Despite Bitcoin ending 2025 with its first annual decline since 2022, some analysts believe 2026 could be a breakout year for digital assets, with a crypto-friendly White House, growing institutional adoption, and a wave of spot ETF approvals.
Jesse Eckel, a crypto YouTuber with 276,000 subscribers, declared in his 2026 prediction video that “2026 is going to be the bull season and alternative season that everyone was hoping for in 2025.”
“The bull's rampage that everyone was expecting in 2025”
“I sold my house and invested everything in this bet,” Eckel said. “Even if I'm wrong about this, I accept the consequences.”
Eckel admitted that his predictions for 2025, particularly his prediction of an alto season in February 2025, were “a big mistake.” Instead, altcoins plummeted amid tariff-related market turmoil. This failure led him to reevaluate the entire four-year cycle theory.
“The 2025 bull market was not driven by a huge macro wave of liquidity like in past cycles,” Eckel explained. “It was driven by narrative and institutional flow, and it was completely unlike anything we had seen before.”
He now predicts that by the summer of 2026, “everyone will agree that the four-year cycle is over.” If that awareness spreads, he hopes, “all the good news that has been ignored will be factored in at once, and a spectacular reversal will occur.”
Eckel outlined 10 catalysts he believes will drive the 2026 bull market.
- stablecoin explosion: Growth will dwarf 2025 as Wall Street recognizes stablecoins as crypto's biggest success story. As a crypto-native gateway, it facilitates the flow of capital to other digital assets.
- AI projects perform better: AI-related crypto projects will drive gains in the alternative season, with at least one project expected to exceed $100 billion in market cap.
- Market structure bill passed: Regulatory clarity opens the floodgates for ICOs and token launches, directly benefiting altcoins over Bitcoin.
- BTC and ETH ETF flows double: After macro headwinds constrain flows in 2025, liquidity should become positive in 2026, driving at least double growth.
- The rise of altcoin ETFs: Whether it's Solana, XRP, or Dogecoin, at least one altcoin ETF will garner significant attention and spark speculation over its future approval.
- At least 3 rate cuts: After three cuts in the second half of 2025, Eckel expects at least three more cuts to take place in 2026.
- President Trump promotes economic stimulus package: As the midterm elections approach, the administration plans to “stimulate in every way physically possible,” which could include stimulus checks.
Regarding the price target, Eckel raised his prediction for the peak of the Bitcoin cycle to between $170,000 and $250,000 from the previous $170,000, reflecting the extension to 2026. Ethereum target remains at $10,000 to $20,000.
“If I were wrong on this two years in a row, it would be almost unforgivable,” Eckel admitted. “Actually, I might be better off just quitting.”
Stablecoin, RWA Tokenization Facilitates Adoption by Institutional Investors
Andrew Forson, president of DeFi Technologies, reiterated his bullish view in an interview, predicting that “enterprise adoption will continue to accelerate in 2026.” He said blockchain technology will be “deployed in more places, in more technologies, and in more applications.”
Forson identified stablecoins as a “killer app” for cryptocurrencies and explained their central role in the digital asset ecosystem.
“All stablecoins actually exist on a distributed ledger,” he said. “Every time you hear a discussion about stablecoins, there are a number of underlying blockchains that those stablecoins exist on to validate transactions.”
This infrastructure creates what Forson described as seamless “liquidity” between different asset classes.
“You will be able to store assets in financial instruments like Bitcoin or Ether, or in one of our exchange-traded products, and then move it back into on-chain financial instruments and then back into the stablecoin space,” he explained. “It allows for liquidity and quick resolution of assets moving from the stablecoin space to yield-producing assets and back to fiat-equivalent assets.”
Beyond stablecoins, Forson also highlighted the accelerating trend of tokenization of real world assets (RWA). “Increasingly, financial institutions are actually moving other assets such as stocks, bonds, and commodities on-chain,” he noted. “This will only increase utilization and therefore the fundamental value of these digital assets.”
Forson also pointed to the convergence of AI and blockchain as a new use case. “You need to prove the origin of some data sources, and a great way to prove the origin of the data used to train AI models is to actually record this information on the blockchain,” he said.
According to Forson, the second major use case involves traditional financial infrastructure. “The ability to settle assets, stocks and bonds, trade them quickly around the world, and bring additional liquidity to the space. Leveraging a distributed ledger makes all of this more possible and more flexible.” He added that DeFi Technologies plans to focus on this area in the coming years.
Not everyone is convinced
Not all analysts share this optimism. Some are warning that the crypto winter could return in 2026. They point to Bitcoin's decline of more than 30% from its 52-week high and the depletion of key catalysts. Bears also question whether Bitcoin's financial strategy can sustain demand.
For a bearish outlook for 2026, see our coverage here.
Jesse Eckel predicts that if BTC reaches 250,000, there will be a real bull market from 2026 onwards.
