Pantera Capital: How has Crypto as a Service affected us?
Original Title: 2026: The Invisible Revolution
Original Author: Paul Veradittakit, Pantera Capital
Original Translation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
2026 will be a pivotal year. We will see "crypto as an industry" evolve into "crypto as a service".
Over the past decade, the crypto world has been full of various gimmicks. The approval of the Bitcoin ETF in 2024 gave it mainstream financial recognition. In 2025, everyone was busy building the underlying infrastructure. By 2026, real value will belong to companies that use blockchain to solve entrenched problems in traditional industries while making users completely unaware of the presence of blockchain.
The future crypto unicorns will no longer rely on hype. They will be the kind of companies that use blockchain technology to significantly increase product efficiency, tap into multi-billion-dollar markets, and completely hide the complex technology.
Crypto Tech Beats "Weekend"
During the Iran conflict outbreak, the US stock market was closed for the weekend and unable to respond to sudden global risks. However, the crypto market did not stop, with Bitcoin briefly rising to $74,000. Commodities were the first to complete price discovery on the decentralized prediction market Hyperliquid, even before the traditional markets opened. This is not an isolated case—similar situations occurred last month when China announced policies.
Traditional hedge funds are increasingly pouring into this field. The crypto market's "24/7 non-stop" is no longer just a slogan but a structural advantage that traditional finance cannot match.
Nevertheless, the current valuation of the crypto market is still far below the level its fundamentals should reach. Without a doubt, we are once again in a bear market (the fourth one I've experienced), but this time is entirely different: regulations are becoming clearer, institutional funds have entered, and the infrastructure is improving.
This sentiment was particularly strong at the recent Hong Kong Consensus conference. The vibrancy of the Asian market contrasts sharply with the West. There, the support of both the incumbent and opposition parties, new institutional funds, and a strong focus on consumer applications are driving bullish sentiments.
Key Highlights for Asia in 2026:
· Cross-Border Payments through Stablecoins, especially in the B2B sector. For the more fragmented Asian economy, crypto payments are a natural choice.
· Tokenization of Gold, Stocks, and Real Estate. Asian banks and fintech companies are catching up to the U.S.
· Perpetual Contract Trading on DeFi. Fueled by retail investors, the development speed may surpass that of the West.
· Prediction Markets are expected to become a key track, although the form may differ from the West.
Core Trend: "Crypto as a Service"
The core theme of 2026 is transitioning from "Crypto as an industry" to "Crypto as a service." The goal is no longer to show users the blockchain but to make them completely forget about the existence of blockchain.
Over the past decade, we have been eager to create the "Crypto Wonder" — Gas Fee Wars, TPS Races, Modular Stacks, ZK Proofs. The ETF in 2024 was mainstream institutional acknowledgment. In 2025, we laid down all the underlying infrastructure. In 2026, it's time to turn the page.
Saying Goodbye to the "Casino" Era
The new generation of unicorns will not be the kind of "L3 network built for AI-NFT." They will be the ones leveraging blockchain to improve product efficiency tenfold, while completely hiding the technology and thus unlocking billion-dollar markets.
This perfectly explains our recent investment logic:

Novig: Farewell to the "Rake" Era ($75 Million Series B)
Traditional sports betting is a monopolistic distorted market. The house edge extracts high commissions from each bet, resulting in a user profitability rate of only 2%. Our $75 million lead investment in Novig is because they treat sports betting as a high-frequency financial product. Through a peer-to-peer trading model, Novig users have an average profitability rate of 23%. Most users don't care if there's a decentralized order book in the background; they only know they can get the best odds in the U.S. here. This is a vivid example of "Crypto as a Service."

Based: Consumer-Grade Super App ($11.5 Million Series A)
We recently led Based's Series A funding round. This is a composable Web3 consumer-grade super app built on the Hyperliquid ecosystem. In the past, "consumer-grade crypto" was often equated with "clumsy user experience." Based is changing that by making on-chain interactions feel as smooth as top-tier fintech apps. Cross-chain bridging, gas fees, and other complex operations have been abstracted away, making users unaware of the underlying complexities. They can simply focus on the social and financial value their assets bring.

Doppler: Default Asset Issuance Infrastructure ($9 Million Seed Round)
If Based and Novig are cool new cars, then 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 allows developers to issue assets with institutional-grade security and compliance standards without having to build everything from scratch. Doppler is like the Stripe of on-chain assets—pure utility packaged behind a clean API.
Why "Invisibility" Is More Important Than "Viral Spread"
This trend of "invisibility" is also prevalent throughout our entire investment portfolio:
· Real-World Assets: Tokenized government bonds are no longer an experiment in the crypto world; they are becoming the backend liquidity cornerstone of global trade.
· AI Agents: Blockchain provides AI agents with a trusted "truth layer" through predictive markets and verifiable data, enabling them to autonomously and credibly interact with digital assets.
· Agent-Based Payments will accelerate all of this. Payment standards like x402 enable AI agents to transact directly using crypto assets. The gradual clarity in stablecoin regulation further smoothes this payment track.
Advice for Entrepreneurs
If you are planning to start a business in 2026, my advice is simple: Stop focusing solely on technology and talk more about the practical problems you can solve. If the page in your pitch deck explaining the consensus mechanism comes before discussing customer ROI, it means your mindset is still stuck in 2022.
What we are looking for are teams that are building the next Novig, Based, or Doppler — those who truly understand what “mass adoption” means: It is only when a technology becomes so seamless that people completely forget it exists that it truly enters the mainstream.
You may also like

Morning News | CME Group launches Nasdaq Cryptocurrency Index futures; Asset management giant Janus Henderson strategically invests in Ethena

Bitcoin Layer 2 Network Botanix: Why Did We Choose to Dissolve?

Why did Oracle deliver the strongest financial report in history, yet its stock price fell?

When the P2P illicit funds from ten years ago turned into 60,000 bitcoins

Dialogue with OmenX Founder: Why does the prediction market need an evolution from "spot" to "derivatives"?

Galaxy in-depth report: Is Solana still worth paying attention to?

Young people in South Korea make a "final effort" in the epic bull market

The pricing controversy of Trade.xyz exposes the fatal weakness of Pre-IPO perpetual contracts

How much longer can Ethereum's last big buyer hold on?

World Cup 2026 Coming – WEEX Celebrates with $1M Prize Pool & Michael Owen Live

Morning Report | OpenAI has submitted an S-1 registration statement draft to the U.S. SEC; Morpho completes $175 million financing

Galaxy Deep Research Report: How Hyperliquid's HIP-4 Upgrade Changes the Landscape of Prediction Markets?

Latest research from 13 top universities including Cornell University: The current state, challenges, and misconceptions of the fusion of Crypto and AI

Deconstructing Anthropic: The Best AI Company, Possibly Also a Type of Organizational Invention

Every exchange is a "Universal Exchange."

The counterattack of traditional finance: Alliance chains are quietly reviving

Pantera Capital Partner: How Tokenization is Restructuring the Private Equity and Early Investment Ecosystem?

Mastercard Launches Agent Pay for AI, Plans to Record AI Agent Payment Authorizations on Polygon
Mastercard launched Agent Pay for AI, a new payment protocol designed to help AI agents make small payments such as pay-per-use access to data and APIs. The system plans to record human-granted AI agent permissions on Polygon, focusing on verifiable authorization, identity, and payment controls.




