Coinbase's 2026 crypto market outlook with David Duong

Transcript

You know, these are like 15year cycles and we've been at the beginning of one for the last three years. It's going to start picking up. >> What's up everybody? It's LGD here and welcome to the Milkroach Show, the daily crypto show that bravely makes bold calls about 2026 and then spends all of 2027 explaining why we were technically right. You're listening to our prediction series that was recorded just a week or two before the holidays so that I could finally rest my tired and beautiful voice. Today, we're joined by David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase. If you want to understand how institutions are actually thinking about crypto, not Twitter narratives, not vibes, not any of that stuff, but the actual capital regulation and adoption, David's team is at the center of it. Coinbase just dropped their full institutional outlook for

2026. So today, we're going to go straight to the source. We're going to ask David what actually matters for next year. What are the key themes that he's looking at that their team is looking at that others may not be looking at? And where is the market actually going in a new year? because 2025 was not as we expected. So, we're going to grill him on all of that and look at this massive report as well. Today's episode is brought to you by Chain Link. Links Web3 to Wall Street. Bridge send stable coin payments instantly. Simple, global, friction-f free, and reserved ETFs, the onchain equivalent of ETFs. David, this is your final episode on Milk Road of the year. It's been a great time having you on. Welcome back for one final show.

>> No, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. >> So, you guys just dropped this. So, I got an exclusive sneak peek uh but it is available to the public obviously by the time people are listening to this. Uh it is titled 2026 crypto market outlook. David, what what is it what goes into something like this? Does does this like a your your crown achievement for the year to have this type of report come out or is it just another one that comes out from Coinbase? [laughter] >> Um yeah. Uh so completely unoriginal title, I know, but this is now our fourth edition of the crypto market outlook and uh it takes a lot of work. I mean, it took us about three months just to produce this thing. It's 70 pages long. Every year I tell myself and I tell my staff, I'm like, "We need to cut

it down. This like I I wanted to be like 40 50 pages max." Uh, but it never happens because there's just so much content. There's so much stuff going on in the year. And inevitably, I'm going to get some uh, you know, client or friend or colleague or someone who's saying like, "Hey, how come this wasn't included in the report as well?" So, as comprehensive as we would like it to be, it never achieves that result. Uh, but yeah, you know, we wanted to get through everything. We wanted to get through like what do we think in markets to like what do we think uh from the latest upgrades on Ethereum and Salana to like do we think four-year cycles have any merit you know like all that kind of stuff I think a lot of things that people have heard about but also trying

to get into the frontier of the tech as well. >> What was the most important part of this report before you we're going to look through the key themes for 2026 that's what we're going to walk through but before we get to that David what was the part that you're like we have to nail this section about this part? >> Great question. And I mean like in my mind I have to nail every section. Um you know like I I feel like I'm the only person who will notice like an apostrophe being in the wrong place and that that bugs the hell out of me and I got to get it right. Uh but yeah, you know, like I would say that as you mentioned key themes, you know, like making sure that we capture not only what I think people think is going on

right now because that's kind of easy, right? Like uh you know, I was recording a podcast earlier on different show and you know, we're saying like you know what was our big call in 2025? Well, we you know, we said stable coins would grow. Well, yeah, that's a pretty obvious one. I you know like I'm not uh like I'm not trying to take credit for that because it's like it was easy to kind of say that like yeah stable coins were going to become massive in 2025. So saying that it was going to happen wasn't like a that big a deal, but still you need to kind of like incrementally get this stuff right. Like what about tokenization? What about stable coins? Like are we going to see equity pers?

Are we going to see prediction markets? What about prediction markets? So it's not just getting the theme because I think the top level, yeah, you can easily say like, oh, I think prediction markets are going to be big, but like what's going to happen with that? Are we going to get prediction market aggregators? Is the liquidity going to get fragmented? Like I think this is where the insight we try to provide comes in. This is the biggest year ahead for crypto, AI, and the macro. But the real moves aren't in predictions. Join Milk Road Pro today to see our live portfolio, buy, sell signals, and the AI investing portfolio, which launches in January. The link is below. All right, I'm going to ask you a tough question.

