CEX 2026 Outlook: DAT and token economy will usher in 2.0 mode, and the predicted market trading volume will further expand

On January 2nd, CEX Head of Investment Research David Duong stated in CEX’s published “2026 Market Outlook Report”: The US economy remains resilient, and continuously improving labor productivity can buffer the impact of slowing economic growth. Therefore, CEX believes that the cryptocurrency market landscape in the first half of 2026 is closer to “1996” rather than “1999” (meaning an optimistic outlook for next year), but also acknowledges that significant uncertainties still exist in the market. A clearer global framework will continue to change institutional approaches to strategy, risk, and compliance in 2026. DAT expanded its buyer base in 2025, but recent valuation-driven consolidations have occurred. The “DAT 2.0” model is expected to emerge in 2026, with future versions focusing not just on simple asset accumulation but on professional trading, storage, and procurement within sovereign blockchain spaces, viewing blockchain space as a key commodity in the digital economy. As policies become clearer, the economic interests of token holders will be linked to platform usage, and protocols are moving toward value capture—including mechanisms like fee sharing, buybacks, and “buy-and-burn.” CEX sees this as a rising shift from purely narrative testing models to sustainable, revenue-linked models. Technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) are expected to continue developing, and with the widespread adoption of crypto infrastructure, on-chain privacy usage will also increase significantly. The trading volume of prediction markets is expected to further expand in 2026, as changes in US tax policies may incentivize users to shift toward these derivatives-based markets. While market fragmentation could pose risks, CEX believes that prediction market aggregators are poised to become dominant interface layers, with weekly trading volumes potentially reaching billions of dollars. By the end of 2028, the total market cap of stablecoins is expected to reach around $1.2 trillion. More new application scenarios are anticipated to emerge in areas such as cross-border transaction settlement, remittances, and payroll platforms.