New Year, New Hope

It’s probably safe to say that very few people in crypto will be sad to see the back of 2025. The good news is that a terrible 2025 should - in theory - at least make 2026 look good merely by comparison. Let’s hope those aren’t famous last words.

Today’s forward guidance examines the prospects of a Santa Rally kicking in to shake us out of our post-Christmas torpor, while also underscoring the important factors you need to be watching over the coming weeks. Then, we take a look at some of the big-name predictions for 2026 that have been doing the rounds recently. Can BTC hit a new all-time high in Q1? What sectors do the experts think will fly over the coming year? And, is there any hope for altcoins? Read on to find out.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

If you’ve found the Santa Rally to be underwhelming, then it’s probably because you forgot that it typically occurs at the end of December and the start of January, with the official window being the last five trading days of December and the first two days of January. This means that Santa may still have some gifts to give, but the biggest ones might arrive a little later, and only to those who’ve been nice.

Jokes aside, the start of the new year this Thursday is likely to be pivotal for the markets both in terms of mechanical flows and investor psychology. When it comes to flows, some institutional algorithms may re-allocate to assets they had previously sold during the tax-loss harvesting season. On the flipside, some retail investors may sell assets, as the consensus seems to be that 2026 will be bearish.

When it comes to investor psychology, the passive flows and active consensus set the stage for some surprises in the new year, which is exactly why some traders wait until the end of January before making a forecast for the year. When it comes to crypto specifically, the fact that many expect 2026 to be bearish for the sector could incentivize whales to push prices up in the first weeks and months of the new year.

Just like last week though, these dynamics won’t occur the second that the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. They will take a few days to play out, and won’t even begin until January 5th when everyone comes back from holidays, well fed, well rested, and eager to set the tone for 2026. As a fun fact, people take less risk when they’re well fed, so it might be better for crypto if investors are hungry.

So, as 2026 begins, three factors will come to the fore: two crypto, one macro. The first crypto factor will be the aforementioned assumption that 2026 will be bad for the sector from day one. This could result in even more short positioning as the year begins. The second crypto factor could upend these shorts, and that’s the likelihood of significantly bullish crypto catalysts like the CLARITY Act.

The macro factor that underpins this is one that was mentioned in last week’s newsletter, and that’s the fact that liquidity conditions appear to have started improving in November with the Treasury General Account starting to drain, and the Fed doing ‘not QE’ QE in December. The catch is that crypto lags liquidity by around three months, so these liquidity tailwinds may only lift the markets later in January.  

The caveat is that even though market liquidity is rising, economic liquidity is not. In case you missed the news, unemployment rose more than expected in the US, and we’re seeing stronger signs of deflation globally. In theory, the economy is insulated from the markets, but in practice, the two are intertwined as we saw last autumn when private credit firms went under due to economic factors, thereby spooking the markets.

This is a problem, because if the economy is vulnerable, that means the markets are vulnerable, and this vulnerability is further amplified by the fact that most market returns have been coming from a handful of stocks. This centralization makes the markets inherently unstable, and likewise sensitive to any kind of trouble, because the moment there’s a negative headline, investors will take profits out of caution.

And if you’ve been paying attention to the headlines, you’ll know that there’s recently been escalation between the US and Venezuela. What you may not know is that the timing of this escalation probably isn’t a coincidence. That’s because conflict between the US and Venezuela is likely to cause oil prices to rise, and oil demand happens to be the lowest during the winter months, particularly around January.

This makes ‘around January’ the ideal timeframe for the US to escalate with Venezuela, and if it does this excessively, it could knock both the markets and the economy off their frail foundations. It’s just worth keeping in mind that the Trump administration seems to be sensitive to the markets. If this escalation gets out of hand and starts affecting the markets, it will probably end as quickly as it began.

In sum then, the Santa Rally still has presents to deliver, but their contents may not be fully revealed until the new year ‘properly’ begins on January 5th. Even though the crypto and macro backdrop is looking solid, the economy and the structure of the markets are not. This makes them vulnerable to unwanted surprises such as excessive escalation in Venezuela, which could occur sometime in January.