And again, we're going to get to the 2026 stuff in a second. Was there anything in the 2025 report? Obviously, it sounds like you guys nailed stable coin adoption. Like you said, that was obvious. Is Was there any obvious Was there a huge miss in there? Is there anything that you guys were like, "Ah, we got that." so wrong. >> I I absolutely like to do and we're going to do a full kind of uh autopsy on like 2025 starting in 2026. So, I do that every year because I don't believe in trying to just like make up the stuff and then making predictions and then just like not following through on on whether you are actually right or not cuz you know anyone can do that. I put it through AI because we can do that now. So I just like, you know, I I sent

it through like one of the uh the the LLMs and I just said like, "Okay, this is our report from 2025. Tell me whether it was right." You know, fortunately, a lot of them came back. You know, they rated on a scale of like 1 to 10. Most of them came up like eight or nine out of 10. Uh there were about one or two that came in at like six out of 10. And one of that was actually tokenization. So we expected tokenization to happen. We expected the growth to happen and it did. you know, it grew from like 13 and a half billion dollars 2024 at the end of 2024 rather. Um, and it went up to like around 35 billion uh as of this year, but you know, like they would still say that like even though we called for that strong growth, our

projections were still overly optimistic. Uh, so that was interesting. Uh, on the DeFi side of things, we also called for a resurgence in DeFi. We also called for an increase in DEX volumes. So this was before a lot of people were looking at Hyperlid. This was before a lot of people thought like per uh dexes would start to strengthen. So, we got this like right. I thought that this was going to be like a 10 out of 10. We nailed it. We called the TVL. We called the volume increase and they gave us a seven out of 10. Uh they said we were only partially accurate. They said that growth occurred. Uh but it wasn't uniformly sustainable. Uh so I thought that was interesting because you know I I would say that like by all measures seeing that we're getting like $1.2 trillion per month in volume from these

per dexes should have been right. Uh, but you know, I'll readily acknowledge that, you know, maybe like uh if we're going to scrutinize it, then the LLM is correct. >> I actually I went and found it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to do this to you. We need to look. Okay, here we go. Key themes for 2025. Let's just let's just see. I just need to see it. I asked you that question. Okay. Prediction markets. That's in there. You had it. You had prediction markets right here. Uh what else is here? Games. If it bleeds, it leads. I'm assuming we thought that I I did think that like gaming would actually be uh a bigger market in 2025 didn't really pick up and >> No. Yeah. And we're not I don't want to

rehash that but I think I think in my time in crypto five six years gaming has been one of those things that's just like nah just does it just just doesn't go it just can't catch you know. >> Yeah. My thesis was that like basically a lot of the investment that we saw in the gaming was in you know 2020 2021. It takes around like three four years to really come up with a good uh AAA game and that was right around that that timing it would have worked out. Didn't really pan out. >> H yeah too bad. That'd be awesome. I think I think that the idea we all want web3 gaming to win and it's just something that that isn't panning out.

Okay. All right. That's enough. That's enough that's enough looking at this stuff. Uh back to you David. Let's let's jump right into 2026. I'm going to pull those right up. But we want to look at uh basically the key themes for 2026 and you guys have I think 11 or 12 outlined same format in uh this report. >> Yeah, that's right. Um so top down I mean the big hall is what do we think in markets in the first half of 2026? And I say the first half because it's really gets nebulous like as we get into the second half of the year. I mean, other themes are going to kick in, especially on the macro side because we're going to get midterm elections in the US, etc.

