Gate Ventures Vision 2026: Five Cutting-Edge Forces Reshaping the Global Landscape of Value, Computing Power, and Intelligence Flow

Gate Ventures’ latest 2026 outlook highlights five emerging frontier sectors that are rapidly reshaping the industry landscape and leading the next phase of Web3 development. First, the on-chain market “real-time information aggregation layer” is quickly emerging as the core intelligence infrastructure for integrating fragmented data and liquidity. Second, decentralized payment and FX settlement networks are replacing traditional neobanks, enabling cross-border, real-time, and borderless value settlement. Third, as autonomous robots become more widespread, “machine-native” financial systems are beginning to take shape, allowing robots to collaborate and transact on-chain. Fourth, institutional-grade DeFi is moving toward “meta-yield” integrated platforms, building unified yield and risk engines by aggregating diversified on-chain yield sources. Fifth, crypto mining is transforming into distributed computing power and energy infrastructure providers for the AI era, becoming an important part of high-performance computing and energy networks. Gate Ventures states that these trends collectively signal a structural transformation in global value flows, computing power scheduling, and intelligent systems collaboration. At the same time, more crypto and ecosystem companies are accelerating their move toward public capital markets, expanding Pre-IPO investment channels.

The crypto industry will reach a critical inflection point in 2026: after more than a decade of infrastructure build-out, Web3 is now deeply intersecting with the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy. The coming year will be driven by entirely new demand, not incremental improvements: on-chain real-time information aggregators will become the intelligent foundation of crypto markets; borderless payment and FX networks will replace legacy fintech infrastructure; autonomous robots will collaborate and transact on-chain through machine-native financial systems; institutional-grade DeFi will integrate into unified risk and yield engines; miners will evolve into global distributed AI computing and energy providers.

For projects deeply involved in these areas, Gate Ventures looks forward to connecting with more outstanding teams.

Relevant teams can contact Gate Ventures via X platform @gate_ventures or send project proposals to ventures@gate.com

Real-Time Information Aggregation Layer for On-Chain Markets

A new class of on-chain “information aggregators” is becoming one of the most critical foundational layers for Web3. As on-chain activity surges, prediction markets, governance data, social dynamics, trading flows, and AI signals are continuously generated across platforms like Polymarket, Hyperliquid, Kalshi, Hedgehog, and multiple blockchains. The challenge is no longer whether data exists, but how to interpret it. Each platform produces 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, consistent panoramic picture.

These aggregators go far beyond chart presentation. They ingest fragmented event data, standardize probabilities and sentiment from different sources, fuse on-chain telemetry with social context, and convert scattered activity into actionable insights for traders, institutions, DAOs, enterprises, and automated systems alike. This shift is akin to what Bloomberg did for traditional markets—organizing chaotic information into truly actionable intelligence.

With the rise of AI agents, this becomes increasingly important. Agents require clean, structured, real-time data to manage risk, allocate liquidity, respond to events, and execute strategies autonomously. As autonomous systems begin to participate in markets, the demand for “integrated intelligent information flows”—the ability to simplify the entire information landscape—will become inevitable. By 2026, the most competitive platforms in this space will be those that can aggregate decentralized information at scale and provide fast, interpretable intelligence infrastructure. In an era flooded with noise, the ability to unify and explain various signals will become the core advantage and is one of the most underestimated opportunities in the Web3 sector.

New Banks, Borderless Payment Infrastructure, and On-Chain FX Settlement

While fintech neobanks have improved 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 fundamentally designed for human users and office hours, not for machines, global commerce, or real-time settlement. In contrast, blockchain networks can now enable borderless, 24/7 global value transfer. Stablecoins are becoming global settlement assets, and decentralized liquidity layers and smart contract routers provide continuous, programmable FX conversion between currencies like USDC, EURC, and JPY-denominated stablecoins.

This opens the door to an entirely new financial architecture, where payments and FX can flow as freely as data. Enterprises can automate cross-border payroll, invoicing, treasury management, and hedging; merchants can price in one currency but settle instantly in another; machines can transact autonomously without bank accounts. As an open, permissionless system, these networks are becoming universal settlement layers that connect real-world commerce and on-chain economies—not a recreation of neobanks, but payment and FX infrastructure that legacy fintech could never provide.