🏁 2026 Crypto Predictions 🏁

Just a few days left until 2025 draws to a close.

Needless to say, this one has been an interesting year for the markets - BTC hit new all-time highs but most altcoins barely broke above their previous highs. We also saw two major liquidity drawdowns – the Bybit Hack in February and the liquidation cascade in October. Bipolar is thus probably the best word to describe 2025. It was great for BTC maxis but horrid for most altcoin investors. We started the year with a major drawdown, followed by a major rally, and then ended with a second major drawdown.

The question on everyone’s mind now is: “Will 2026 be different?”

Well, over the past couple of weeks, many have tried answering that exact question, forecasting their views for how the market would evolve in the new year.

We figured it’d be a good idea to read through some of these reports and list out the common major themes and views between them. As part of this exercise, we looked through reports from: Coinbase, Galaxy Research, Grayscale, a16z, Messari, Delphi Digital, and Presto Research.

Last year, most reports began with price predictions. This year, price predictions were hard to find. Interestingly, of those that dared to forecast price, all of them restricted their predictions to Bitcoin. More interestingly, hardly any of them were explicitly bullish about 2026. Grayscale was the most optimistic of the lot, forecasting “rising valuations in 2026” and a new all-time high for BTC in H1 2026. Likewise, Delphi too refrained from naming any specific price target. Instead, they highlighted gold’s recent outperformance and the fact that BTC typically lags gold’s move by three to four months. Galaxy on the other hand took the most conservative route. They skipped 2026 altogether, highlighting 2027 as the year BTC hits $250K.

That said, the one common theme between these reports and a few others was the idea of the four-year cycle continuing to hold true being called into question. All of them noted that a major reason the four-year cycle played out in the past was its correlation with the global liquidity cycle. Moreover, with BTC becoming more of a macro asset this cycle, analysts believe factors like macroeconomic policies, regulatory clarity and rising liquidity could see BTC soar again in 2026 or 2027.

Regulatory clarity in particular was referenced as a key growth factor in all seven reports. All reports agree that 2026 will see accelerated regulatory advancements, particularly in the US (the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts). This is seen as fundamentally bullish since it reduces barriers, invites more institutional participation and fosters trust in the industry. SEC reforms, including exemptions for tokenized securities and innovation sandboxes, are also expected to encourage DeFi and RWA integrations.

That said, BTC wasn’t the only talking point in these reports. Between them, many were optimistic about altcoins such as ZEC and HYPE. This seems to stem from their broader industry outlook for 2026. Notably, revenue-generating tokens and privacy coins were noted as some of the crypto niches with the highest potential in a few of these reports. Other highlighted narratives include prediction markets, stablecoin payments, RWA tokenisation, and Crypto x AI.

Their bullishness on these narratives comes from their outlook on crypto adoption in 2026, primarily that it will be driven by institutional participation. Notably, Galaxy predicts 15+ crypto IPOs and >50 spot altcoin ETFs in the US. It also expects US spot crypto ETF net inflows to exceed $50 billion. Messari, Delphi and Presto also highlight how regulatory clarity will drive RWA tokenisation. Presto in particular claims the value of tokenised RWAs will reach $490 billion. As more institutions are onboarded, these analysts claim that privacy will also become a key point of focus for these players as they embrace public blockchains.

As for their focus on AI, most of it seems to centre around agentic commerce. They claim AI agents would drive payments (e.g., x402 payments exceeding 30M tx/day), with "Know-Your-Agent (KYA)" for non-human identities.

That said, we can’t help but notice that the common themes are almost all narratives that we’ve seen do well at the tail-end of 2025. Is this recency bias at play or just natural progression?

After all, predictions by their nature are a byproduct of experience - making them highly susceptible to recency bias. With that said, we advise you to take the predictions listed today with a pinch of salt. Someone once said that humans tend to overestimate what they can achieve in the short term while underestimating long-term growth.

🔥 Hot Deal Of The Week 🔥

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📖 Quote of the Week 📖

We can’t change what happened in 2025, but we have full control to shape our 2026. Let’s make it epic.

“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” - Carl Bard

Team Coin Bureau

PS - a very happy New Year to you all from team Coin Bureau!

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.