[DigitalToday Jinju Hong] Crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital released “26 bold predictions” for the 2026 crypto market. Galaxy Digital called 2026 a year of high uncertainty in the short term, but said a longer-term bullish trend will remain intact and bitcoin (BTC) could reach $250,000 by the end of 2027.

According to blockchain media outlet CoinPost on Jan. 3 (local time), Galaxy Research head Alex Thorne said extreme short-term volatility is indicated by the options market. Current options prices reflect similar probabilities that bitcoin will be at $70,000 or $130,000 by the end of June 2026, and at $50,000 or $250,000 by year-end. Thorne described this as a signal that the market is highly uncertain about short-term direction.

He said downside risk remains until bitcoin decisively breaks through the $100,000 to $105,000 range. He added that bitcoin’s long-term volatility has been structurally declining through 2025, and that higher implied volatility for put options than for call options in the options market suggests bitcoin is maturing from a speculative asset into a more traditional macro asset.

Galaxy forecast that institutional adoption of bitcoin will expand in 2026. Major brokerages including Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America have already lifted limits on advisers recommending bitcoin and allowed portfolio allocations of 1 to 4 percent. If model portfolios include bitcoin at about 1 to 2 percent, it could lead to structural and sustained inflows, the report said.

It also offered an optimistic outlook for altcoins and the ETF market. Galaxy expects the market capitalisation of a Solana-based “internet capital markets” segment to expand to $2 billion from about $750 million. It cited a shift away from meme-driven speculative activity toward a capital markets model that generates actual revenue.

It also forecast that easing listing standards by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will accelerate the launch of spot altcoin ETFs in 2026. After $23 billion flowed into 15 spot ETFs such as Solana and XRP in 2025, more than 100 crypto ETFs could be listed in 2026, it said.

In the stablecoin segment, it pointed to the possibility that stablecoins could become core infrastructure replacing existing payment systems. Galaxy said stablecoin supply is growing 30 to 40 percent a year, and transaction volume is already rapidly catching up with the scale of major card networks and the U.S. Automated Clearing House (ACH) system. If the regulatory framework for the GENIUS Acts is finalised in early 2026, competition for market share is likely to accelerate further, it said.

Galaxy said the stablecoin market could converge from many coins to 1 or 2 core coins by 2026. It expects at least 1 global credit card company to process more than 10 percent of cross-border payments through public-chain-based stablecoins. It added that this would happen in the back end in the form of tokenised dollars, meaning consumers would not directly notice it.

Galaxy forecast that “2026 could be a ‘boring year’ for bitcoin, but from a long-term perspective its status as a currency-value hedge asset similar to gold will become more firmly established.”