Um, but you know, like I think in 2025, for example, like coming in 2025, our big call was we're going to see lows in the first half of the year, new all-time highs in the second half of the year. And while technically that materialized, I definitely didn't call for like a drop post like October 10th, uh, for example. So, take this as you will, but coming into the first half of 2026, I am constructive. Uh I think that we're going to continue seeing rate cuts coming from the Fed. I think that people are not pricing in the level of productivity uh that we're seeing in the US economy right now. Like I'm expecting weaker labor markets and I don't think that inflation is an easy call right now. But at the same time, I think the US economy is doing a lot better than many people call. Uh I also think that

productivity is actually stronger than like what the data actually shows us because it's not really capturing all the efficiency gains in AI. And these are not short-term trends. I think I've said it on this call before, but like you know, these are like 15year cycles and we've been at the beginning of one for the last three years. It's going to start picking up. I believe that this is creating some of the major shifts in the economy uh that we could be benefiting from in 2026. So, I'm still optimistic in terms of crypto as well as risk assets general.

>> I I I I'm happy to hear you say that. [laughter] I think that that's what we want and that's what we rely on David for. What else do you have in here? I've seen this uh M2 global money supply. I've seen that on the timeline and again I said in the intro that you know you help us ignore that part, but man have I seen that lately of people being like what about the M2? Where is it for my crypto? Yeah, it's a good question because you know I think crypto still tends to be a vacuum for liquidity and when liquidity isn't doing well and here I mean we did note that liquidity was going to uh you know decline in November which we saw the drop was disproportionately more than that decline in liquidity. Uh that said it should be inflecting higher in December.

It should be picking up. Crypto was incrementally kind of picking up. you know, we saw the lows around the 80 to 85 kind of area for Bitcoin, for example, but you know, as we're recording this today, for example, it's still not the best uh environment. Like, you would have thought that the market structure would have like sharply improved. I still think that this chart is correct. I still think that if we customize or M2 to kind of focus on where the pockets of liquidity are in the world, the places where you actually trade crypto, I think that this is very important. Of course, there are some idiosyncratic elements right now because you see like China once again cracking down on Bitcoin miners uh you who are operating underground. Granted, although

I think still accounts for like 15 to maybe 20% of the uh hash rate that's out there, but I think those kind of dynamics, it's hard to kind of predict as well as what the OGs, what the long-term holders are doing in this space. Uh so, I do think that that's complicated the picture somewhat, but I don't think this is wrong. You know, I've said it before. I think that there's still a lot of capital on the sidelines. I don't think that's wrong. I think the Fed cuts rates. I think that capital will come off. Uh, and really I mean like everything that we're seeing in savings accounts, money market funds, like I think that you just can't subsist on like 2 to 3%. I think that once that really starts to bite into people's wallets, they're going to gravitate towards alternatives and that puts

crypto in a very good position. >> Do you do you expect regulatory conditions to get a lot better next year David? >> I do. I think that we're seeing that uh the Senate's working on a counterpart to the clarity act right now. So the market structure bill is being worked in two different parts because the Senate Bank Committee has to work on the SEC side and the Senate Agricult Committee has to work on the CFTC side. Um they're not in a position yet to reconcile those two proposals. Uh the the bank committee's had theirs since September, but we've only just gotten one from the ad committee about a month ago. So, it's going to take time for that to be in good shape to be marked up. Um, potentially the the main committee could actually vote on it uh in this month,

but probably reconciliation probably won't happen until, you know, January of next year, but I think it will go very quickly once it does. Then I think that you can start seeing them talk to like the House, make sure that like uh the stuff actually looks like it's in good order and then we can see it on President Trump's desk in Q1. So, I think that would be a big one. Certainly I it could be very helpful for probably more the altcoin space than Bitcoin itself because Bitcoin already has a lot of clarity around it in terms of being commodity. Uh but for all the other ones in terms of fee switches, tokconomics being changed, uh allowing financial engineering in the form of like buy and burn or other things, I think that's going to be a very big deal.

