Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) has laid out three major crypto predictions for 2026, arguing that the industry is moving “beyond crypto” and into broader internet infrastructure. In the firm’s view, the next phase of development will not be defined only by tokens or market cycles, but by systems that improve verification, trust, and coordination across digital platforms.
In a recent blog post, A16z analysts highlighted three areas they believe could become especially important this year: the expansion of prediction markets, a potential breakthrough enabled by zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs), and the emergence of “staked media” as a new trust model for online publishing.
Prediction markets may become larger, broader, and more intelligent
The first forecast comes from A16z researcher Andy Hall, who argues that prediction markets will continue to scale rapidly. According to Hall, the combination of crypto and artificial intelligence could make these markets more transparent, more auditable, and capable of handling much larger participation volumes.
A key part of this thesis is the challenge of proving that users are real humans rather than bots. Hall suggests that crypto tools may provide new methods of identity assurance or human verification, while AI could improve the way surveys and polling systems operate. Together, these technologies could strengthen the reliability of market-based forecasting and make prediction platforms more robust.
The underlying idea is that prediction markets are no longer just niche financial experiments. If they gain better infrastructure, stronger anti-bot mechanisms, and more scalable user experiences, they may become broader tools for aggregating information and assessing probabilities in many domains.
zkVMs could unlock a new crypto primitive
The second prediction, from analyst Justin Thaler, centers on zero-knowledge virtual machines. Thaler argues that zkVMs may be approaching a major performance milestone, describing a future in which they reach “10,000x overhead” with memory footprints in the hundreds of megabytes, making them fast enough to run on phones and cheap enough to use far more widely.
If that happens, one of crypto’s longstanding goals becomes much more practical: obtaining cryptographic proofs of correctness at a reasonable cost. Instead of relying solely on trust in external systems, users and applications could verify that off-chain computation or activity occurred correctly without reproducing the entire process themselves.
A16z believes this kind of progress could open the door to several important applications. These include stronger and more secure bridge designs, easier on-chain verification of off-chain activity, and more efficient layer-2 scaling. In broader terms, lower-cost proof systems could become a foundational primitive for how blockchains interact with external data and computation.
For the industry, that would matter because many scaling and interoperability challenges ultimately come down to verification. If zkVMs can reduce the cost and complexity of proving correctness, they may help make crypto systems more useful well beyond today’s narrower set of use cases.
“Staked media” as a response to AI-driven content saturation
The third prediction comes from Robert Hackett of A16z’s crypto editorial team, who expects the rise of what he calls “staked media.” The concept is built around a simple premise: publishers should be able to demonstrate that they have real, verifiable stakes behind the content they produce.
Hackett presents this as a possible answer to a growing internet problem. As AI systems and automated bots make it increasingly cheap to generate endless volumes of content from almost any perspective or persona, traditional signals of trust may weaken. In such an environment, simply claiming neutrality or authority may not be enough.
Under a staked media model, credibility would come not just from reputation or editorial posture, but from transparent commitments that can be checked. In Hackett’s framing, this model would not replace existing media forms. Instead, it would add a new signal to the information ecosystem: not just “trust me,” but “here is what I am willing to risk, and here is how you can verify it.”
This idea fits into a wider trend in crypto thinking, where economic incentives and verifiable commitments are used to improve coordination and truthfulness online. While still conceptual, staked media points to how blockchain-based mechanisms could be applied outside finance to address the trust issues emerging in the AI era.
A broader strategic view from A16z
The predictions also align with A16z’s larger investment posture. The firm recently said it had raised more than $15 billion for various venture efforts and identified AI and crypto as “key architectures of the future.” In its own framing, those technologies are expected to shape critical sectors ranging from education and entertainment to public safety, defense, and health.
That context is important. A16z is not presenting these forecasts as isolated product trends, but as signs that crypto may become infrastructure for broader digital systems. Prediction markets speak to better information aggregation. zkVMs speak to scalable verification. Staked media speaks to restoring trust in online publishing. Together, they describe a vision in which crypto tools move into more practical and socially visible roles.
Whether all three themes develop as quickly as A16z expects remains to be seen. But the report offers a clear view of where one of the industry’s most influential venture firms believes innovation is heading in 2026: toward systems that combine verification, transparency, and economic accountability to solve problems far beyond token trading alone.