Crypto markets in 2026 continue to face significant macroeconomic headwinds despite their popularity, with Binance highlighting three structural pressures confronting the asset class this year.
These were persistent inflation, sensitivity to technology valuations, and geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty.
According to the crypto exchange’s Full Year 2025 and Themes for 2026 report, inflation stickiness remains a primary risk.
“If long-term inflation expectations fall slowly – or re-accelerate – long-dated Treasury yields may stay high, raising the opportunity cost of holding blockchain assets,” the report said.
That said, Binance notes the monetary policy backdrop is shifting decisively toward coordinated liquidity expansion, creating “the most favourable monetary setup for crypto since 2020-202.
At the same time, Binance says crypto remains highly correlated with the Nasdaq 100, meaning the scale of AI infrastructure capital expenditure and uncertainty around future returns on investment could drive greater volatility in 2026 than in 2025.
“Crypto – as a high-beta asset – may experience outsized volatility … During deleveraging, liquid crypto assets are often sold first to meet margin calls. Any meaningful tech drawdown can trigger correlated algorithmic selling.”
Binance highlighted Australia’s progress on crypto regulation in 2025, marked by the release of the exposure draft of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Regulating Digital Asset, and Tokenised Custody, Platforms) Bill 2025, with final legislation expected in 2026.
“[The bill] proposes classifying digital asset platforms and tokenised custody providers under the Corporations Act 2001, requiring an AFSL with conduct, disclosure, custody, and consumer protection obligations.”
The exchange also pointed to ASIC’s complementary measures, including the Stablecoin Distribution Exemption Instrument 2025/631, which provides class relief for distributing licensed stablecoins, and updated INFO 225 guidance on crypto-assets as financial products.
“These steps aim to align crypto with existing financial standards, enhance protections, and support innovation in tokenisation.”
Outside of Australia, however, fragmented regulation and liquidity depth pose ongoing risks, with Binance predicting the emergence of “splintered compliance pools.”
“With Europe’s MiCA, evolving US frameworks, and varied Asian approaches, global crypto liquidity may fragment into separate ‘compliant pools’. Inconsistent standards for stablecoin issuance, privacy protocols, and AML can inhibit cross-border capital mobility and reduce overall market depth and efficiency.”
Binance says 2026 will mark the transition from regulatory direction of travel to concrete operational rules and licensing cliffs that determine which crypto businesses can scale.
While 2025 was the year stablecoins gained real traction, Binance argues this represents only the opening chapter of a much larger stablecoin – and blockchain – adoption story. The next phase of momentum, the exchange says, will come from stablecoins paired with neobank-style applications that deliver them directly to everyday consumers worldwide.
“These intuitive, self-custodial platforms will quietly onboard huge populations onto global blockchain rails, drawn in by the openness, dramatically lower cross-border costs, and near-instant settlement times that traditional systems are simply unable to match.”
Tokenisation in 2026, according to Binance, will be defined by utility rather than supply. “It is about whether tokenised assets become usable financial instruments that institutions can hold, move, and reuse without reverting to off-chain workarounds. Growth is most likely to concentrate where tokenisation removes first-order frictions that matter: cash products, collateral-grade public securities, and private markets,” the report said.
This comes as institutional participation increasingly shapes – and in many cases drives – crypto markets through how digital assets are accessed, allocated, and deployed via traditional finance channels.
Institutional investors, clearer regulation and a shift toward long-term investing are pushing cryptocurrency closer to the financial mainstream, with 2026 shaping up as a pivotal year for digital assets, according to Binance Australia.
“The focus is where incremental capital is permitted to sit within existing financial infrastructure and how those rails continue to widen. This includes the continued scaling of broader wirehouse approval and product expansion, such as Morgan Stanley advancing spot crypto ETF access, and large platforms progressively reversing long-standing distribution restrictions, including Vanguard opening crypto ETFs to brokerage clients,” the report said.
Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, announced in December it would allow bitcoin and crypto-linked ETFs and mutual funds to trade on its US platform, reversing an historical stance that barred clients from accessing digital-asset products via the firm, in response to rising institutional demand for exposure to crypto products through traditional investment wrappers.
Access is also expanding across additional investor channels, including retirement and 401(k) platforms in the US, alongside deeper TradFi involvement through the launch, acquisition, or integration of crypto capabilities across custody, staking, and tokenisation.
“Together, these shifts point to more persistent and structurally embedded capital flows, initially concentrated in BTC as a macro and portfolio asset, then selectively extending to ETH and a narrow set of large, regulated products. Over time, this capital is likely to filter into institution-ready on-chain sectors from tokenisation, payments, and core DeFi, reinforcing a more segmented and maturity-driven crypto market structure.”
Corporate crypto treasuries, meanwhile, are transitioning from a growth-oriented trade to a balance-sheet-driven regime where structure matters more than conviction.
“As market-to-NAV premiums compress, the financing model that powered rapid treasury accumulation breaks: equity issuance becomes dilutive, leverage loses reflexivity, and refinancing risks turn binding. This dynamic has already surfaced during late-2025 as over-leverage across crypto markets were flushed when market sentiment turned and capital windows narrowed,” the report noted.
Looking ahead, Binance says treasury vehicles with scale, conservative leverage, and access to non-dilutive liquidity will be better positioned to operate through volatility, while weaker structures are likely to be forced into asset sales, consolidation, or closure.