>> And how do ETFs play into that, David, too? Because I think that that you're seeing more and more you're seeing some ETFs start to be created for what you would consider more altcoin stuff outside of Bitcoin. Um, and you're seeing those launch, you've seen that timeline for those getting approved start to dramatically decrease. Um, so you're saying that maybe those those acts would also help the adoption of these ETFs or at least maybe launch more ETFs or have more people buy into them. >> Yeah, I think so. you know, so the SEC provided uh new guidance where the uh maximum like amount of time it takes to actually get from inception to approval went from 270 days to 75 days. Uh there's also the caveat though that like

there needs to be an existing futures market for these uh for these assets. Uh but they do like for many of these altcoins like they do have it. It's on Coinbase's platform. uh so you know it's existed for longer than 6 months then you know it provides a viable route to actually seeing ETF approval for the stuff uh so I do think that this will also introduce more liquidity into our space more funds into it um also you're seeing that for many of the private wealth uh kind of platforms out there I mean we saw the headline just come out from Vanguard Bank of America all saying that starting in the new year like well I think Vanguard already started but like for many of these starting in the new in the new here. Um, you know, like their clients can access crypto ETFs.

Uh, so it was a response to the demand, but I think it's a great sign that more money could actually start flowing to the space through these institutional channels. Um, and we can debate all day whether people think it's a good thing or a bad thing, but like the bottom line is I think that's going to be very good for price. Stable coins are the biggest use case in crypto right now, but let's be real, using them on chain is still way too complex. That's exactly the problem Bridge is solving. Recently acquired by Stripe. Yep, that's Stripe. Bridge helps businesses send, store, accept, and launch stable coins instantly. Explore the future of global financial infrastructure at milkroad.com/bridge.

Sure, tokenized financial products are the future, but there is a big sticking point. They all need to speak to each other. This is a tough problem to solve, but chain link does exactly that. It's the universal language for financial markets, linking Wall Street to web3, banks to blockchain, and so much more. See how Chainlink is linking the world by going to milkroad.com/chainlink. One of the most contentious things lately, David, has been the performance of DATs, right? And especially as the market has downturned. Um, you know, we're seeing their MNAV go below one. It's it's a huge issue or a huge speculation fear issue of, oh, well, they'll have to sell more of it and then you're going to get into this death spiral. Um, but you've got a nice section in here about DATs. Are you are you guys bullish on DATs? Are you think

they're going to continue to contribute in a positive way in the new year? >> I think DATs are going to iterate. So, it's not going to be the same debt cycle we saw in 2025. I mean 2025 is motivated by the changes in US GAP or US accounting rules I should say. Um, which allowed a lot of these uh vehicles to actually emerge. But I think that they were just concentrated on just procuring uh crypto, right? Like they just want to like access like some token and kind of build a big position in it. I think that we're going to see a new model for this in 2026 or maybe if it starts in 2026, then I don't think it's going to get started right away. I think it's going to take time. But I think that the DAT 2.0 cycle for me looks like it's going

to be more like the professional trading uh storage procurement of sovereign block space. And what I mean by that is I think that we're going to start recognizing block space as a valuable commodity because more of this stuff is going to be used to send like stable coin payments for example or to transact real world assets tokenized equities. And once that starts to really happen, people going to realize, oh like certain block spaces are going to be more valuable than others. And we need to kind of know concentrate on how do we think about that market? like what do we think about the duration of uh of risk on that curve for example and this is very much similar to what we have in tradi you know you have firms like

Cargill or Trafagora for example that trade in like uh physical commodities and they do so on behalf of their companies because they have a natural hedge on this stuff because oftent times they're involved in agriculture commodities or other things but then they start really kind of digging in further and they you know deal with the speculation of it on a future kind of kind of so it's not just hedging but they go further than that and I think that's what we could see in DAT 2.0 model as well. >> Okay. Yeah. Thanks for explaining that. I'm keen to see how that how that evolves because obviously these you know like you're saying they've been aware of the issues and um you're going to see hopefully the next step of what they can do. So I think that that that's I'm glad you have this in this report. Uh let's

get into some of the trends, David, because you did mention there's a lot in here. You've got privacy, but you also have a section that popped out to me which is AI. A crypto is dead. Long live AI crypto. >> Yeah. And I said that because it feels like, you know, every few months we're just like, ah, the the AI like crypto trend is over, guys. You know, and like it came out strong. And like I must admit like over the last three years we've iterated like a lot on this theme you know we started from the like Akos kind of perspective or like decentralized computes and like decentralized like uh you know like just just AI you know like and and we've kind of pivoted to AI agents which we saw at the end of 2024 but then it didn't last

