Greenfield Outlook on Crypto 2026: Top Ten Key Issues and Opportunities

Source: Greenfield

Compiled by: Zhou, ChainCatcher

The digital asset ecosystem is continuously evolving in unexpected ways: new fundamental elements, new behavioral patterns, and new coordination tools are emerging. What was considered experimental a year ago may now have become foundational elements. As investors, our responsibility is to closely monitor these changes and understand which emerging ideas can develop into lasting infrastructure and gain true market recognition.

Last year, we shared our predictions for the trends in the coming year. This year, we are taking a different approach. We no longer claim to foresee the future but instead hope to share our vision: a wish list of ten ideas, questions, and products that we hope founders will address in 2026.

Through these reflections, we can gain deeper insights into where the next significant opportunities may arise in infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), and consumer sectors, as well as how the ever-changing regulatory environment will shape the foundations of these opportunities.

1 | Infrastructure - BuilderNet for Solvers

Problem:

Over 50% of "non-toxic" (i.e., lower-risk) retail order flow on EVM is aggregated through intent aggregators utilizing solver models. However, solvers often face delays when integrating new routes, as a significant amount of work is required to fully understand their logic, prevent rollbacks, and maintain low simulation latency.

This creates a "chicken and egg" problem for many new automated market makers (AMMs) (e.g., Uniswap v4 hooks): solvers need existing order flow to integrate new liquidity sources, but they themselves are responsible for routing most of the order flow. This hinders AMM innovation, as hooks often have to "lobby" large solvers for integration, sometimes requiring behind-the-scenes deals. Specifically, v4 hooks represent a very broad design space where each invariant can be broken, yet currently only 4% of v4 trading volume flows through pools with hooks.

Opportunity:

Flashbots' BuilderNet shares order flow and coordinates MEV-boost enhancements by coordinating independent block builder instances in a TEE (Trusted Execution Environment). A similar idea could be applied to the solver market, where solvers could coordinate and share information such as intent order flow, RFQ (Request for Quote) integration, analytics/liquidity metrics, routing integration, and collaborative solving, such as intent auctions for wholesale sales, without trust.

2 | Infrastructure - High-Performance and Private Computing DePIN Combining Hybrid Cryptography and Hardware Security

Problem:

TEEs promise "cloud private AI," but recent side-channel attacks indicate that they may still leak data—especially in decentralized, permissionless environments. On the other hand, pure cryptography (MPC/FHE) is very secure but too slow and complex for most practical AI workloads. Currently, no platform can provide TEE-level speed, cryptographic security guarantees, and a clear, usage-based billing model simultaneously.

Opportunity:

This product is a secure AI runtime environment that runs models in a high-speed terminal environment (TEE) by default but automatically routes the most sensitive steps to a small MPC cluster, recording verifiable "proof of correct execution" and usage metrics. Customers gain cloud-like performance, privacy guarantees that meet audit requirements, and built-in profit models for model providers. This is crucial for regulated industries and an expanding target audience, as businesses and consumers increasingly rely on AI, and exposing sensitive data poses a threat to IP ownership, thereby threatening profitability and freedom.

3 | Infrastructure - Unified Stablecoin Liquidity Layer

Problem:

The stablecoin liquidity layer provides shared infrastructure for stablecoin trading and settlement across multiple blockchains. Liquidity providers do not need to maintain separate liquidity pools on each network but instead jointly fund a unified reserve that any chain can access. A coordination mechanism tracks the total balance and instructs local contracts to deliver funds when trades occur. Liquidity is dynamically rebalanced to meet demand, maintaining consistent depth and pricing efficiency across all connected networks.

Opportunity:

This infrastructure addresses one of the core inefficiencies in DeFi—the fragmentation of stablecoin liquidity. By integrating liquidity, transfers and exchanges of stablecoins will become more capital-efficient, cheaper, and more predictable. This architecture can provide traders with lower slippage, higher capital utilization for liquidity providers, and a universal settlement layer for payments, treasuries, and stablecoin-based applications. It represents a foundational step toward frictionless, cross-network financial infrastructure.

