Coinbase Ventures Just Published Its 2026 Wish List, and It Is Shooting for a Very Onchain Future
Tokenised assets, next-gen DeFi, AI-powered exchanges and a Solana acquisition are all in the mix
Coinbase Ventures has dropped a preview of the ideas it wants to back in 2026, and the list reads like a roadmap for where crypto builders think the next real breakthroughs will happen.
The focus ranges from asset tokenisation and speciality exchanges to next-generation DeFi and even AI-robotics crossovers. In other words, the team is betting that crypto’s next wave looks less like speculative trading and more like proper financial plumbing.
The mood inside Coinbase Ventures is defiantly optimistic. Kinji Steimetz says the team remains bullish regardless of daily market noise, pointing to 2025 as a year that finally delivered progress on stablecoin infrastructure and cross-chain proofs. That foundation is shaping where the firm wants to deploy capital next.
One area getting particular attention is real-world asset perpetuals. These markets let traders take exposure to tokenised assets through perpetual contracts, effectively merging traditional instruments with DeFi’s speed and composability.
Specialised exchanges and advanced trading terminals are also high on the list. Coinbase Ventures argues that perpetual DEXs will be essential for the next phase of market structure design, while prediction-market aggregators could unlock more than $600 million in fragmented liquidity.
The team is equally focused on next-gen DeFi. That includes unsecured lending protocols that can operate without collateral, and privacy solutions designed to bring confidentiality back to onchain finance.
Jonathan King frames the opportunity clearly. Success, he says, would turn DeFi into genuine financial infrastructure that can outcompete traditional banking rails.
Coinbase itself is also making a strategic move. The company has agreed to acquire Vector, an onchain trading platform built on Solana.
Vector’s technology is set to be folded directly into the consumer trading experience, giving users cleaner and broader access to onchain markets. It is a signal that Coinbase is not just investing in the future of crypto. It is trying to operate it.
Taken together, the wishlist outlines a crypto world that is more liquid, more integrated and more deeply embedded in real-world financial flows. Coinbase Ventures is betting that 2026 is the year this vision starts to crystallise.
