Crypto Market Trends: Q3 2026 Review and Forecast

Tokenized stock trading takes hold

Tokenized stock trading picked up sharply in the third quarter as the largest cryptocurrency platforms launched equity-focused products for users outside the US within weeks of each other.

Average daily on-chain trading rose more than eightfold from Q2, according to CF Benchmarks. By late September, the value of tokenized stocks had roughly quadrupled from January to over US$3 billion.

Publicly listed brokerages raced to capture that activity. After Binance’s bStocks went live in June, Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) launched its own blockchain on July 1 to run tokenized stock trading, and the network logged a record trading day of about US$875 million on August 30, though memecoins still made up most of that volume.

Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), alongside private exchanges Binance and Kraken, has also been adding stock products as platforms compete to become one-stop venues for crypto and equities.

The SEC’s September 17 innovation exemption gave on-chain trading of US-listed stocks a formal, five year path, but with conditions. Tokens must carry the same rights as the underlying shares, including dividends and voting, and issuers get 30 days’ notice to object before an unaffiliated token of their stock can trade. That leaves most high-volume products without full shareholder rights outside the scope of the exemption. The result is a dual-track market: a heavily traded, mostly offshore ecosystem of tokens tracking share prices, and an as-yet-unlaunched regulated US framework.

Large traditional firms are building toward the regulated track. Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) announced tokenized deposits for corporate clients, and the NYSE signed a non-binding agreement to explore giving Blockchain.com users access to its planned tokenized securities platform. Goldman Sachs' (NYSE:GS) flagship treasury fund became available to crypto trading firms through the Lynq settlement network, though the fund itself was not tokenized.

Token prices reflected investors’ bets on which networks will carry the regulated track.

Ether rose about 71 percent, its best quarter since early 2021, and jumped after the SEC exemption, which requires the trading software to run on public blockchains, where Ethereum is the most established network. Fund managers surveyed by Glassnode ranked Ethereum as their top network, citing its role in tokenization.

Meanwhile, Solana, home of the xStocks tokenized stock platform, and XRP, whose ledger hosts tokenized funds from major firms including Ondo Finance, Societe Generale (EPA:GLE,OTCID:SCGLF) and Aviva Investors, each gained more than 40 percent as their US ETFs drew steady inflows.

Hyperliquid, an offshore platform for trading crypto futures, became a bet on the two tracks meeting. Its HYPE token rose 17 percent in a day after US President Donald Trump said on August 19 that CFTC Chair Michael Selig is “working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion.”

Kraken’s parent, Payward, has asked the CFTC to let its subsidiary Bitnomial offer American investors futures that are tied to Hyperliquid, an approval that could take 10 to 12 months.

Stablecoins, the digital dollars traders use to move money around cryptocurrencies, told a different story. Supply held near US$300 billion through the quarter as holders moved idle cash into tokenized treasury funds, which can still pay interest while the GENIUS Act bars stablecoin issuers from doing so.

Circle (NYSE:CRCL), whose USDC is the second largest stablecoin, looked for growth elsewhere, launching Arc, its own blockchain for payments and trading, with Binance disclosing a US$100 million stake in the company soon after.

Crypto news to watch in Q4

Rates will decide how far Bitcoin can run

Interest rates will be a major test for Bitcoin heading into the end of the year.

Higher rates tend to weigh on crypto, and projections point to one more hike in 2026 after the Fed's quarter-point raise in September. Its next meeting is set to run from October 27 to 28.

QCP Capital’s base case has Bitcoin trading between US$80,000 and US$90,000 in Q4, and the firm says steady ETF inflows would be needed to push it past the top of that range.

That buying has yet to return in force. In an October 7 report, Glassnode states that most of Bitcoin's recent gains came from investors already in the market paying higher prices, not from new money.

ETF purchases, stablecoin growth and company buying together accounted for less than two-fifths of the rise. “Until those inflows pick up, the move depends on existing holders paying more,” the firm states.

The timing of the selling points the same way. Glassnode said US trading hours have brought net selling since Bitcoin's late September breakout, leaving the rally to rest on “thinner overnight and weekend trading.” It points to a pickup in spot trading volume and ETF buying as signs that buyers are coming back.

“Three things we are watching this quarter: First, whether BTC ETF demand regains the momentum of recent weeks after the latest breather, with 10-year US Treasury yields at their highest in more than two decades,” Can-Luca Köymen, investment strategist at Sygnum, a Swiss-regulated digital asset bank, told the Investing News Network.

“Second, whether the strong flows we have seen across bitcoin, ether, solana and other digital assets hold up into year-end, despite higher yields and expectations of another Fed rate hike in December," he continued.

“Third, year-end rebalancing. Bitcoin’s volatility keeps falling over the long term, and its correlations with equities and other asset classes are moving in a direction that improves its diversification benefits," Köymen also said.

"In a portfolio optimisation framework, that points to a larger allocation, and we could see it show up as additional demand for bitcoin around the turn of the year.”

Regulators to keep writing the rules

With the CLARITY Act stalled, federal agencies will keep setting the pace, though the SEC has been down to two commissioners since Hester Peirce left on October 2, and it is unclear how that could affect its next steps.

SEC staff expect the first trading venues under the tokenized stock exemption to file this quarter.

OKXICE, a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), filed on October 5 to offer round-the-clock trading in tokenized versions of 63 NYSE stocks. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the main US clearinghouse for stocks, is also launching its tokenization service this month.

CLARITY itself could still return after the November 3 midterms, before the new Congress is seated.

Meanwhile, the GENIUS Act will take full effect by January 18, 2027. After that, only licensed issuers will be able to issue stablecoins in the US, and they won't be able to pay holders interest. Exchanges and other platforms have until July 2028 to stop offering unlicensed stablecoins. Regulators are still finishing the detailed rules, and the Fed’s proposal for the stablecoin issuers it supervises, released on September 24, is open for comment for 60 days. According to CoinDesk, it also addresses how rewards paid through third parties will be treated.

Earnings to put business side to the test

Third quarter results from listed companies tied to crypto will begin at the end of October.

Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) reports on October 27, and investors will be watching how much trading its new blockchain is drawing. Strategy reports on October 29.

Coinbase is expected around the same time. Circle has not yet set a date; USDC supply and the interest earned on its reserves will be the numbers to watch. Higher rates cut both ways for Circle — they tend to weigh on crypto prices, but lift the interest it earns on the cash and treasuries backing USDC.

AI tokens and AI agent payments

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a theme worth watching, according to Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale.

AI-focused tokens jumped in September, rising more than twice as fast as the broader crypto market. NEAR, a network built for AI agents that carry out tasks on their own, led the move with a 183 percent gain.

World, which verifies that users are real people, rose 47 percent over the month, while Bittensor, which links together networks that specialize in AI, gained 37 percent.

For now, the sector is still small, worth about US$15 billion in total, but Pandl wrote in an early October article that it “could produce one or more big winners over the next five years.”

The bigger question for investors is whether AI agents actually start using crypto to pay for things. In its report “The Machine-Native Economy,” BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) argues that AI agents will likely pay with stablecoins, and that tokenized assets could make other holdings easier for agents to use. However, it says that use is still early.

Investor takeaway

Heading into the final months of the year, the forces that shaped the third quarter for cryptocurrencies remain in play. Further, as traditional financial institutions build out regulated infrastructure and institutional demand for productive, yield-bearing assets grows, the sector’s focus will increasingly test whether real-world tokenization and machine-native payment rails can translate early momentum into broader adoption.