As we ring in 2026, it’s hopium season, and everyone’s lighting votives to the old gods and the new for an omega candle to take us to Valhalla (or at least above breakeven on the average BTC ETF cost basis).
With the hopium and benedictions also comes predictions. Today, we join the chirping chorus of divination with a few of our own. And before you’re disappointed, no, this doesn’t include a bitcoin price call.
AI data center builds will be saddled with delays in 2026
With 2024 and 2025’s AI CAPEX boon sown, 2026 will be the year for reaping. And I anticipate that a number of data center builds, from AI-expanding bitcoin miners, big tech firms, and neoclouds alike, will fall short come harvest season. This is not a unique call, nor is it a hard one to make. But a macro cocktail of energy constraints, logistics bottlenecks, and raw material deficits will doubtless stupefy build outs from even the most competent firms. China’s export controls on silver, following earlier controls on other critical minerals, only exacerbates existing issues — an uneasy situation that also raises the question, “will they clamp down more in 2026?”
Metals outperform yet again
Silver and gold outperformed every other major asset this year, giving bitcoiners little ammo to lob at their gold bug family members over Christmas dinner. The boomer rocks are making a comeback as central banks hoard gold amid failing confidence in U.S. Treasuries — not to mention the fact that a 1 GW data center requires 0.5-1.5 metric tones of silver. As many macro analysts have pointed out, we appear to not only be entering a new monetary regime where gold plays a competing role with the dollar, but industrial use is setting a new floor price for silver. China’s export controls should only exacerbate supply deficits, so we expect 2026 to be another great year for the boomer rocks.
Hashrate grows at slowest pace in years as bitcoin miners stay in purgatory
Bitcoin’s hashrate grew 32% in 2025, a respectable increase. But this figure would have been higher if bitcoin didn’t underperform, and — more importantly — if the largest miners in the U.S. didn’t turn their full attention to AI. The AI bandwagon is still on the parade, so we don’t anticipate this changing anytime soon. Plus, if bitcoin slogs along under $100k or capitulates further from here, then we won’t be surprised to see Bitcoin’s hashrate to see even less growth in 2026 than 2021 (+23%), the year of the China Mining Ban.
Goldman, JPMorgan, others launch bitcoin lending and it is wildly successful
The strongest product market fit for crypto right now (that isn’t stablecoins) is settlement and collateral. Bitcoin is absolutely the best collateral, crypto’s “pristine” asset. 2026 will be the year, if 2025 wasn’t already, of tradfi really embracing this collateral. As Larry Fink often points out, Blackrock’s bitcoin ETF launch was the most successful ETF in the history of the firm — so too will bitcoin lending be viewed in retrospect. I’m personally partial to bitcoin lending that is more on-chain, but this will be an extremely competitive and lucrative market for both custodial and non-custodial solutions.
90% of users on the internet cannot discern AI generated content from human by the end of the year
It is almost already the case today, but it will be indisputable by the end of this year. Even if a person is told “you are looking at two images, one of them is AI” the supermajority of people will not be able to discern which is real. People will get calls from loved ones in distress and will not be able to tell that it’s an AI scamming them. We will flounder for effective solutions in the short term.
Prediction Markets have a “FiveThirtyEight” moment
Prediction markets become the preferred “true” polling method for elections, sports, and culture wars. Just as FiveThirtyEight transformed election polling and discourse into data-heavy insights that the average person could understand, so too will the average person “fact check” news and public opinion on Polymarket. I expect by the end of the year we will also see more than 1 major exploitation of a market (think several days of a leading story on the national news), most likely around the U.S. mid-term elections.