for beyond like Q1 of 2025. I still think that a lot of these things are hugely important. uh you know like Coinbase for example launched the X42 protocol which actually allows AI agents to actually do microtransactions and settle on this kind of stuff. So I think that new forms of commerce can come out of this. You know we still haven't seen everything that decentralized identity could do especially with things like worldcoin and proof of humanity. Uh so I think that AI and X crypto got a bad rap. Um, and certainly like don't get me wrong, I think that some people saw it as a cash grab and they started kind of like rushing towards that without fully kind of like hey like let's let's experiment with where like the endgame

is for all this kind of stuff. But in my mind and this kind of came up with gaming as well and it you know I still think that some of these themes can pay pan out. It just takes time you know it takes like like two three years and I know some people aren't happy with that because they want to turn a profit like now and that's fine. I get it. But like in order to see these technologies really do their due diligence, do their job, like I think it takes time. So I think that like two three years from now it's going to emerge. Hey, what are the real winners going to be from the AX crypto theme? But it starts now and you can start looking at it and paying attention.

>> Are there any specific applications you mentioned in that section, David? >> I did not specify which applications I think are coming out. I mean like I think some of the sandboxes we're seeing from like Bit Tensor and stuff like that, you're starting to see some of those use cases emerge. So I think it's interesting. Um but certainly I think that some of the themes that we've already kind of seen before but kind of took a pass on like the ones I mentioned like decentralized compute for example, I think that like uh those things actually are quite important. You know, they democratize AI access uh for a large part of the population. I think that we're also going to see that probably 2026 is going to be hugely meaningful in terms of pivoting away from LLMs to probably like full

reasoning models. I don't think we're very far away from that at all. Uh and once we start doing that, I think that people are going to kind of say, okay, well, now I'm going to have my own like AI agent who's going to like work for me. Like where like what can I do with that? Where can I like where can I have it? And I think that having crypto involved in that because you have access to wallets, you have other things that the AI agent can control. I think that's going to be hugely important. >> What what what AI apps do you like, David? >> So, in what sense? Like >> we're getting outside of Coinbase stuff here or or crypto, but what what do you like using? You say we'll move away from LLMs, but I feel like we all like using some LLMs that we enjoy. Is there

anything that you can say that you you personally use or you like using for work or anything like that? So, I'm a power user of LLM. So, I'm not saying that like I don't like LLM. I just think that they're going to iterate. I think they're going to be better than where they were. I think that, you know, and right now we're kind of getting this like background of like, oh, all this kind of stuff, but like I'll be honest, I and I'm not going to name the names themselves. I have certain that I use uh just for brainstorming because of their access to certain social media and other things that I think like really like open up the hive mind. Um, I have certain LLMs I rely on just for the coding side of things and there, you know, it's like cursor and, you know, like cursors

attached to like several different models. So, it's it gives you more access. Previously, I wasn't a big user of Gemini, for example, but now I do like I I would say Gemini 3 definitely has like improved things pretty substantively. Uh, but you know, like I also have insight into this is where I it's kind of fortunate to sit in the seat I sit in. It's like I I have seen like some of the newer uh models that are out there in terms of like full reasoning where like they pretty much abstract away all language which is insane to me. Uh these things are beating the bench the Putinham benchmarks for example by like handily versus like some of the other AIs that are out there. So you know I'm this is why I'm kind of looking forward to 2026.

