Ideas
Bitcoin sentiment challenged by gold, Saylor, quantum
Bitcoin faces a tough sentiment year: after a strong run, Saylor's dry powder may shrink, gold may outperform in a stagflationary macro backdrop, quantum fears will get noisy, and Core devs will move slowly.
Ethereum renaissance led by RWA on-chain finance
Investors will focus on revenue quality and durability rather than raw fees; Ethereum's RWA/on-chain finance revenue is more sustainable and predictable than Solana's pro-cyclical retail trading fees, so Ethereum should receive a higher revenue multiple even if Solana extracts more total fees.
Solana quiet but wins on-chain price discovery
Solana will have a quiet but ultimately good year: its tech investments in Firedancer, Alpenglow, and prop AMMs should pay off, and its neutrality should let it win back on-chain price discovery against a more concentrated Hyperliquid.
Hyperliquid faces mean reversion, weak perps moat
Hyperliquid faces a challenging mean-reversion year: perps have no durable moat, competition from Coinbase and Robinhood is vicious, and it remains unclear whether Hyperliquid is a platform or just a DEX.
Gold outperforms Bitcoin in stagflationary macro
In a stagflationary environment with sticky inflation and weaker growth, gold should outperform Bitcoin as a similar but more established asset.
Solana leads retail app adoption/fees
He is more bullish on Solana than Mike: Solana continues to increase its lead in retail app adoption and is the default choice for consumer financial apps, prediction markets, trading, and social-fi, which should drive fees.
Solana wins consumer app developer niche
He is conservatively bullish on Solana because it has a real niche attracting consumer app developers, and its north star is simpler than Base's, making it well-positioned for the consumer app era.
Ethereum price catches up on adoption
Ethereum's adoption should finally translate to price in 2026; it could gain a higher monetary premium as chains like Stripe's Tempo go live and adoption expands.
Tempo benefits from Stripe merchant volume
Tempo could have a big 2026 if Stripe routes merchant and internal transaction volume onto it; the team is strong, the opportunity with merchants/distribution is large, and the last private valuation could look cheap, potentially making it a top-10/20 crypto asset.
Pendle wins fixed-rate DeFi demand
Pendle is one of his top DeFi winners for 2026 because it has built the leading on-chain interest-rate swap/fixed-rate borrow-lend primitive, and products like Borrows should be very successful.
Morpho wins DeFi lending/vault curation
Morpho is one of his top DeFi winners for 2026 because it has the right construction, a strong team, no lab-token dilemma, true product-market fit, and almost all curators/vault managers build on it.
RWA demand stalls without new distribution
He is cautious on RWA growth: demand today is still mostly crypto-native and saturated, so the category may stall unless products expand demand through B2B2C/vault-managed structures integrated into fintech frontends.
Aave grows as lending leader
Aave will continue to grow and get its act together in 2026, remaining an interesting lending protocol with bright long-term potential.
Solana DeFi matures, chips at Ethereum
Solana DeFi will mature in 2026 and chip into Ethereum's DeFi share; Solana has trailed in DeFi, but that should improve this year.
L2/rollup infrastructure overbuilt; more pain
On-chain infrastructure like L2s, rollup-as-a-service, and shared sequencing has been overbuilt and overestimated; it will remain painful, with consolidation down to two or three vertically integrated providers.
zkSync benefits from vertical integration/RaaS
zkSync should have a very good year because it is the first to vertically integrate framework and RaaS, has a fully featured product, enterprise sales team, interoperability, privacy, and a managed-service model.
Corporate chains overhyped; most won't succeed
Corporate chains and corporate L1s will be a major theme in 2026, but he is not bullish on almost any of them; most will eventually use an L2 framework or build on existing execution environments because the industry over-specialized before demand arrived.
Tempo unlikely as standalone L1
He disagrees with the bullish Tempo view: despite a strong team and launch fanfare, Tempo is not perceived as neutral and it does not strategically make sense as an L1; it may struggle to gain true adoption and eventually become an L2/execution environment.
Arc lacks differentiation, unlikely to work
Circle's Arc chain lacks differentiation and he does not see it working or going anywhere, although he remains positive on USDC as a product.
Robinhood product discipline drives continued momentum
Robinhood remains a wild card with exceptional product discipline, a product-centric founder, and a strong record of successful launches and momentum into prediction markets and the everything exchange; it is hard to see where they fail in crypto.
Polymarket/Kalshi win prediction market consolidation
Prediction markets face a bump from legal challenges and competition, but the structural trend is bullish and the winners keep winning; he remains bullish on Polymarket and Kalshi, while new startups are unlikely to succeed.
DraftKings launches prediction markets with retail edge
DraftKings and other retail-audience/sports apps will launch prediction markets and likely be somewhat successful because of their large sports-focused retail audiences.
Crypto AI agents arrive with guardrails
He is very bullish on crypto AI in 2026: guardrails will make LLMs more deterministic and appropriate for crypto, hallucinations will be reduced, on-chain contextualized data is ready, and agents will start putting money to work.
Crypto AI too early for 2026
He cannot be bullish on crypto AI for 2026 because LLMs still cannot directly reference crypto aggregate data or parse raw/indexed on-chain data, the business model for that data layer is unresolved, and trust/guardrail controls are difficult; agentic commerce likely takes longer, maybe two years.
This Bell Curve video, published January 03, 2026,
features Mike Ippolito, Myles O'Neil, Xavier
discussing BTC, ETH, SOL, HYPE, GLD, TEMPO, PENDLE, MORPHO, RWA, AAVE, Solana DeFi, L2/rollup infrastructure, ZK, Corporate chains, ARC, HOOD, POLYMARKET, KALSHI, DKNG, AI-SECTOR.
24 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers:
Mike Ippolito,
Myles O'Neil,
Xavier
· Tickers:
BTC,
ETH,
SOL,
HYPE,
GLD,
TEMPO,
PENDLE,
MORPHO,
RWA,
AAVE,
Solana DeFi,
L2/rollup infrastructure,
ZK,
Corporate chains,
ARC,
HOOD,
POLYMARKET,
KALSHI,
DKNG,
AI-SECTOR
