A look at the ideas our team is most energized about heading into 2026, the answer to the question we get all the time:“ What should I build next?”. These are the categories where we believe the next big breakout companies and protocols will emerge, and where we’re looking to actively invest.

The convergence of Crypto and AI is giving rise to a burgeoning Onchain AI economy, an ecosystem of blockchain apps and services run by autonomous AI agents. And while Decentralized AI projects have seen the lionshare of funding and growth over the last 18 months, we believe Onchain AI is gaining momentum and signaling the next phase of rapid innovation at this intersection. The importance of Onchain AI lies in expanding crypto to potentially billions of AI-powered participants. Every autonomous AI agent is like a new “user” of blockchains that can operate 24/7 and make sophisticated decisions, driving a significant increase in onchain activity and growth. Through investing in Onchain AI, Coinbase Ventures is supporting the builders of this future agent-based economy, ultimately paving the way to a new “Agentic Web”.

The future of startup investing is open and onchain. By becoming a group lead on Echo, the Base Ecosystem Group (led by Coinbase Ventures) will unlock broader and more dynamic capital for builders on Base.

The future of AI can be built on blockchain technology, as crypto can help increase accessibility, transparency, and use cases within the emerging tech. The convergence of crypto’s efficiency, borderless nature, and programmability with AI has the potential to transform how humans and machines interact with the digital economy, including by enabling users to have sovereignty over their personal data. This includes the rise of the “Agentic Web,” where AI agents operating on crypto infrastructure can drive economic activity and growth.

While L2s’ lower gas fees / increased throughput have enabled them to become the hub of onchain activity & account for a sizable portion of the ETH-based economy, they may be constrained by pressure to maintain decentralization & alignment with ETH L1.
Builders that want to [1] experiment and customize their apps, and [2] align with an L2 for distribution, are now opting to build L3s – which are application-chains that settle to an underlying L2. This document is focused on building a shared understanding of L3s.

EigenLayer* is a protocol built on Ethereum that introduces restaking, a new primitive in crypto-economic security that has emerged as a leading narrative within the Ethereum community. Restaking via EigenLayer enables developers to leverage Ethereum's existing economic security infrastructure (i.e., validator set and staked ETH) to bootstrap new Actively Validated Services (AVS). Compared to how traditional cloud platforms and SaaS solutions were transformative to web2 development, we believe the emergence of EigenLayer and its burgeoning ecosystem of AVSs unlocks a "verifiable cloud" paradigm for web3. As restaking and shared security models evolve, their impact on blockchain ecosystems will become increasingly evident, driven by growing demand from stakers and developers seeking to unlock new opportunities onchain.

"Smart Accounts" (or “Smart Wallets”) – which we define as smart contract wallets (SCW) with “Account Abstraction” features – have become a top-of-mind conversation among crypto developers. Account Abstraction (“AA”) launched in the EVM ecosystem in Q1-2023 and is beginning to see an uptick in adoption. This document explains the value proposition, adoption inflection, and implications for the broader ecosystem.

The two most important technologies created in crypto/web3 are the concept of blockspace and cryptographic keys/wallets. Wallet technologies have now expanded beyond self-custodial wallets, and we believe within the next 5 years wallets will change dramatically – marking crypto’s “iPhone” moment. In this part, we will cover the various wallet technologies. In the future parts, we will cover related trends like how data and identifiers will be attached to wallets.

Bridges have emerged as core infrastructure for protocols, service providers, and users in accessing crypto use-cases. This report is meant to capture the current state of the bridging landscape, the future trends in bridging, and the implications for the broader crypto ecosystem.

This report analyzes the emerging Zero-Knowledge (ZK) landscape and its growing impact on unsolved problems in web3 (today) related to blockchain scalability, privacy preservation, and trustless interoperability.

Coinbase Ventures will host its first-ever Coinbase Ventures Summit in LA this October to bring together top aspiring builders in a highly curated, intimate setting to spend time with me and the Ventures team discussing ideas to advance the space.

An analysis of core security considerations at each stage of the web3 development lifecycle and emerging solutions that can help developers prevent and mitigate security threats.

How web3 social networks can give users control over their data, identity, and relationships, enable permissionless innovation, and rewire the power structures of social media (with a spotlight on Farcaster).

On the ground observations from Q3, including an overview of the ventures landscape, web3 developer activity, institutional staking, the Cosmos & Move ecosystems, and more.

A guide to the projects and companies working to make web3 development as easy as web2.

A look at how the Lightning Network can potentially disrupt the $150B a year payment and remittance industry.

Ventures landscape overview, web3 gaming, web3 social, Solana's momentum, UX improvements, and more.

A macro overview of the crypto market downturn, from the COVID market shock to today.

A market outlook through the lens of our Q1 activity.

Examining crypto’s usage in Ukraine, sanctions, and the Biden Executive Order.

Themes observed on the ground at Ethereum's longest running conference.

Analyzing a new contender for NFT marketplace dominance.

A look at the most interesting data points from the year, and what it all means for the future.

Recapping a historic year for both crypto markets and venture capital funding.

Web3 is the latest buzzword to see an uptick in interest in recent months. What does it actually mean?

Exploring the new world of decentralized autonomous organizations.

A guide to the multi-chain future, sidechains, and layer-2 solutions.

An update on Coinbase Ventures activity in 2021-Q3, and key learnings from around the industry.

Examining what’s behind the growth of NFT markets.

What Loot Project is -- and why it's interesting.

Examining the growth of the growth of NFT games and the play-to-earn economy.

Breaking down the lore surrounding Punks, an NFT market overview, and EIP-1559.

Everyone needs car insurance, but do we need DeFi insurance too? We break down your options and things to consider.

Analyzing the potential value drivers and risks of Ethereum-based governance tokens.

NFTs are here, but are they here to stay? We introduce and explore the latest craze in crypto.

A look at the current DeFi market and its regulatory status.

A comprehensive review of Ethereum's position as a leading smart contract blockchain and the new chains looking to change that.

A look at the SUSHI's vampire attack on Uniswap.

Exploring the synthetic asset landscape + the latest in crypto.

We break down the latest trend in DeFi: yield farming.

Identifying the correlation between BTC dominance and Coinbase users + the DEX revolution explained.

How the recent market crash effected stablecoins, lending, DeFi and other sectors of crypto.

A look at the micro and macro impacts of the recent market crash and its effect on bitcoin.

Understanding the bZx attack and DeFi vulnerabilities + the state of crypto debit cards

Explaining what the 3rd BTC halving means for you + a look at Ethereum's rising competitors.