Key Highlights
- Forbes’ 2026 FinTech 50 lists a handful of blockchain barnstormers-Polymarket, Hyperliquid, Phantom, Ledn, and Securitize-jumping from three in 2025 to five today, as the market cap for shackles of silver-uh, crypto-has crossed the bougie $4 trillion mark.
- The U.S. pushed the GENIUS Act through in 2025, giving stablecoins a lick of legality, and big old banks (banks that put their names to public awareness bills) like JPMorgan, Citigroup, and BlackRock are now chummy with crypto, claiming it’s as mainstays as coffee and paper.
- Beyond the coin‑shimmer, the list throws a spotlight on heavy hitters: Stripe, the payments engine; Ramp, the corporate spend wizard; and Plaid, the API connector that feeds everything from Venmo to Robinhood while another minute, it pockets a pretty penny of cash.
Forbes, that tried‑to‑be‑all‑ports‑and‑all‑ships worry factory, released its Annual Fintech 50 on February 20, 2026. The list spotlights five blockchain upstarts beating the odds in a market that feels like a sandcastle put in the tide of bucks.
Polymarket recently rode the wave of the 2024 U.S. elections, Hyperliquid is swapping out the old centralised order books for perpetual futures, Phantom has become the common Solana wallet for folks wanting to keep their coins out of sight, Ledn offers crypto lending services, and Securitize brings real‑world assets into the token marketplace.
At the same time Washington is-like a flamboyant gentleman at a tea party-pushing forward with crypto regulation, echoing the first major ball‑ and - the GENIUS Act, and now courting the CLARITY Act to keep the chatter neat.
This year’s FinTech 50 also gives a nod to the old guard as well: Stripe, with its payment techniques; Ramp, providing corporate cards to tame spend; and Plaid, the pasteboard that stitches banking data into neat islands of possibility.
In a quip, Forbes’ Deputy Editor for Money & Markets, Nina Bambysheva, acknowledged that the crypto sector may be in a downturn, but overall the industry had another transformative year, like a river that keeps carving new paths.
She pointed out that in 2025, the market cap had leapt past $4 trillion, riding a regulatory tide that once made skeptics laugh but now is being toasted by institutions from JPMorgan Chase to BlackRock and Fidelity.
Polymarket, Hyperliquid, Phantom, Ledn, and Securitize mark a tipping point for the blockchain realm. The previous edition listed only three-Figure, Fireblocks, and Securitize-so the growth is as clear as a river after the rain.
Forbes’ FinTech 50 for 2026, in its eleventh year, showcases the top 50 private fintech companies and startups pushing the envelope between revenue growth, product innovation, and leadership diversity, all headquartered in U.S. territory or doing waves in the country, but none publicly traded.
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2026-02-20 14:28