Crypto’s Next Phase Is Utility Not Price Action: CoinShares

The digital asset market recorded an exceptional performance in 2025, broadly validating forecasts made the previous year, according to CoinShares.

Bitcoin reached new all-time highs while crypto returned to daily institutional and media discourse—this time in a far more constructive light than during the downturn of 2022–2023.

The year was not without turbulence. Periods of volatility and liquidation events served as reminders that crypto remains a young asset class.

CoinShares argues that focusing exclusively on price action risks overlooking the industry’s deeper progress. After years of sustained building the foundations supporting digital assets have strengthened materially.

Digital Assets Move Inside the Traditional Economy

CoinShares notes that digital assets are no longer operating outside the traditional financial system. Instead, they are increasingly embedded within it, augmenting core financial infrastructure rather than attempting to replace it outright.

Progress in 2025 was decisive across both technology and adoption. The industry has matured beyond its most speculative instincts, with attention shifting toward protocols and applications delivering measurable real-world utility.

Projects gaining traction today are those solving tangible economic problems, rather than chasing short-term narrative momentum.

Utility Over Narrative Signals Market Maturity

From CoinShares’ perspective, the most meaningful indicators of crypto’s direction are practical integrations rather than speculative cycles. Chainlink’s growing role in connecting blockchain networks with established benchmark providers offers a clearer signal of market evolution than any meme-driven rally.

At the consumer level, the emergence of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi demonstrates that crypto-enabled applications are reaching product-market fit. These platforms are no longer experimental; they are operational, regulated in parts, and increasingly used.

Meanwhile in the United States, spot Bitcoin ETFs have begun achieving mainstream adoption, gradually reshaping perceptions through familiarity rather than hype.

2026: Adoption Matters More Than Macro Catalysts

Looking ahead, CoinShares acknowledges that many market participants expect a fresh macro catalyst in 2026, potentially through renewed liquidity from the Federal Reserve. While such developments may influence markets, CoinShares argues that adoption will be the more consequential force.

In 2026 CoinShares says app-based retail savings products may begin competing directly with bank deposits while payment companies fintechs and banks expand stablecoin settlement, custody, and trading services. Though gradual, these changes are structural and difficult to reverse once embedded.

Economic Purpose Will Define the Winners

In this environment, CoinShares believes winners will be defined by economic function rather than narrative appeal. Bitcoin continues to solidify its role as a global, non-sovereign asset.

Stablecoins are evolving into settlement rails for a more digital and international economy. Tokenised financial products are beginning to transition from pilot programmes to real issuance.

As these rails mature, decentralised finance increasingly resembles finance itself—delivered through different technology rather than positioned as a parallel system.

Regulation Enables Scale, Not Suppression

CoinShares highlights meaningful regulatory progress, particularly in the United States, where recent legislative developments have clarified frameworks for stablecoins, tokenised assets and market infrastructure.

For Europe, the firm argues the opportunity lies in consistent, pragmatic implementation of regulation that attracts long-term institutional capital.

The objective should not be to constrain innovation through uncertainty, but to make innovation safe enough to scale.

From Graceful Return to Real-Economy Consolidation

CoinShares also cautions that future cycles will still produce micro-bubbles. Some themes will attract excessive capital, and some projects will fail. This, it says, is inevitable in a rapidly evolving frontier market.

The firm believes the direction of travel is increasingly clear. The market is turning toward utility, cash flow and integration. If 2025 represented crypto’s graceful return, CoinShares concludes that 2026 is shaping up to be the year digital assets consolidate into the real economy.