Ownership coins are expected to create significant changes in decentralized governance in 2026, with experts predicting that at least one project will reach a market cap of over 1 billion USD.
Unlike current governance tokens, ownership coins combine three elements: economic rights, legal rights, and governance rights within a single type of asset. This advancement could help solve many issues that decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have faced over the years.
The difference between ownership coins and traditional governance tokens.
Traditional DAO governance tokens usually only provide voting rights but lack real economic power or clear legal accountability in decentralized organizations. This both increases risks for retail investors and fails to achieve true decentralized governance.
Ownership coins provide a completely new approach. According to Galaxy Digital's research report, this type of token integrates economic, legal, and governance rights into a digital asset with actual legal value. This model aims to thoroughly address the accountability issues that DAOs have faced since their inception.
Galaxy Digital calls this model 'digital companies', where every governance decision made on the blockchain will have legal effect, not just based on social consensus as before.
Token holders will therefore have substantial and legal control over digital organizations with real assets. This advancement paves the way for the formation of self-governing entities, legally recognized directly on the blockchain.
MetaDAO is one of the first projects to experiment with this model by applying futarchy, a governance system based on prediction markets rather than direct voting as in traditional systems.
The project started operating on Solana in November 2023, with all key decisions being guided through transactions on prediction markets, not through traditional voting.
The Messari report identifies AVICI as a top-performing project.
The Messari Theses report considers ownership coins as a standout investment opportunity for 2026. AVICI has emerged as the leading name in the past year, demonstrating the growth potential in this sector.
AVICI is highly regarded for its ability to retain token holders and its wide token distribution, despite significant price fluctuations. By mid-December 2025, AVICI had a total of 12,752 token holders, and the concentration ratio among 'whales' was very low.
Crypto analyst crypto_iso shared that AVICI started with 4,000 holders and reached 13,300 holders in just 45 days.
Despite experiencing a significant price drop of 65%, AVICI only lost 600 holders, which is just a 21% decline compared to its previous growth. On average, during growth, AVICI gains about 200 holders daily, and during market downturns, it only loses about 43 holders per day. This shows that the community still maintains confidence, despite price fluctuations.
The ownership coin market is seen as a very new field with significant growth potential, as to date, no project has achieved a fully diluted market cap of over 1 billion USD. Many retail investors view this as an unprecedented opportunity to seek superior profits.
"My biggest bet for 2026 is ownership coins. This is still in a very early stage, and no coin has reached a market cap of 1 billion USD. The opportunity is clearly right in front of you," analyst Anglio shared.
Many discussions on social media mention that 2026 will be 'the year of ownership coins'. The combination of real innovation and early opportunity is attracting interest from both retail investors and large institutions.
Ownership coins can address the barriers that slow down DAOs and make it difficult to attract investment. With a legally-backed on-chain governance system, pure blockchain organizations will operate like real businesses.
This advancement promises to change capital attraction, protect investors, and develop decentralized governance.
However, this field is still very young. Most ownership coin projects are still developing, and the legal issues for this hybrid model are not yet uniform across regions. Whether ownership coins can truly turn the dream of self-governing organizations on the blockchain into reality will depend on the crucial test in 2026.