1. Robotic Infrastructure and Machine-Native Financial Networks

AI and robotics technology from the Web2 era are rapidly advancing, with companies like 1X, Figure, Skild, and Unitree making significant progress and continued investment pouring into the Physical AI space. As robots evolve from scripted machines to embodied autonomous agents, a key gap is emerging: different manufacturers and models cannot communicate or collaborate through a unified, neutral layer. This is driving demand for an open, cross-device operating layer—precisely what Web3 can provide. On-chain identity (DID) enables robots to self-identify without relying on manufacturers; smart contract registries allow them to publish their functions, status, and telemetry; tamper-proof logs provide verifiable accountability for robot behavior. Smart contracts can coordinate tasks and workflows among multi-vendor robot clusters, offering interoperability that current traditional robotics software stacks lack.

Autonomous robots also need a machine-native financial system to pay for electricity, data, computing power, and services—but the traditional financial system is entirely ineffective for them: robots can’t open accounts, can’t pass KYC, and can’t use human-centric payment networks. Web3 enables robots to engage in direct economic activity, achieving intermediary-free settlement via wallets, signatures, and global micropayments. Blockchain provides instant, low-cost settlement, while standards like x402 allow agents to automatically pay for access or services. Smart contracts further provide escrow, conditional payments, insurance, and reputation systems, building a programmable, borderless financial layer designed specifically for machine-to-machine transactions. In this system, cryptocurrency is not an add-on, but the only viable settlement infrastructure supporting the autonomous robotics ecosystem.

The Rise of Institutional-Grade DeFi and Meta-Yield Platforms

A new generation of platforms is integrating perpetual contracts with lending markets and strategy vaults, allowing collateral to generate yield while supporting leveraged positions; a shared margin system across spot, perpetuals, and options is leading these platforms to functionally evolve into 24/7 multi-asset prime brokers.

However, at the structural level, on-chain yield remains fragmented across various sources, including staking and restaking rewards, perpetual funding and basis, MEV and order flow income, market-making fees and impermanent loss, stablecoin and FX basis, RWA and off-chain asset NAV differences, as well as liquidity premiums in prediction and InfoFi markets. The key opportunity for 2026 is to treat these yield sources as composable “yield atoms” and package them into meta-yield products. Aggregation strategies can combine market structure yields (funding, basis, MEV, FX spreads), layer on hedging and arbitrage, and utilize prediction markets and AI agents as dynamic allocation signals. Ultimately, this transforms fragmented yield into structured, transparent, on-chain fixed income products, upgrading CeDeFi platforms from single trading venues to comprehensive yield and risk engines.

Crypto Miners as Distributed AI Computing and Energy Providers

With the rapid development of AI, its energy demand is soaring, while existing power supply capacity struggles to keep up. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global data center electricity consumption is projected to double from 415 TWh in 2024 to 945 TWh by 2030, accounting for 2.5%–3% of total global electricity usage. However, new power supply is often constrained by complex grid connection procedures, strict site requirements, and lengthy construction and approval cycles. The imbalance between energy supply and computing demand has become a new pain point in the AI era. Against this backdrop, crypto mining companies—with abundant energy reserves and a decade of experience optimizing electricity cost models—are becoming increasingly attractive. These miners typically hold ready power supply licenses, have signed long-term low-cost power contracts, and possess mature infrastructure including substations, cooling systems, and emergency mechanisms. Technically, switching equipment from crypto mining to AI compute workloads is also relatively simple.

Thus, in 2025, major mining companies such as IREN Limited, Core Scientific, and Hut 8 saw their share prices hit record highs after strategically expanding into high-performance computing (HPC) and AI cloud services. Notably, most of these mining operations are based in North America. Miners in Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, the Middle East, and other regions still have considerable growth potential and valuation upside as they undertake similar transformations.

These five frontier themes—real-time information aggregators driving on-chain markets, borderless payment and FX infrastructure, machine-native robotics networks, institutional meta-yield systems, and crypto miners transforming into AI computing providers—collectively outline the path for Web3 to evolve into the “universal coordination and computation layer” in an AI-driven economy. Meanwhile, more ecosystem companies are reaching significant revenue scale and achieving greater regulatory compliance, giving them the opportunity to access public capital markets through IPOs, De-SPACs, and M&A.

As the industry heads towards 2026, the true leaders will be those teams building products at these critical intersections—where blockchain’s structural advantages in liquidity, computing power, collaboration, and settlement are fully realized. As these forces converge, Gate Ventures believes the coming year may be the most transformative in crypto history, unleashing 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, focused on decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications, dedicated to driving global innovation in the Web 3.0 era. Gate Ventures works closely with industry leaders worldwide to support teams and startups with innovative vision and technical strength, helping them reshape the future of social and financial interactions.

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