Good morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:
Welcome to the Asia Morning Briefing, a daily overview of top stories in US hours and an overview of market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of US markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Diary Americas.
Hashed says the crypto market is finally shifting from storytelling to structure, and that 2026 will be the year digital assets begin to behave like an economy rather than a speculative category, as stablecoins become global settlement rails and AI agents emerge as autonomous economic participants, reshaping where the real investable value lies.
In its Protocol Economy 2026 report, which serves as its investment thesis for the year, the Korean VC firm argues that Asia is where this transition will become visible, with regulated stablecoin pilots, early deployments of AI agents, and expanded RWA and treasury workflows forming the first on-chain enterprise systems.
Hashed says the investable frontier is now rooted in these structural layers, where payments, credit and settlement move onto programmable rails, and applications evolve into adaptive financial systems driven by stable liquidity and verifiable demand. The firm concentrates capital on teams with real users and amplifies on-chain activity rather than projects tied to momentum narratives.
Hashed frames this shift as a correction from the past two years, when excess liquidity and speculative flows obscured which parts of the stack generated real use.
The firm says the data now clearly points to stablecoins, on-chain credit and automation infrastructure as the categories where activity compounds rather than spikes. This trend is particularly evident in Asia, where regulators in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are building frameworks that allow stablecoin settlement, tokenized deposits and RWA issuance to plug into existing financial systems.
Hashed claims that AI will accelerate this transition because agents can route payments, manage liquidity and execute transactions programmatically, thereby creating demand for transparent rails.
This next phase of growth will favor builders working at the intersection of real liquidity and automation, where digital assets act as financial systems rather than speculative instruments – and this is where Hashed will invest.
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin is hovering around $92,000 after failing to hold a move toward $94,000 overnight, reinforcing the view of some analysts that it is settling into a low-liquidity range between $85,000 and $95,000.
ETH: Holding above $3,100, Ether is outperforming bitcoin on the day, falling less than 1% as the broader market trades sideways.
Gold: Gold is hovering around $4,200 in a tight consolidation as a weaker US dollar offers support, while higher government rates and firm risk appetite limit follow-through, leaving the metal higher but still trapped in a range ahead of US key figures.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets opened lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down 1.36% and the Topix down 1.12% after a subdued Wall Street session.
Elsewhere in Crypto
- Stablecoin adoption could stifle central bank control, IMF warns (decrypt)
- Canton Network Creator Grabs Strategic Investment From Wall Street Giants (CoinDesk)
- Solana ETFs See Record Exits As 21Shares’ TSOL Bleeds $42M (Decrypt)
