Investing Trends for 2026: DeFi, Tokenization, Capital Formation, Speculation & AI | Ben Lakoff & Arnav from Bankless Ventures

Bankless

Technology, Tech News, News

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ben Lakoff and Arnav Pagidyala from Bankless Ventures lay out how they’re thinking about crypto investing heading into 2026. The conversation spans four persistent pillars of every cycle: DeFi, tokenization, capital formation, and speculation and how each is evolving as crypto matures. Topics include the next wave of on-chain lending, equity perps, DeFi neobanks, verticalized tokenization platforms, compliant ICOs, prediction and opinion markets, and where AI agents may reshape crypto-native finance. A candid look at what’s investable now, what’s changing, and how Bankless Ventures is underwriting the next cycle. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | CONTINUOUS CLEARING AUCTIONS https://bankless.cc/uniswap-cca 🛞MANTLE | GLOBAL HACKATHON 2025 https://bankless.cc/mantle-hackathon 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 11:59 DeFi 36:20 Tokenization 50:25 Capital Formation 1:00:44 Speculation Markets 1:09:58 AI 1:13:26 Founders & Teams 1:15:31 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Ben Lakoff https://x.com/benlakoff Arnav https://x.com/0xArnav Bankless Ventures https://x.com/banklessvc ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think the first and foremost thing that's been huge this year is you have this ultimate decline
0:04.1	of not only career risk, but there's acceptance from Wall Street.
0:07.9	Obviously, we have people like Larry Fink writing about tokenization in the economists.
0:12.9	We have BlackRock's highest grossing ETF products being Bitcoin.
0:16.9	We have hyperliquid that actually just surpass the NASDAQ and net income.
0:20.9	So this is the first time I would say that crypto is no longer a contrarian thesis.
0:25.7	It's no longer a contrarian thing.
0:27.3	I would say it's a very consensus insight.
0:32.5	Welcome to Bankless, where we explore investing on the frontier of crypto.
0:36.4	This is David Hoffman, and I'm here with not only my co-host, Ryan Tren Adams,
0:39.7	but we are also joined by two members of Bankless Ventures,
0:43.2	fellow GP Ben Lekoff and investment partner Arnov Pagadiala.
0:47.6	Ben, Arnav, welcome to Bankless.
0:50.3	Thanks for having us.
0:51.4	Stoke to be here, guys.
0:52.9	Broad question.
0:54.1	Is there stuff to invest in in crypto in 2026?
0:58.0	What do you guys think?
0:59.7	This would be a short podcast if there wasn't.
1:02.4	So yes, is the short answer.
1:04.5	And we're very excited about a lot of things.
1:06.8	Yeah, we got over an hour probably of content to talk about Arnav.
	...

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