Crypto’s Next Big Winners Likely Have These 3 Things in Common

By Marija Matic Reviewed by: Beth Canova

Last year I wrote about the different ways analysts understand how value in crypto moves through the system. 

These theses rolled out one at a time as the crypto ecosystem evolve. 

None truly replaced the one before it. Each added a new layer on top …

1. Fat Protocol Thesis (2016): The original thesis claimed that value flowed to the base layer. It was all about owning the network — like Ethereum or Solana, via their native tokens — to own the upside.
   
   
2. Fat App Thesis: Bridges made capital mobile, and loyalty to any single network was beginning to fade. Chains raced to the bottom on trading fees, cheapening their own blockspace.

   Meanwhile apps, mostly in DeFi, started earning more than the chains beneath them. Their brands, interfaces and liquidity kept users coming back.

   So that’s where analysis suggested the value now collected.

3. Fat Wallet Thesis: Then came the aggregators. Wallets and interfaces bundled up users' activity and paid them a premium for their mercenary capital.

   Rather than navigating and researching various apps, users could find their way to an aggregator to make DeFi much easier to use. 

4. Fat Agent Thesis: The step many of those interfaces did not see coming. As I wrote last year, “We are rapidly approaching a world where humans stop clicking buttons.”

   AI agents will swap tokens and manage yield on our behalf. Whoever controls the agents will capture the next wave of value.

ARK Invest's Q3 2026 data shows who is winning at each layer today. And who is best placed for the agent era. 

Here’s where your attention should go …

1. Apps still out-earn networks by 1.5x.

In Q3 2026, applications earned about $529 million versus $349 million for the networks beneath them. 

That 1.5x ratio has now held for five straight quarters.

Both sides recovered together: App revenue rose 21% and network revenue 24% quarter-over-quarter. 

App revenue ended three quarters of decline but is still about 50% below a year ago.

A ratio this stable looks like an equilibrium. Value capture has settled at the app layer, but the networks are not losing further ground.

2. Networks: Solana and BNB win, Ethereum slips.

Total network revenue rose 24% to about $349 million, led by Solana (SOL, B), BNB Chain (BNB, C+) and a strong Robinhood Chain debut. 

Ethereum (ETH, B+) declined.

Robinhood Chain shows how fast brokerage distribution can bootstrap a network. Its revenue should fall, though, after a recent gas fee change.

Related Story: Robinhood Chain Reveals How Memecoins Still Drive Crypto Growth

DeFi Total Value Locked (TVL) tells a different story, though. 

TVL is the measure of value locked on a blockchain. And while it generally drops in the bear market due to decrease in value of locked coins, Base and Tron (TRX, C+) managed to grow their TVLs year-to-date. 

They’re up by 41% to $6.3 billion and 28% to $5.6 billion, respectively. 

Both rode the lending narrative higher.

Again, however, Ethereum lagged. It’s TVL fell by 22% to $53 billion.

3. RWAs: Ethereum still leads, but the new money goes elsewhere.

Tokenized real-world assets grew 19% quarter-over-quarter to about $39 billion. 

And in this sector, Ethereum is still the top dog. But it’s bleeding share fast to chains like Solana and Stellar (XLM, C+). 

Both of which roughly tripled their RWA bases year-to-date.

Adjacent to RWAs are tokenized stocks — the breakout story of 2026. Their DEX volume grew ninefold to $50 billion, or 9% of all spot DEX volume.

4. DeFi Apps: Where the money is made.

Trading apps led the rebound. 

Hyperliquid (HYPE, D+) stayed the top earner at $156 million. While memecoin launchpad Pump.fun (PUMP, D+) jumped 49% to $135 million. 

Trading terminal Axiom (AXIOM, E-) 53% to $37 million, and Ethena (ENA, A-) held steady at $59 million.

Not to be left behind, the lending apps came back with a vengeance. 

Deposits rose 51% to $81 billion, recovering nearly all of last quarter's drop. Active loans grew 41% to $29 billion.

• Aave (AAVE, C-) holds 44% of deposits ($33 billion) and appears to have bottomed after April's rsETH exploit. Its revenue still fell 20% to $15 million.
• Morpho (MORPHO, D+) reached a record 19% share ($15 billion), helped by distribution through Uniswap's Earn product.
• Maple (SYRUP, D-), Spark (SPK, D-) and Morpho led loan growth year-to-date, up 116%, 107% and 79%.

Perpetuals — derivatives contracts with no expiration that lets you bet on a crypto’s future price — were the big attraction over the past year. 

But what we’re seeing isn’t more users, just bigger bets. Perp DEX open interest jumped hard (76% to $24 billion) while volume fell 16% to $1.4 trillion. 

Hyperliquid more than doubled its open interest to $13 billion, a 53% share. But the DEX share of futures volume fell from 14.6% to 11.7%, as centralized exchanges won back speculative trading. 

That is a slight caution flag for Hyperliquid, which has been the far-and-away leader in this sector.

Overall DEX spot volume rose 13% to $571 billion, its first rise in four quarters. 

Uniswap (UNI, C) — the largest DEX by trading volume — grew 31% to $170 billion, about 30% of the total.

The Fat Agent Era Is Already On-Chain

In the agent world, you stop clicking through apps to transact on the blockchain. 

You simply say what you want: “Earn 5% on my USDC, low risk.” Behind the scenes, AI solvers compete to deliver it, hunting for the best route across protocols and chains.

This is intent-based economics, and its logic is simple: The solver that finds the best deal gets to handle your money. And it earns the fees along the way. 

So the next wave of value will go the platforms that build the best agents that are easy to use.

It sounds futuristic. But agents are already paying their way on-chain. The numbers are still small though:

• 138 million payments by AI agents through Coinbase's x402 protocol on Base alone, up from about 1,500 in mid-2025, according to Chainalysis data through Q3 2026.
• 192 million transactions and $42 million in volume across all 12 x402 chains as of Oct. 10, per Agent Economy.
• Solana handled 76% of all x402 transactions in the four weeks to Sept. 22 according to AI analyst Artemis.

Agents mostly buy machine-readable data — code analysis, financial analytics, search APIs and AI model inference. Most payments are between 1 and 10 cents, far below the 30-cent fixed fee on a card payment. 

That is why crypto rails win here.

But the transition to agent economy is not smooth, as current troubles with AI agents in banking show:

Crypto AI agents are more transparent than banking-related AI agents. But the space is still nascent and requires caution.

Test them with small amounts and never give them wide approvals.

Bottom line

The Fat Protocol and Fat Apps theories are still in play.

Networks and apps are still the giants DeFi — and indeed, the broad crypto industry — rests on. And they remain the safest harbors for capital. 

But forward-looking investors should know that, like in the past, new theses are developing. 

And the big winders of Q3 combine three things … 

1. real revenue, 
2. growing share in tokenized assets, 
3. and a role in hosting AI agents. 

The projects with all three now … are the projects most likely to keep winning as agents take over the clicking. 

That’s where you’ll want to focus your attention as the next bull run continues to build.

Best,

Marija Matić

P.S. Cycles expert Juan Villaverde says he sees a day in the future where AI agents dominate on-chain activity. 

That’s why his Crypto Timing Model and other indicators have gotten an AI-assisted upgrade. 

Indeed, his model has already officially declared the bear market dead. And it sees one more opportunity to load up before the bull run gets underway in earnest. 

He’ll lay out the details in an urgent crypto briefing on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 2 p.m. Eastern. 

And he’ll tell you how you can get timely alerts from his model the moment it sees your chance to load up. 

The briefing is free to attend. All you need to do is save your seat now.