4 | DEFI - Risk Management and Smart Underwriting

Problem:

Risk management in the DeFi space remains a vast and not fully resolved issue. There are many approaches to risk management, ranging from governance mechanisms within protocols to outsourcing to risk management firms.

Opportunity:

In a highly competitive field like cryptocurrency, it is not surprising that some institutions are willing to push the limits of risk, especially in the absence of clear safeguards or frameworks to inform the broader market about these risks. One way to address these risks is to delineate them more clearly, such as by introducing structured layers or other mechanisms to more accurately allocate risk exposure among participants. Historically, effective pricing and allocation of risk have been challenging due to limited historical data, weak trust frameworks, and inadequate risk monitoring infrastructure, leading to excessive costs.

However, tools are improving today, confidence in DeFi is increasing, and on-chain risk assessment capabilities are becoming more robust. This is gradually narrowing the gap between yield seekers and those willing to take on specific risks. We hope to see more experiments focused on building and mitigating risks across DeFi systems. Additionally, the lack of industry-wide risk scoring standards and inter-protocol dependencies (often hidden behind complex code) is also an issue. This creates an opportunity for the emergence of DeFi-native, real-time on-chain risk scoring entities.

5 | DEFI - Transparent Market Making Protocols

Problem:

Market maker (MM) protocols remain one of the most opaque and obscure parts of the industry, with the actual terms of protocols rarely disclosed. Many token project teams lack understanding and control over these trades, leading them to pay excessive fees to market makers due to a lack of comprehensive market insight. They often end up giving away more tokens than necessary and spend considerable time learning how to achieve ideal market-making trades. While this is partly a social coordination problem, where investors and exchanges (or regulators) could demand greater transparency, coordination remains very difficult.

Opportunity:

We believe that innovation can enhance the efficiency of this market. A simple aggregation front-end platform where project teams or market makers can publish trade quotes and the parameters they are willing to meet would be very useful. Coinwatch has already improved the transparency of market maker behavior by embedding API keys in TEE, allowing project teams to track their market makers' activities. We can also envision the combined use of zkTLS and staking mechanisms to enforce certain behaviors (especially for less influential market makers), such as deducting staked amounts if the buy-sell spread (or any other metric) exceeds a specific threshold.

6 | DEFI - DeFi Smart Investment Advisor 2.0 (LVR Capture)

Problem:

Current automated investment tools are unable to capture on-chain microstructure alpha returns at scale.

Opportunity:

Leveraging LVR capture AMM (batch auctions, solver rebalancing, dynamic fees) opportunities can allow "arbitrage" to yield returns for our portfolios while maintaining balanced asset allocation ratios (hint: if you explicitly want your portfolio to rebalance, then impermanent loss is a feature, not a bug). This could resemble a DeFi smart investment advisor that transforms arbitrage into returns. Tokenized RWA funds/ETFs (AAA-rated fixed income, money market funds, S&P 500 index funds) are rapidly growing as a complement to crypto-native investable assets (BTC, staked ETH, etc.).

Account abstraction enables a seamless user experience: smart contract-enforced strategies provide transparent risk control, and compliant wrappers offer regulated yield tokens. Battle-tested infrastructure, combined with potentially layered insurance, provides state-of-the-art security. Asset allocators receive automatically rebalanced portfolios, while traders gain liquidity. Smart contracts achieve a win-win through disintermediation—each component is already in place—it just needs someone to assemble them for scalability.

7 | Consumer - LLM ⇋ Prediction Market Interface

Problem:

Prediction markets have gained wide acceptance, with new markets emerging, but discovery issues persist. Today, users either browse the front-end pages of these prediction markets to find suitable markets or use external aggregators or front-ends for discovery, which is mostly based on manual filtering—time-consuming and labor-intensive. Currently, there is no intuitive way to express predictions (e.g., "Team A will win") and act on them. As a result, most potential bettors never convert their views into actual on-chain bets.

