The younger former prodigy of the crypto world, Kole Lee, launches his startup Vigil Labs with the objective of rethinking buying and selling from scratch, combining synthetic intelligence and decentralized finance.
Key Factors of the Article
- Kole Lee, 23 years outdated, former Stanford pupil and member of the Stanford Blockchain Membership, raises 5.7 million {dollars} for Vigil Labs.
- Criticizes hedge funds that combine AI into out of date programs: “we have to begin from scratch”.
- In 2026 Bitcoin might change into a geopolitical asset, surpassing $200,000.
- Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi might surpass DraftKings in each day volumes.
- A serious Wall Road financial institution will launch a DeFi permissioned on-chain platform, marking the union between conventional and decentralized finance.
Who’s Kole Lee: from Blyth Fund to Vigil Labs
Kole Lee is simply 23 years outdated however already has a narrative wealthy with experiences within the monetary and crypto world. After attending Stanford, he dropped out to dedicate himself full-time to innovation. As an analyst on the Blyth Fund – probably the most prestigious pupil funds – he satisfied the board to spend money on Bitcoin at 45,000 {dollars}.
Concurrently, he was a part of the board of administrators of the Stanford Blockchain Membership, a analysis and networking heart that in recent times has produced skills now lively in Ethereum, Solana, and on the earth of crypto enterprise capital.
With Vigil Labs, a startup that has simply closed a seed spherical of 5.7 million {dollars}, Lee goals to revamp the principles of buying and selling. Now not a patchwork of AI on programs born twenty years in the past, however digitally native infrastructures, constructed with blockchain, machine studying, and decentralized liquidity as foundational components.
The Criticism of Hedge Funds
In keeping with Lee, conventional hedge funds are chasing AI with out understanding its scope. They’re attempting to “bolt on” synthetic intelligence fashions to legacy programs, that’s, platforms born in an period when buying and selling was dominated by Bloomberg Terminal and SQL databases.
An method that dangers repeating the errors already seen within the transition to the cloud: pricey hybrids are constructed with out ever leveraging the ability of the brand new paradigm. Vigil Labs, however, begins with a easy query: “what would buying and selling seem like if we imagined it at the moment, with blockchain and AI already current?”.
Bitcoin as a geopolitical reserve
Lee’s imaginative and prescient for 2026 is obvious: Bitcoin will stop to be a speculative asset and change into a strategic reserve for states and sovereign funds.
Some indicators on this route are already current:
- The Central African Republic and El Salvador have introduced Bitcoin purchases for state reserves.
- The central financial institution of Russia has admitted to contemplating the usage of BTC for overseas commerce.
- Some US pension funds have already allotted capital in spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Lee predicts that in 2026 governments and sovereign wealth funds (Norway, UAE, Singapore) will brazenly declare holding BTC of their official steadiness sheets. This may set off a worldwide rush just like that of gold in the course of the Chilly Struggle.
His strongest prediction: Bitcoin over $200,000 per unit by the tip of 2026.
An goal that, for a lot of analysts, appears believable when contemplating the tempo of halving (the final one occurred in April 2024) and the progressive entry of institutional capital.
Prediction markets: a brand new monetary big
The second level issues prediction markets. Platforms like Polymarket (on the Polygon blockchain) or Kalshi (regulated by the CFTC) permit betting on the end result of future occasions: elections, rates of interest, macroeconomic information.
As we speak, the volumes are nonetheless decrease in comparison with sports activities betting. DraftKings and FanDuel generated over 11 billion {dollars} in mixed income in 2023, whereas Polymarket dealt with about 500 million {dollars} in annual volumes.
But the expansion is fast: Polymarket has gone from lower than 10 million in annual volumes in 2021 to over 2 billion cumulative in 2024. Kalshi has obtained official licenses to listing contracts on CPI and Federal Reserve choices.
Lee predicts that by 2026 these platforms will surpass DraftKings and FanDuel in each day volumes, pushed by two components:
- Diversification: political markets, macroeconomic, local weather, tech adoption, not simply sports activities.
- Decentralized liquidity: the flexibility to exit a place at any time with out ready for the tip of the occasion.
If the prediction have been to come back true, prediction markets would change into the brand new “chance trade”, a instrument helpful not solely to speculators but in addition to threat analysts and policymakers.
TradFi and DeFi: the Inevitable Marriage
Lee’s newest prediction issues the convergence between TradFi (conventional finance) and DeFi (decentralized finance). In keeping with him, by 2026, one of many main Wall Road giants – BlackRock, Citadel, or JPMorgan – will launch a permissioned trade platform that may settle transactions straight on-chain.
In observe, a personal DeFi trade the place solely approved establishments can function, however the transactions might be clear and verifiable on a public blockchain.
Already at the moment we see indicators on this route:
- BlackRock has launched its spot Bitcoin ETF, elevating billions in just some weeks.
- JPMorgan makes use of its inner blockchain, Onyx, to settle billions of {dollars} in interbank transactions.
- Citadel has invested in regulated crypto exchanges akin to EDX Markets.
If these gamers brazenly built-in on-chain settlement, it could be the consecration of DeFi not as an outsider phenomenon, however because the normal structure of economic markets.
Affect Evaluation
Lee’s visions, though formidable, discover fertile floor in present developments:
- The institutional adoption of Bitcoin is already underway, and its classification as a digital protected haven asset seems more and more practical.
- Prediction markets characterize a nonetheless younger market however with an annual progress fee exceeding 100%, a lot quicker in comparison with conventional on-line betting.
- Conventional finance is shifting in the direction of hybrid fashions: tokenization of real-world property (RWA), institutional stablecoins, and on-chain clearing at the moment are on the core of world banking methods.
If even simply one in every of his predictions have been to come back true, 2026 could be remembered as a watershed 12 months for digital finance.
The story of Kole Lee demonstrates how the brand new generations of crypto entrepreneurs are not simply innovating on the fringes, however purpose to redesign the structure of markets. With Vigil Labs and its imaginative and prescient for 2026, synthetic intelligence, Bitcoin, and DeFi might rework from area of interest experiments to pillars of world finance.
The open query is: will the giants of conventional finance really comply with this trajectory, or will they nonetheless attempt to hinder innovation?