AI, Cryptocurrency, Tech Stocks: 3 Key Trends for 2026 and Answers from 2 Experts

Source: Purpose Investments

Original Title: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Market Recap Time 2025: Tech and Crypto Edition

Translation and Compilation: BitpushNews

It’s that time of year again. We gathered product leaders and fund managers to review the market performance of 2025 and look ahead to the next 12 months.

This year, two main themes run throughout: despite ongoing volatility, institutional viability of digital assets continues to strengthen; meanwhile, Big Tech remains at the core of market discussions. With these thoughts in mind, we interviewed Paul Pincente, Vice President of Digital Assets at Purpose Investments, and fund manager Nick Mersch to explore the past year’s upheavals and potential future trends.

Will the AI boom in 2026 continue to create miracles, or will investors face disappointment after overhype?

Nick Mersch (Fund Manager) Perspective:

In my view, the AI boom is the most dazzling ornament on the “Christmas tree” of the 2025 market. More importantly, it’s no longer just a shining light. Now, real revenue, genuine workloads, and tangible budget projects are flowing steadily into AI. Although hyperscalers are aggressively investing in capacity, this is increasingly matching enterprise demand—these companies are moving from pilot phases to full-scale production. Customer support, code assistance, advertising, data analytics, and internal productivity tools are all beginning to show measurable benefits. This is key to turning capital expenditures (CapEx) from a gamble into a long-term annuity.

Yes, the scale of investment is staggering—from hundreds of billions of dollars in CapEx plans to large-scale power procurement. But this may also be building a foundational layer of computing power and energy, upon which the entire economy could depend for the next decade or even longer. Every new model, agent, and application launched in 2026 will require an environment to run in, and those platforms that built capacity early will be the first to capture these expenditures. AI’s performance resembles a wave of infrastructure and productivity growth lasting for years, rather than a fleeting frenzy.

Are individual stocks at risk of a bubble? Absolutely. Some stocks are priced not only on perfect expectations but are even somewhat absurd. But that’s different from saying the entire AI cycle is a mirage. In 2026, investors will have the opportunity to participate in this long-term trend while maintaining cautious exposure. We advocate focusing on companies with the following characteristics:

1. Clear monetization pathways;
2. Ability to convert AI CapEx into recurring revenue and cash flow;
3. Key positions in compute, networking, energy, or distribution.

In my opinion, the magic hasn’t disappeared; it’s shifting from “storytelling” to “execution,” which will ultimately benefit disciplined stock pickers.

For the cryptocurrency world, the volatility at the end of 2025 was like sledding over a half-frozen gravel road. Will 2026’s journey be smoother?

Paul Pincente (Vice President of Digital Assets) Perspective:

First, this sense of turbulence isn’t your illusion, and feeling nervous isn’t lonely. Cryptocurrencies have always been like passengers: insisting the road is good while your teeth clench like an overactive simulated bird.

But rough terrain doesn’t mean the carriage is broken.

In my view, the turbulence at year-end is more like a routine and slightly dramatic “housekeeping” in high-beta asset classes rather than a solemn funeral bell. After a strong rally, excess leverage must be unwound, bubbles must be deflated, and the boldest narratives must be tested in the cold light of real positions. It’s the season when markets demand “show me the receipts” confidence.

So, will 2026 be smooth? We should be cautious with that word. Cryptocurrencies are not a calm lake but a turbulent, forked river. However, I do believe their volatility may become more mature—not gentler, but more understandable. This could mean fewer headlines about “system about to collapse” and more recognizable rhythms of risk assets.

Additionally, there’s a practical reason to stay optimistic. If macro conditions support more accommodative policies and inflation performs well enough to avoid triggering new policy panic, risk appetite tends to return. When it does, cryptocurrencies rarely tiptoe back into the room; instead, they burst in like a band asked to encore.

Yes, we believe you can anticipate drama and tension, see the market turn over-leveraged traders into cowards, and patience into philosophy. But we don’t think a bumpy December means a doomed decade. Sometimes, potholes are just the price of a better road.

Tech stock valuations have always shimmered like high-end boutique window displays. Are they sustainable, or will the cold winds of reality freeze this industry?

