BlockTempo published an opinion piece arguing that crypto narratives in the U.S. have now moved deep into traditional finance, and that the second half of 2026 will be defined less by competition among standalone issuers and more by direct rivalry among alliances made up of central banks, banks, payment firms, and technology companies.
The article cites a Tiger Research summary of the dominant market narrative for each month of 2025. The list runs from AI Agent in January, Memecoin in February, InfoFi in March, RWA in April, DAT in May, tokenized stocks in June, stablecoins in July, Launchpad in August, PerpDEX in September, x402 in October, privacy in November, and prediction markets in December.
After that full-year rotation, the author says only three narratives still carry meaningful momentum today: tokenized stocks, stablecoins, and prediction markets.
The three surviving narratives all tie back to traditional finance
The article’s central claim is that the durable themes are the ones backed by established financial institutions or regulated market infrastructure, rather than purely crypto-native experimentation.
- Tokenized stocks are linked in the piece to Robinhood, Nasdaq, and DTCC.
- Stablecoins are tied to Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Stripe, and large banks.
- Prediction markets are associated with CFTC-regulated venue Kalshi and capital support from ICE, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange.
By contrast, the article groups Memecoin, InfoFi, Launchpad, and PerpDEX into crypto-native sectors that generated noise but did not sustain the same trajectory.
From that comparison, the author argues that the broader crypto narrative was effectively taken over by traditional finance in 2025.
U.S. policy shifts are presented as a major driver
The piece points to a change in posture under the Trump administration and says the GENIUS Act gave stablecoins a legal path forward. It also highlights the CLARITY Act, describing it as a key digital asset market structure bill now sitting on the U.S. Senate calendar.
According to the article, the White House has listed the bill as a priority, but it still needs 60 votes and at least seven Democratic senators to cross party lines. The period before the August recess is described as the last window. The author does not say passage is certain, but argues that the direction is already clear: Washington is moving crypto assets piece by piece into the traditional financial regulatory framework.
The article frames that as the end result of a decade of crypto-native narrative experiments, with the scalable outcomes now being absorbed by players in suits rather than by the original industry builders.
Three additional narratives the article expects to build in late 2026
Alongside tokenized stocks, stablecoins, and prediction markets, the article adds three themes it expects to gather force in the second half of 2026.
1. Deposit tokens
The piece says commercial banks have reached the point where moving deposits on-chain makes more sense than letting stablecoins route around them. It cites SWIFT’s work with 17 global systemically important banks on blockchain ledgers, says Japan Post Bank’s DCJPY is set to open to 120 million accounts, and notes that JPMorgan’s JPMD is already in operation.
2. CBDCs
The article notes that the U.S. Senate voted 85-5 against a retail digital dollar, but says that outcome is specific to the U.S. It contrasts that with ongoing work on the digital euro in Europe, continued development of China’s e-CNY, and a Bank of Korea deposit-token pilot that the author says is intended to be used for KRW 110 trillion in government subsidy distribution.
3. Alliance warfare
The author argues that after 2026, the question will no longer be which issuer wins in stablecoins. Instead, the competitive unit will be the alliance, with several blocs launching at the same time, overlapping, and trying to lock in position.
The article lists competing projects and regional blocs
To support that view, the piece walks through a number of initiatives already in motion:
- BIS-led seven-country bloc: Project Agora, described as a Bank for International Settlements effort bringing together seven major central banks and a large group of regulated private-sector institutions to build a unified ledger for tokenized commercial bank money and wholesale central bank money.
- U.S. dollar camp: the OUSD alliance, together with the U.K.-U.S. joint statement covering more than 140 companies across banking, payments, technology, and crypto.
- Euro camp: Qivalis, which the article says brings together 37 banks in a euro stablecoin alliance.
- China: CIPS plus mBridge, combining the renminbi cross-border payment system with a multilateral central bank digital currency bridge. The article describes this route as sovereign-to-sovereign settlement, outside public blockchains and outside private issuance.
- Japan: Project Pax, centered on Progmat and Mitsubishi UFJ, with an approach that uses existing SWIFT messaging rails for cross-border stablecoin settlement.
- South Korea: Project Han River, a Bank of Korea program built around deposit tokens and wholesale CBDC. The article says its second phase is tied directly to government subsidy distribution and may extend to tokenized government bonds, cross-border settlement, and connectivity with Agora.
- Singapore: Project Guardian, led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, focused on asset tokenization and institutional DeFi pilots with major international banks.
- Australia: Project Acacia, described as a wholesale CBDC and tokenized-settlement experiment run by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
The piece then turns to Taiwan, asking where it sits while central banks, banks, and payment giants around the world are forming teams and naming projects. It also references a recent article by former Premier Chen Chong, saying Taiwan’s voice in globally important technology industries has gone quiet at a critical moment.
The article’s Taiwan argument centers on chips and compute, not issuing a coin
The author’s position is that Taiwan should not define its strategy as simply launching a Taiwan dollar stablecoin because others are doing stablecoins. In the article’s view, the ceiling for a TWD stablecoin is set by international demand for the Taiwan dollar, and that demand is limited.
Instead, the piece says Taiwan’s real leverage is semiconductors and compute capacity.
It argues that key parts of the global AI compute supply chain already sit in Taiwan, including chips, packaging, and server manufacturing. That industrial position, the article says, gives Taiwan stronger leverage than any regional currency alliance could.
The author also says compute is rapidly becoming financialized. In that framework, compute is shifting from an equipment cost into a commodity with price discovery, futures markets, and trading units such as GPU-Hour. The article specifically states that CME is already working on compute futures.
From there, the author proposes what is described as an “Asian compute OPEC alliance plus a stablecoin settlement layer,” built in three layers:
- First, make compute measurable. The article says GPU inventory, power capacity, and actual GPU-Hour output should all be measurable and auditable.
- Second, turn compute into a commodity and tokenized asset. In the article’s framing, GPU-Hour could become an asset that is tradable, pledgeable, and financeable.
- Third, settle and clear with stablecoins. The author says cross-border compute trading is not suited to T+2 settlement and cannot absorb constant foreign-exchange friction, making a 24-hour programmable borderless settlement layer a natural fit.
The article’s conclusion is that Taiwan should not focus on the battle over which currency gets used. It should focus on who prices and settles global compute.
It goes one step further and says that if Asian compute suppliers, including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Middle Eastern capital, can form an OPEC-like coordination mechanism around compute pricing and shared settlement infrastructure, Taiwan would no longer be just a manufacturing node inside someone else’s system. It would become one of the system’s designers.
The closing argument is about securing a seat at the table
The article sums up 2025 as the year traditional finance took over crypto narratives, and 2026 as the year traditional finance itself split into competing alliances. In the author’s framing, what these alliances are really fighting over is not the coin itself, but control over settlement.
On that basis, the piece argues that if Taiwan only wants to issue a Taiwan dollar stablecoin, it is asking for a seat at someone else’s table. If it recognizes that it already holds globally scarce chips and compute, it may be in a position to help deal the cards instead.