2026 Macro and Crypto Thesis
The Call: 2026 is a liquidity year, and crypto is positioned to front-run it
2025 was cooked. Not because the technology failed, but because the liquidity regime and credit conditions punished risk. That phase forced a reset.
2026 is different.
Crane Intelligence Group is taking a firm view: 2026 is a constructive year for digital assets. Barring an extreme exogenous shock, the base case is a liquidity impulse, a risk-on rotation, and crypto repricing faster than legacy markets.
This is not optimism. It is plumbing.
1) Policy risk is shifting, and markets reprice before headlines do
Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh for Federal Reserve Chair. The nomination alone reintroduces uncertainty around the path of rates and the market’s expectations for policy, which feeds directly into liquidity expectations.
When the policy narrative shifts, markets do not wait for certainty. They reposition.
2) The Treasury is already managing liquidity mechanics
Treasury has been conducting regular buybacks since May 2024 with liquidity support and cash management objectives. This is explicit in TBAC documentation and Treasury communications.
This is not QE. It is not the Fed expanding its balance sheet.
But it is confirmation that liquidity mechanics matter again, and the Treasury market is being actively managed for resilience. That matters because the Treasury market is the foundation of everything.
3) Refinancing pressure is the real clock in the system
You do not need conspiracy to understand the setup. You need math.
Debt service costs are elevated, and refinancing needs are large. Even without anchoring to a single “wall number,” the practical point is that trillions must be rolled, and sustained tight liquidity is not a stable equilibrium.
When policymakers and markets are forced to prioritize system stability, liquidity is the lever.
4) 2025 was the reset, and the data shows it
CoinGecko’s 2025 annual report shows total crypto market cap fell about 10.4% in 2025, ending around $3.0T, while stablecoin market cap surged roughly 48.9% to a new high of $311B.
That is the part most people miss.
A down year in price while the transactional base layer grows is not “death.” It is re-priming. Stablecoin expansion matters because it is settlement capacity, on-chain liquidity, and transactional velocity.
5) The market structure behavior does not change
Bitcoin has repeated the same pattern for years:
- risk-off phase drives it down and kills sentiment
- liquidity returns
- it is among the first assets to reprice because it trades 24/7 and clears globally
CIG is not debating whether Bitcoin is “the future.” We are tracking its role as a liquidity beta asset.
The CIG Call for 2026
We are stating this clearly
Base case: 2026 is not a bear market for digital assets.
Base case: crypto recovers and reprices faster than traditional risk assets once liquidity loosens.
Base case: Bitcoin leads first, then quality alts rotate later.
Here is what we expect:
What we expect to happen
- Liquidity improves versus 2025 conditions through policy shift, debt management, and cycle mechanics
- Bitcoin leads the repricing because it is the most liquid, most institutionalized crypto asset
- Stablecoins remain elevated or expand as the on-chain base layer continues to deepen
- Alts do not lead first, but when the regime turns, they move violently after BTC establishes direction
What would make 2026 “cooked”
Only a small set of factors. This is our falsifier list:
- A true systemic credit event that freezes liquidity
- A major escalation shock that breaks risk markets globally
- A hard policy turn that directly restricts digital rails rather than regulating around them
- A sustained contraction in stablecoin supply and settlement activity
Absent those, the higher-probability path is a liquidity regime shift that forces risk assets higher.
The takeaway
Most people are still trading sentiment. We are trading constraints.
2025 was the reset.
2026 is the reprice year.
CIG is positioned accordingly.
- By Vanta Orlin