ArkStream Capital: From AI Capital Drain to RWA Ascent — The 2026 Crypto Capital Migration

TL;DR 

The following analysis and judgments are based on market data as of the end of Q2 2026 and the prevailing market environment at that time.

In the first half of 2026, the weakness in Crypto was not driven by internal industry blowups, but rather by the Fed's hawkish policy pivot, supply-side inflation triggered by the US-Iran war, and the continued siphoning of global liquidity by AI stocks. Meanwhile, returns from the AI rally are shifting from chip leaders, cloud providers, and software application layers, concentrating towards physical supply chain bottlenecks such as memory and PCB. The three mega-IPOs will further test AI's high valuations and high cash-burn models.

Against the backdrop of overall DeFi contraction, RWA emerged as one of the few areas in Crypto maintaining net inflows: on-chain scale grew from approximately $21.6 billion at the start of the year to $33 billion, with tokenized stocks and RWA perpetual contracts growing the fastest. Demand for "coins" is weakening, but demand for trading traditional assets like stocks and commodities via Crypto infrastructure is rising rapidly. Our assessment is that the US stock market's siphoning effect on Crypto may have peaked in June 2026; barring any significant new negative developments in the industry, the market may have entered a phase of slow recovery.