I think in like 3 to six months we're going to have a whole new crop of stuff that going to enable a whole new set of use cases. So when you say like which LLM apps do you kind of use? I'm like well or [laughter] what you're talking about the actual names because I think that we could be dealing with a whole different set of names in a few months. >> Oh man, what an interesting thought. I I want to sit in that seat, man. I want to be in those meetings. I want to see what I want to see what's coming. Milk Road's got to get in there uh and do these these deep sneak peeks of AI apps. Um let's get back to crypto. Let's get back to everything that's in here. Uh we spent a lot of time on AI. You've got

other um sections here for trends that bind. You've got the privacy uh app specific chains and RWAs. Out of those three, which one stands out the most to you? >> Probably RWAs. Uh just because like there's a sub section in there and and a sub subsection in there because, you know, I think tokenized equities are, you know, still nent, but obviously becoming a much bigger part of the tokenization kind of platform. And you know we've seen a lot of like kind of movement on the side coming from like back finance oro and other places uh but many of them are still on the side of being derivatives are not necessarily capturing value onetoone with uh the

underlying equity asset itself. So you don't actually have access to the actual stock. Uh but I think that native like tokenization of equity is going to start becoming a thing. And the sub subheading I put on that is that I think per equity per also going to become a lot more prominent and you know like it's not a surprise more and more like retail is kind of getting involved in the equity space into the crypto space as well. Uh but many of them like want to do so in a more capital efficient way i.e. they want to do it with leverage. Pers are one way that in the in our space like that's a bit been available. I think that increasingly like Tradify is looking at and saying like well we

should do that and like retail wants it so let's do it and it makes sense you know the loan to value and a lot of like the the thing the credit uh involved in crypto is like 75 80% in trady it's like 50%. And you do that because you're, you know, settling the market at like T+1, T+2, whereas in crypto you're doing it atomically, you know, like you're pretty much like instantaneously settling the stuff. Uh, you're doing it within minutes. I mean, we say atomic, but like maybe like let's say like before block finalization, it it takes a few minutes. I mean, like I think that those things are absolutely going to enable this stuff and allow more traffic to come in.

Your next section here kind of dubtales into that really well because you've got you were talking about crypto derivatives and you also have prediction markets. Um, and to me that's I think that those are you know you always need a high speculative layer in crypto. is a huge part of it and those are two uh you know something like pers were in a sense massively exposed with these liquidations right that it's like well maybe too many people were doing too many pers I got too interested in this this new idea but clearly that hasn't slowed down as we've seen in the last couple weeks um and then also prediction markets is something else that is that is getting an enormous amount of hype and funding and users right now and and obviously going in a completely different direction in terms of what the end users can do between

those two, which one would you say has the most growth potential in 2026? >> Prediction market. I mean, like they're both going to grow and they're growth going to grow substantially. Uh, but I only say that just because I've already seen like to be fair, a lot of them, both of them have also grown a lot in 2025. Um, but I feel like, you know, like you've kind of sprinted ahead uh in the last two, three months with uh per in a way that you haven't necessarily with prediction markets, although it's happening as well. Uh but I think that prediction markets are also going to be enabled by regulation. And what I mean by that is there's probably a little known I think it's increasingly better known now like kind of provision in the one big beautiful bill which was signed

in July of this year and that basically said that gambling uh losses could only offset winnings by around 90%. Previously you could offset it fully by 100%. Now why does that matter? It matters because basically it's a lot less efficient, right? because now even if I might have a loss, I'm still paying taxes on it. And that's not something that really pertains to prediction markets because prediction markets aren't gambling markets. Prediction markets are actually derivative based markets. Um, so I think that you could start seeing that there could be a lot more flows going into prediction markets instead and away from those traditional kind of gambling platforms for example.

But then that raised the issue of like well what happens if there's a proliferation of these markets of these prediction markets because want to fragment liquidity maybe but then I think that this is where I you know I believe there could be the rise of prediction market aggregators places that actually aggregate the liquidity um potentially actually also reforming questions in a better way making it more universal across platforms. Um, so I think that this could be a huge theme once that comes into play. Of course, we saw like a statement about a week ago from President Trump saying that he might consider changing the the rules on on gambling losses and how it's taxed.

Uh, but we'll see. ETFs provide investors with a structured, disciplined, and diversified approach to crypto, which is cool, but the world is moving on chain. We need a crypto native equivalent. That's exactly what Reserve's decentralized token folios, DTFs, bring to the table. Reserve ETFs are rule-based baskets of crypto assets packaged into a single token like Coin Market CMC 20, crypto's version of the S&P 500. Go to milkroad.com/reserve to find out what's on offer. Is there anything in prediction markets besides sports and politics that you think would be a sector that could grow?

