Crypto’s Infrastructure Pivot: Inside Beincrypto’s Executive Council

What Happened

User acquisition has fragmented across referrals, partnerships, and LLM-powered search — a shift that renders traditional performance marketing increasingly ineffective. At the same time, token price appreciation is no longer a reliable revenue driver, forcing projects to reassess opaque or outdated business models.

Market Context

What started as a fringe, ideologically pure attempt to escape centralised financial control is now being embraced by the very institutions it was designed to disrupt. The idealistic manifesto published by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, and the blockchain innovations that followed, is no longer confined to the margins. Crypto is quietly sliding into the plumbing of global finance. Crypto’s real-world use cases are no longer playing out in headlines, they’re being embedded quietly into the backend of global financial infrastructure.

That shift is forcing a rethink across the industry. The next phase of growth will not be driven by hype cycles, but by companies that understand how information is consumed and produced by both humans and AI systems, particularly autonomous agents whose transaction volumes may soon eclipse those of people. At the same time, crypto’s audience is expanding well beyond its early adopters, reshaping how distribution works. Take this as a case in point. What was once mocked by the Davos elite now dominates centre stage, generating daily headlines in once hostile TradFi broadsheets like the Financial Times.

The roundtable surfaced one finding that surprised even the participants: traditional performance marketing is becoming obsolete. Traffic to top websites has declined more than 11% over five years, according to SimilarWeb data, and AI agents are increasingly bypassing subscription models entirely — consuming content without paying for it.

Volatility remains unsolved. While traditional markets have mature volatility management tools, crypto still lacks equivalent infrastructure at scale.

“We’re entering a new era where success isn’t measured by token prices alone. Dune, as the leading onchain data platform, is seeing that shift firsthand. Blockchain teams are increasingly focusing on data points that directly reflect their utility and real-world impact.”— Alsie Liu, Full-stack Web3 Marketing Manager, Dune

— Vishal Sacheendran, VP Global Markets Strategy & Operations, Bitpanda

Why It Matters

Trust still requires humans. Despite rapid AI adoption, authority, expertise, and social proof — not algorithms — remain the primary trust signals for users.

The Social Era: Signals Over Opinions

The shift is not merely about platform preference — it reflects deeper changes in content expectations. Audiences increasingly demand signals and verifiable facts over opinion-heavy analysis. Personalization is now baseline, not premium.

Details

Executives from Bitpanda, Dune, and Libertex identify AI agents and demographic shifts as defining forces for 2026

More than fifteen years after the Bitcoin white paper sparked a revolution in how we think about money, the cryptocurrency industry is entering a period of rapid transformation. It now sits at the intersection of three powerful forces: co-option by incumbent financial institutions, the rise of AI agents, and the shifting demographics that come with mainstream adoption.

Many would argue this is a sign of maturity, and perhaps inevitable. But this transition brings with it a new set of challenges alongside the opportunities.

This new paradigm was clearly articulated at BeInCrypto’s inaugural Executive Council, where senior leaders from Bitpanda, Dune, and Libertex came together for an extended discussion on the industry’s most urgent strategic challenges, and the opportunities emerging from the convergence of AI, blockchain infrastructure, and mainstream financial adoption.

Key Takeaways

Crypto moves to the backend. The industry is shifting from hype-driven growth to infrastructure mode. “We don’t need to explain the concept anymore — it’s becoming invisible,” one participant noted.

AI agents are economic actors, not tools. Autonomous systems now consume, summarize, and act on content. Traditional monetization models — subscriptions, traffic-based advertising — face structural disruption.

Demographics are diversifying. Banks and traditional financial institutions are mediating crypto adoption, bringing older audiences who consume news through legacy media rather than crypto-native channels.

Detailed Findings

From Headlines to Backend Infrastructure

Crypto’s maturation is accelerating. TradFi, fintech, and crypto now operate on similar rails, competing for the same users with similar tools. The competitive boundaries that once separated these sectors have largely dissolved.

Social platforms have become primary news sources, particularly among younger audiences. In the US, 54% of people now access news via social media, with over half of under-35s relying on these platforms as their main source — surpassing TV and traditional news websites for the first time.

The rise of social media-based news is not unique to the United States, but changes are happening faster there. The US is joining a “social-first club” that includes Brazil, many African countries, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Meanwhile, European countries and Japan show more resilience toward traditional news brands.

“Boomers are coming to the game. They consume news the old-fashioned way… Boomers will go to the banks.”