Nick Mersch Perspective:

Tech stocks in 2025 are indeed in a full “holiday window” mode, but beneath the shimmering lights, we believe there’s more substance than pessimists admit.

Key beneficiaries of AI are generally seeing upward earnings revisions, with margins improving as cloud and software scale expand, and many balance sheets remain net cash or low leverage. I believe we are witnessing the largest capital expenditure cycle in tech history, with hyperscalers guiding annual AI spending of hundreds of billions of dollars. However, their starting point is dominant market positions and strong cash flow engines, which may provide greater buffers than past cycles.

The key difference in 2026 is: is this shine supported by fundamentals, or just hope’s illusion? I think some software and smaller AI stocks are significantly overvalued relative to current earnings. But in core infrastructure, cloud services, and certain platform companies, valuations seem more like “high but well-deserved” rather than pure speculation.

Rather than framing this as a binary “bubble or no bubble” debate, we see 2026 as a filtering process. Companies demonstrating clear operational leverage in AI investments and rising marginal returns on capital can sustain or even expand their valuation premiums. Those only talking about gigawatts (GW) and GPUs without a unit economics roadmap may be most vulnerable when the cold wave hits. We believe the shine can last as long as the light is backed by earnings.

With ETF, regulation, and institutional inflows finally on track, is crypto ready to step onto the “adult table” this holiday season?

Paul Pincente Perspective:

There’s an interesting thing about markets: they tend to grow in the most unobtrusive ways. Not through fireworks, but through pipelines; not through poetry, but through policies, filings, and the slow calming of institutional nerves.

So when someone asks if crypto is ready to join the “adult table,” I hear a question dressed in formal attire but with practical shoes.

The “adult table” isn’t reserved for the loudest believers but for assets that can be held without constantly inventing new rules. Investors want to know the rules, who enforces them, and where the exits are when the room gets crowded. The last point is crucial. Liquidity is always welcome in good weather, but the real “adult test” begins when the weather turns bad.

ETFs help, not because they perform magic that sanctifies assets, but because they translate assets into the language institutions already speak. Regulation, even if delayed, can ease the famous “waiting for clarity” excuse. Custody and operational standards, though dull, have become the dividing line between curiosity and actual allocation.

The story isn’t just about Bitcoin. Stablecoins are quietly proving they’re more than just convenient tools for crypto—they’re becoming actual rails for real-world, real-scenario payments. Tokenization is moving from pilot projects to the future, looking less like marketing theater and more like infrastructure.

Will 2026 become more refined? No. Crypto still loves grand entrances; it might show up at the “adult table” in a sequined gown. But the seating arrangements have changed. The guest list now includes more rule followers, more long-term allocators, and more capital that won’t panic at the first sign of volatility.

This is how a market becomes hard to destroy: not by becoming boring, but by becoming reliable enough to survive its own excitement.

Are AI models the star atop the Christmas tree, or just cheap decorative gold bars?

Nick Mersch Perspective:

If the past three years were about breakthroughs in models, 2026 might evolve into what these models can actually do in the real world. Tech companies are shifting from “building the biggest systems” to “embedding systems deeply into workflows.” This means intelligent agents capable of multi-step tasks, multimodal systems combining text/image/audio/video, and vertical tuning products that understand industry-specific language. The opportunity isn’t just in slick demos but in sustained productivity gains across white-collar work.

As we argued in July, for companies and investors, the message is simple: adapt now or risk being left behind. We believe the winning organizations won’t be those releasing the flashiest models but those quietly replacing manual processes with AI-first workflows, redesigning products around intelligent assistants, and building governance, security, and data quality pipelines. That’s where sticky revenue and higher switching costs come from.

For investors, we see this shifting focus to the upper layers of the stack. Model providers remain important, but value may increasingly concentrate in three areas:

1. Platforms orchestrating models and agents;
2. Application vendors delivering specific business outcomes (like boosting sales productivity or reducing support costs);
3. Infrastructure and tools that enable secure, observable, and compliant deployment.

In this world, the star atop the tree isn’t the size of the model but its impact on customers. If a company can demonstrate shorter cycle times, fewer support tickets, higher conversion rates, or lower unit costs due to AI, we believe the market will reward it. Otherwise, even the most dazzling decorations will eventually lose their shine.