongings is anticipated to extend by 200% to over $54 billion.
In 2025, MB argued that this development was made potential by regulatory advances throughout key markets. The European Union has allowed a considerable amount of tokenized transactions on permissioned blockchains, whereas america has acknowledged blockchain-based data of asset transfers.
Main institutional buyers similar to BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and WisdomTree are launching their very own tokenized funds, whereas others are additionally beginning to contemplate the potential for launching one.
MB factors to those developments as proof that tokenization is changing into a viable path to bringing conventional belongings into blockchain-based techniques, growing effectivity and accessibility for each issuers and buyers.
Prediction market expands 25 instances
The report highlights prediction markets similar to Polymarket and Kalshi because the quickest rising section within the crypto area. These platforms enable customers to commerce the chances of future occasions, similar to election or sports activities outcomes.
MB predicts that the capital locked up in these markets may attain $20 billion by the tip of 2026, from a present estimate of lower than $1 billion.
The report attributes this enlargement to world occasions such because the 2026 World Cup and presidential elections in main nations, in addition to the rise of prediction markets associated to leisure and climate-related eventualities.
For MB analysts, the peer-to-peer mannequin of those markets and aligned incentives between customers and platforms may even contribute to development.
AI-powered brokers drive on-chain exercise
MB additionally expects AI brokers built-in into blockchain to play a bigger position within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
These brokers are designed to make autonomous selections and execute transactions, and are starting to leverage new expertise requirements similar to x402 and ERC-8004 to satisfy calls for for transparency, traceability, and micropayments.
The report estimates that the transaction worth of those AI brokers will exceed $1 million per day by 2026, a fourfold enhance from present ranges.
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