Opportunity:

The discovery problem in prediction markets can be addressed through an LLM-based interface. We believe that a chat-like interface capable of parsing user predictions and routing them to the best on-chain markets will significantly reduce friction in the user experience, greatly expand participation, and as more predictions bring more liquidity, prediction markets will become even more dominant than they are now.

8 | Consumer - Scaling On-Chain Capital Formation

Problem:

On-chain financing tools (e.g., Echo.xyz, pump.fun, and Zora) have validated the effectiveness of community-driven on-chain financing models, but current participants are primarily limited to crypto-native users. Now, it is time for these models to reach mainstream markets through distribution channels beyond the crypto-native user base.

Opportunity:

Coinbase's acquisition of Echo is the first step in this direction. Next, we will see the next significant step in on-chain capital formation—embedding these foundational functionalities into mass-market platforms. Imagine if on-chain token/equity sale infrastructure were integrated in a white-label format into applications like Revolut, Nubank, or Kickstarter, reaching hundreds of millions of users globally. This would unlock vast new pools of capital and expand proven fundraising models far beyond niche token buyers.

9 | Consumer - Cryptocurrency Discovery Layer

Problem:

The cryptocurrency space still lacks a unified "landing page" or search engine. Existing tools have narrow coverage, forcing users to rely on crypto Twitter and scattered forums for information. No platform can consolidate all relevant information (prices, on-chain metrics, news, social dynamics, yields, governance, attention, market sentiment) in one place. This fragmentation means that most participants today need to use a complex and extensive suite of specialized tools to stay updated on the latest developments in the cryptocurrency space.

Opportunity:

Aggregation in the cryptocurrency space has been isolated, and no one has yet addressed the discovery problem in this field. We see an opportunity to build a comprehensive, AI-driven landing page (a true "Google for cryptocurrency") that integrates on-chain data, news feeds, and social signals into a coherent search/discovery information stream. Occupying this space will lock in early adopters and newcomers, and as cryptocurrency adoption grows, it will build a strong distribution moat.

10 | Regulation - Clear Protocol Rules and Open Access for Banks

Clearly, this is not a challenge that any single protocol can solve alone—it requires coordinated participation from the entire ecosystem. Given that regulatory clarity is crucial for everything we build in the future, we have included it on our wish list as a hope for collective effort from all industry participants.

Problem:

Despite significant progress, regulatory frameworks still play a crucial role in shaping the pace of growth for the next phase of cryptocurrency. Decentralized protocols still lack clear, applicable rules: the U.S. does not clearly define when tokens are no longer considered securities, and the EU does not have explicit decentralized standards under the MiCA framework. Frameworks built for intermediaries impose inappropriate burdens on decentralized systems and create legal uncertainties for protocol design, token architecture, and ecosystem participation.

Meanwhile, due to Basel III's punitive risk weights of up to 1250% on most digital asset exposures, regulated financial institutions (especially banks) are effectively excluded from cryptocurrency. This prevents banks from investing, providing liquidity, or supporting ecosystem development. The lack of clear decentralized rules and restrictive prudential standards together lead to market fragmentation, reduced liquidity, and make it difficult for both protocols and institutions to participate confidently.

Opportunity:

Clear, globally unified regulatory standards will unleash innovation and promote institutional participation. For decentralized protocols, simple and transparent standards—such as the maturity test of the U.S. "Clarity Act"—will ultimately provide teams with the certainty they need to design architectures that align with their risk profiles and are appropriately regulated. Europe can follow suit by adopting practical decentralized thresholds rather than vague or overly complex tests.

At the institutional level, the ongoing reassessment of Basel III and the U.S. proposal for differential treatment of stablecoins reflect an increasing recognition that existing rules do not match actual risks. Updating prudential regulatory standards will allow banks to hold digital assets, participate in DeFi, and provide new liquidity channels. Collectively, these reforms will build a regulatory foundation that supports borderless decentralized innovation, facilitates institutional capital inflow into the ecosystem, and expands access to global liquidity channels without compromising consumer protection.