Julian Hosp, CEO and co-founder of Cake DeFi, anticipates a shift in the discourse surrounding Bitcoin by 2026. He suggests that there will be more open discussions about Bitcoin as a speculative asset and less societal pressure to publicly support it.
“My bitcoin prediction for 2026 is that the virtue signalling for people to be “pro bitcoin” as anything else causes major backlash, is swinging back and people start being intellectually honest again about Bitcoin being pure speculation,” said Hosp. “People working for companies that make money from Bitcoin will still call it the best thing since sliced bread and that’s ok… it’s their business to tell people that, just like Casinos or the Lottery. But others can start being intellectually honest again in 2026.”
According to Hosp’s post on his public X account, he envisions a change in social dynamics around Bitcoin. He argues that public “virtue signalling” to be pro-Bitcoin will diminish, with more individuals describing Bitcoin as speculation. Despite this shift, Hosp notes that businesses linked to Bitcoin will continue promoting it as a product, drawing parallels with other industries where marketing incentives are expected.
Academic research has explored whether Bitcoin’s price behavior is driven mainly by speculative demand or fundamentals tied to technology adoption. A peer-reviewed study examined Bitcoin’s price dynamics through speculative trading versus innovation-driven factors, reflecting an ongoing debate in finance regarding Bitcoin’s market role over time.
Market microstructure research has also highlighted substantial speculative activity in bitcoin trading. Using order-book evidence and liquidity dynamics, researchers have characterized how information and trading intensity can concentrate over short periods. A peer-reviewed MDPI paper analyzed bitcoin’s secondary-market trading, discussing price discovery and liquidity provision in an asset described as having high levels of speculative trading.
Julian Hosp is a crypto entrepreneur and former physician who founded Cake Group, a Singapore-based digital assets company behind the Cake/Cake DeFi brand (now associated with bake.io). The company’s materials describe it as founded in 2019 and led by Hosp, focusing on offering digital-asset services and building a large retail user base over time. Hosp is also known for his commentary on crypto investing and market psychology across social platforms.
