Coinbase Ventures, the crypto change’s enterprise capital arm, has recognized real-world asset (RWA) perpetuals, specialised buying and selling infrastructure, and AI-powered improvement instruments as key funding themes for 2026, in response to a blog post revealed Tuesday.
The agency is actively in search of groups constructing in these classes because it appears to deploy capital into what it sees as the subsequent wave of crypto infrastructure.
RWA Perpetuals and Exotic Belongings
Coinbase Ventures highlighted perpetual futures contracts (perps) tied to real-world property as a quicker different to conventional tokenization. The method creates artificial publicity to offchain property with out requiring custody of underlying securities.
“As a result of perpetuals don’t require securing an underlying asset, markets can type round nearly something,” wrote Kinji Steimetz, a accomplice on the agency. The mannequin might allow buying and selling round non-public corporations, financial information, and macro devices like oil or credit score spreads.
Perpetual futures DEX volumes have reached $1.4 trillion month-to-month, up 300% year-over-year, in response to the put up.
Buying and selling Infrastructure
The enterprise arm sees alternatives in specialised exchanges and aggregators, notably for prediction markets. With prediction market liquidity now exceeding $600 million throughout fragmented venues, Coinbase Ventures anticipates demand for buying and selling terminals that consolidate pricing information and supply superior order routing.
The agency additionally flagged proprietary automated market makers on Solana that defend liquidity suppliers from predatory buying and selling circulation as an rising space of curiosity.
Subsequent-Technology DeFi
Coinbase Ventures recognized unsecured lending as “DeFi’s subsequent frontier,” pointing to the $1.3 trillion U.S. revolving credit score market as a possible alternative for blockchain-based alternate options. The agency is on the lookout for fashions that mix onchain fame with offchain information to allow credit score at scale.
Onchain privateness options additionally made the record, with the agency noting that establishments {and professional} merchants require privacy-preserving instruments to keep away from leaking buying and selling methods. Applied sciences together with zero-knowledge proofs, absolutely homomorphic encryption, and trusted execution environments have been cited as potential approaches.
AI and Robotics
The enterprise arm sees AI improvement instruments for sensible contracts as nearing a “GitHub Copilot second,” doubtlessly democratizing onchain improvement for non-technical founders.
Coinbase Ventures additionally expressed curiosity in incentivized information assortment for robotic programs, suggesting decentralized bodily infrastructure community fashions might assist scale the gathering of bodily interplay information wanted to coach embodied AI.
The agency highlighted “proof of humanity” options as more and more essential as AI-generated content material turns into indistinguishable from human-created materials, citing portfolio firm Worldcoin as engaged on biometric and cryptographic approaches.
Elsewhere
S&P Downgrades Tether to Lowest Rating as Bitcoin Holdings Exceed Safety Buffer
Stablecoin issuer CEO dismisses assessment as flawed while company emerges as top non-sovereign gold holder
Singapore’s QCP Expands Globally With 50% Headcount Jump
Digital asset firm opens five offices following approvals in Singapore, Abu Dhabi, as institutional demand grows.
Bitcoin Reclaims $90k as ETF Flows Turn Cautiously Positive
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Kaia’s Path to Mass Adoption: Blockchain in Everyday Apps
This week, Takatoshi Shibayama hosts Dr Sangmin “Sam” Website positioning and John Cho from the Kaia DLT Foundation. They talk about the merger of Kakao and Line to create the Kaia blockchain, the combination of stablecoins and DeFi into their messaging apps, and the methods for attracting Web2 customers to Web3. The dialog additionally covers the potential of stablecoins in cross-border remittance and the person journey from fiat to digital property.
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