>> I think economics >> in terms economics. Oh, >> I mean like maybe I'm I'm just talking my own book, but like the stuff I'm interested in isn't sports, which I have no edge in. Uh we've talked about this personally, you and I, about like, you know, baseball and hockey. Uh but I would say that uh for me it's it's stuff like, hey, is the Fed going to be hiking rates or cutting rates in Q1 2026? uh you know like I I think questions like that and they become a lot more insightful you know like you see it being kind of quoted by major newspapers major like websites kind of going like oh you know like poly market like odds favor this and that so I think that that's absolutely changing the way we

also think about economic data and and official releases >> so I think what you're saying is that finally things like the macro and economics will find a popular market with younger people because it's something that they can uh I guess play derivatives with. I won't say gamble, but it's something that they can actually uh learn about and make money from, right? Because it's so unsexy. Even us growing up, it's like why would you want to know that stuff, right? >> Again, maybe I'm talking my own book. Like, but uh >> you liked it. You liked it. >> I'm a nerd and I do like [laughter] this stuff and I think about it all day and I want other people like it too. Maybe I'm I'm being hopeful more than anything else.

>> When are they going to teach a prediction market class in colleges or high schools? Maybe they already are. Maybe that's already there. That should be >> That should be your forecast. And I think it's gonna happen soon. I bet. >> I think I think you should be the teacher. I think you should be the one who teaches that, too. I think you should you should be the professor. I think that'd be a good a good way to branch out in case you have spare time with, you know, family and all this work. [laughter] >> Teaching this stuff. [gasps] >> Okay, great. >> Like to drop in on classes all the time. I would readily do that. >> Yeah. >> Oh, there you go. Okay, right on there. That we could do digital college classes with Coinbase Institutional where we talk about prediction markets uh and and

what to look at. Um, okay, David. I mean, there's there's a lot more to this report, but um I I want to keep these prediction episodes a little bit shorter than usual. Anything else you can tell us in terms of big picture thinking or big picture conclusions from from what you guys have here? >> That is a good question. Probably not fully prep for that. Uh I I would say like even though we touched on it a little bit already, I think a excuse me, a payments are probably going to be a hugely meaningful one. And I do say that in part because you know this is something that Coinbase has enabled through like X42 for example and how like microtransactions are becoming a real thing and becoming a real part of the online commerce because I think that previously uh you know it was difficult

to you know get money to like other places unless there was this kind of formal structure in place. Now it can just easily be prompted and you can have an agent kind of pay on your behalf. And if you're a, you know, creator, for example, you can actually have a real platform online and enable a lot of those kind of transactional pieces of commerce that previously just weren't wasn't possible before. So I think that those kinds of things like changes in the broader capital formation stack I think are also going to be fairly interesting. And this is kind of like the last place I'm going to leave off, but I think that the way we're also thinking about token sales and this is really kind of gets into like the micro structure of all this stuff. the infrastructure like how are token sales

actually carried out uh across these kind of platforms. I think that many of them even though we don't see it on think about it on a day-to-day basis I think this will really broaden out crypto market access and I think if that's the case then we'll see this more sustainable transparent model so that projects can actually distribute tokens they can offer access to users like there can be transparent terms for users I think that this is a way where we'll see that long-term supporters of a project can actually get rewarded issuers can actually gain global distribution methods I think that all those things are going to change in 2026.

>> Well said. Excited for it and excited for you guys at Coinbase to to to bring us a lot of those features. And David, congrats on the report. It's a monster. [laughter] That's a lot of work. Uh we appreciate you kind of giving us uh the exclusive here to to to bring it to the Milk Road audience. And um thanks for coming on the show so many times this year. >> No, thank you. And happy holidays, LG. >> Thank you. >> Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and [music] how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road daily and pro newsletters and [music] start investing like the top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.