2025-12-31 11:26:07

How to view investment opportunities in 2026? It’s worth considering from two perspectives: the halving deflation mechanism and emerging tracks.

**Halving and Deflation Scarcity Premium**

Looking at the halving cycle, Bittensor ($TAO) plans to have its first halving in early 2026, reducing block rewards from 1TAO to 0.5TAO. This logic completely replicates Bitcoin’s economic model. Helium ($HNT) completed its halving as early as August 2025, and subsequent halvings occur every two years. Coupled with the burn and minting mechanisms, 2026 is likely to enter a deflationary cycle.

Render ($RENDER) and Pendle ($PENDLE) are also worth attention. As AI rendering and inference tasks increase on the Render network, the burn rate is expected to accelerate. Pendle’s weekly emission decreases by 1.1% each week, and by April 2026, it is expected to stabilize at a 2% terminal inflation rate—this decreasing pattern can easily lead to supply scarcity in a large deflation cycle.

**RWA Track and Institutional-grade DeFi**

2026 will be the year when policies are implemented, and the RWA concept officially launches. A detail to watch is that $ONDO will unlock 1.94 billion tokens on January 18, causing the circulating supply to spike over 60% instantly. Such timing points may need to be avoided or hedged.

Chainlink ($LINK), as a leader in oracles and cross-chain infrastructure, is increasingly serving as a bridge connecting traditional finance with public chains through the CCIP protocol. This is a key infrastructure for the institutional DeFi era.

TAO-1,79%

BTC-1,34%

HNT-5,24%

RENDER-1,43%

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DataChief

· 5h ago

In the halving expectation, TAO does have some potential, but I still have some reservations about the deflationary logic on the HNT side... As for the accelerated RENDER burn, that’s something we can follow up on.

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FarmToRiches

· 5h ago

TAO halving sounds appealing, but do you really dare to buy in on the eve of ONDO unlocking? I'm optimistic about LINK; infrastructure is never outdated. HNT's current deflation cycle is interesting, but it depends on whether the burn can keep up with the output. Pendle's decreasing model is indeed clever, but is a 2% terminal inflation rate a bit optimistic... The halving concept has been overhyped; the key is who can survive until the next bull market. RWA is gaining traction, but it still feels like a concept stage. When will real institutional applications land? RENDER is a good direction; AI rendering is indeed a genuine demand. The ONDO unlock is definitely going to cause a dump; it's something that should have been avoided long ago. Deflation premium sounds good, but what if policies reverse? The scarcity argument is used by every project; where's the differentiation?

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LayerZeroJunkie

· 5h ago

The Tao halving logic is indeed clear, but once the market has priced in these structural benefits, there's not much left. The key still depends on whether practical applications can keep up.

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