Coinbase, ahead of its upcoming December 17 event, has released a list of categories that are likely to take shape in 2026. These categories, Coinbase said, have emerged as areas of focus for its venture capital unit as well. Releasing this list, the exchange said, it is essentially answering developers asking what they should build in the coming year.
RWA perpetuals and AI/robotics tools for data collection and on-chain privacy emerged among the categories that Coinbase believes will explode.
“RWA perpetuals create synthetic exposure to off-chain assets through perpetual futures contracts. We see this category developing,” the post from Coinbase said. “Today’s prediction markets suffer from the same fragmentation that plagued early DeFi. For example, users must navigate multiple interfaces with limited tooling and isolated liquidity pools. Enter prediction market aggregators.”
Directing developers to explore robotics and AI, Coinbase said as technologies evolve the distinguishing between AI and humans is only going to get trickier. Builders must experiment with biometrics and cryptographic signing to create advanced identification tools.
“As we look ahead to 2026, we’re energized by the builders taking big swings and pushing the on-chain economy forward. These ideas reflect where we see huge potential,” Coinbase Ventures noted.
Coinbase’s constant inclination towards prediction markets, interestingly, is also becoming more evident with each passing day. It started after CEO Brain Armstrong paused his Q3 earnings speech to admittingly check what company-related polls on prediction markets said at the time. Famed reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong also recently shared screenshots of the company testing what looked like its own prediction platform – a claim that has neither been confirmed nor denied by the U.S.-based firm.
In its blog, Coinbase Ventures also did not miss prediction markets. It advised developers to create trading terminals for prediction markets to overcome the issue of engagement fragmentation.
“Imagine trading terminals (think Axiom-like UX, but for event contracts) with pro tools like advanced order types, filters / charts, multi-venue routing and position tracking, cross-venue arbitrage insights, and more,” the post suggested, citing internal investor Jonathan King.
Coinbase Ventures highlighted that it expects prediction market aggregators to play a crucial role in fragmented liquidation presently worth over $600 million by providing a “unified view of real-time event odds across venues”.
According to Tracxn, Coinbase Ventures has invested in 26 Web3 projects so far including Flint, Ceramic, and QuestBook among others. The venture firm has invited developers building around DeFi, on-chain privacy, and RWAs to connect with its team to explore potential collaboration ideas.