Coinbase Ventures has shared its 2026 investment roadmap, highlighting the sectors it expects to drive the next wave of crypto innovation.
The firm focuses on four priority areas: real-world asset perpetual contracts, specialized trading infrastructure, next-generation decentralized finance (DeFi), and AI-integrated blockchain tools.
Real-world asset perpetual contracts offer synthetic exposure
These contracts make it possible to create markets around private companies, commodities, or macroeconomic indicators. Coinbase Ventures calls this approach “perpification,” reflecting the potential to expand on-chain exposure quickly and flexibly.
The strategy also targets macroeconomic instruments such as energy prices, credit spreads, inflation expectations, and volatility.
Recent growth in on-chain real-world assets has seen total value increase from $13.8 billion to approximately $36 billion in 2025, while the number of holders rose 7.5% over a month.
Specialized trading infrastructure and prediction markets
Coinbase Ventures is focusing on innovations in exchange design and trading tools. Proprietary automated market makers (Prop-AMMs) on platforms like Solana route trades through aggregators, reducing exposure to predatory flows and protecting liquidity providers. Prop-AMMs accounted for a significant portion of Solana’s DEX volume in 2025, signaling strong adoption.
Prediction markets remain fragmented, often requiring users to navigate multiple interfaces. The firm sees aggregators as a solution, consolidating liquidity and providing traders with unified platforms. These interfaces may include professional-grade tools, cross-venue routing, arbitrage insights, and analytics, enabling more efficient market participation.
Next-generation DeFi and privacy
DeFi continues to evolve through greater composability and integration. Perpetual futures now link with lending protocols, allowing collateral to generate yield while supporting leveraged positions. This integration increases capital efficiency without fragmenting liquidity.
Unsecured credit markets represent another opportunity. Using a combination of on-chain reputation and off-chain data, new models may unlock lending at scale, targeting markets such as the $1.3 trillion U.S. revolving credit sector.
Privacy also remains a key focus. Tools that preserve confidentiality while maintaining blockchain verifiability, including zero-knowledge proofs, multiparty computation, and specialized privacy chains, are increasingly in development. These solutions are essential for institutional traders and retail users who do not wish to expose their strategies or financial activity.
AI integration and robotics in crypto development
Coinbase Ventures highlights the intersection of AI, robotics, and blockchain as a major frontier. Advanced robotics require detailed real-world data for training, including interactions with deformable objects and complex manipulation tasks. Crypto-native incentive structures could help gather these datasets at scale, similar to decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).
The firm also supports “proof of humanity” protocols, designed to differentiate human actors from AI systems online. Additionally, AI toolsh are expected to streamline smart contract development and security, allowing founders with minimal technical expertise to deploy projects and maintain continuous monitoring.
Jordan V.
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