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

Source: Greenfield

Translation: Zhou, ChainCatcher

The digital asset ecosystem is evolving in unexpected ways: new primitives, new behavior patterns, and new coordination tools are constantly emerging. What was considered experimental a year ago may now be a foundational element. As investors, our duty is to closely monitor these changes—understanding which new ideas can develop into lasting infrastructure and truly gain market acceptance.

Last year, we shared predictions about development trends for the coming year. This year, we’re taking a different approach. We no longer claim to foresee the future, but instead want to share our vision: a wish list of ten ideas, questions, and products we hope founders will begin addressing by 2026.

Through these reflections, we gain deeper insight into where the next batch of meaningful opportunities might emerge—infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), and consumer sectors—and how the ever-changing regulatory environment will shape the foundation of these opportunities.

1 | Infrastructure – BuilderNet for Solvers

Problem:

Over 50% of “non-toxic” (i.e., lower-risk) retail order flow on EVM is routed through intent aggregators using the solver model (solver model). However, solvers often face delays when integrating new routes, as it requires significant work to fully understand their logic, prevent reverts, and maintain low simulation latency.

This leads to a “chicken-and-egg” problem for many new automated market makers (AMMs) (such as 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 impedes AMM innovation—hooks often have to “lobby” large solvers for integration, sometimes even engaging in behind-the-scenes deals. In particular, v4 hooks represent a wide design space where every invariant can be broken, yet currently only 4% of v4 volume flows through hooked pools.

Opportunity:

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

2 | Infrastructure – High-Performance & Private Compute DePIN Combining Hybrid Cryptography and Hardware Security

Problem:

TEEs promise “cloud-private AI,” but recent side-channel attacks show they can still leak data—especially in decentralized, permissionless environments. Pure cryptography (MPC/FHE) is extremely secure, but too slow and complex for most practical AI workloads. No platform currently offers TEE-level speed, cryptographic security guarantees, and clear, usage-based model metering.

Opportunity:

This product is a secure AI runtime that runs models by default in high-speed terminal environments (TEEs), but automatically routes the most sensitive steps to small MPC clusters, recording verifiable “proofs of correct execution” and metered usage. Customers get cloud-like performance, audit-grade privacy guarantees, and a built-in monetization model for model providers. This is crucial for regulated industries and a growing target audience, as enterprises and consumers increasingly rely on AI and exposing sensitive data threatens IP ownership, profitability, and freedom.

3 | Infrastructure – Unified Stablecoin Liquidity Layer

Problem:

A stablecoin liquidity layer provides shared infrastructure for stablecoin trading and settlement across multiple blockchains. Liquidity providers jointly fund a unified reserve accessible from any chain, instead of maintaining separate pools on each network. A coordination mechanism tracks total balances and instructs local contracts to deliver funds upon transaction. Liquidity is dynamically rebalanced to meet demand, maintaining consistent depth and pricing efficiency across all connected networks.

Opportunity:

This infrastructure solves one of DeFi’s core inefficiencies—fragmented stablecoin liquidity. By consolidating liquidity, stablecoin transfers and swaps become more capital-efficient, cheaper, and more predictable. This architecture delivers tighter spreads for traders, higher capital utilization for liquidity providers, and a universal settlement layer for payments, treasuries, and stablecoin-based applications. It represents a foundational step towards frictionless, cross-network financial infrastructure.

4 | DEFI – Risk Management and Smart Underwriting

Problem:

Risk management in DeFi remains a huge, unsolved issue. Approaches range from protocol-internal governance mechanisms to outsourcing to risk management agencies.

Opportunity:

In such a competitive space, it’s no surprise that some institutions are willing to push risk boundaries, especially when there are no clear safeguards or frameworks to make the broader market aware of these risks. One solution is clearer risk segmentation—such as structured tranching or other mechanisms to more precisely allocate risk exposure among participants. Historically, limited data, thin trust frameworks, and insufficient risk monitoring infrastructure have made effective pricing and allocation difficult, resulting in high costs.

But now, tools are improving, confidence in DeFi is growing, and on-chain risk assessment is advancing. This is narrowing the gap between yield-seekers and those willing to assume specific risks. We hope to see more experiments focused on building and mitigating risks across DeFi systems. Also, the lack of industry-wide risk scoring standards and protocol dependencies (often hidden behind complex code) is an issue. This creates an opportunity for DeFi-native, real-time, on-chain risk scoring entities.

5 | DEFI – Transparent Market Making Protocols

Problem:

Market maker (MM) agreements remain one of the most opaque and obscure parts of the industry, with actual deal terms rarely made public. Many token teams lack visibility and control over these trades, leading them to overpay for market maker services due to an incomplete market view. They also often grant more tokens than necessary and spend enormous time learning how to get optimal market-maker deals. While this is partly a social coordination problem—investors and exchanges (or regulators) could demand greater disclosure—coordination remains difficult.

Opportunity:

We believe innovation can improve this market’s efficiency. A simple aggregator frontend where projects or market makers can post deal quotes and desired parameters would be very useful. Coinwatch already increases MM transparency by embedding API keys in TEEs, enabling projects to track their market makers’ activities. We also foresee zkTLS and staking mechanisms being used to enforce behaviors (especially for lower-profile MMs): for example, deducting staked amounts if bid-ask spreads (or any metric) exceed certain thresholds.

6 | DEFI – DeFi Robo-Advisor 2.0 (LVR Capture)

Problem:

Current automated investment tools cannot efficiently capture on-chain microstructure alpha at scale.

Opportunity:

LVR-capturing AMMs (batch auctions, solver rebalancing, dynamic fees) can turn “arbitrage” into yield for portfolios, while maintaining asset allocation balance (hint: if you explicitly want rebalancing, impermanent loss is a feature, not a bug). This could resemble a DeFi robo-advisor that transforms arbitrage into yield. Tokenized RWA funds/ETFs (AAA fixed income, money market funds, S&P 500 index funds) are growing rapidly and complement crypto-native investable assets (BTC, staked ETH, etc.).

Account abstraction enables a seamless UX: smart contract-enforced strategies provide transparent risk control, and compliant wrappers deliver regulated yield tokens. Battle-tested infrastructure, possibly combined with insurance, offers state-of-the-art security. Asset allocators get auto-rebalancing portfolios, traders get liquidity. Smart contracts enable disintermediated win-wins—all the building blocks are here—it just takes someone to assemble them for scale.

7 | Consumer – LLM ⇋ Prediction Market Interface

Problem:

Prediction markets are widely accepted, with new markets constantly emerging, but discovery remains an issue. Today, users either browse prediction market frontends for suitable markets or use aggregators or frontends to discover them, mostly via manual filtering—which is time-consuming and inefficient. There’s no intuitive way to directly express a prediction (e.g., “Team A will win”) and take action on it. As a result, most potential bettors never turn their views into actual on-chain bets.

Opportunity:

The discovery problem for prediction markets can be solved with an LLM-powered interface. We believe a chat-like interface that parses user predictions and routes them to the optimal on-chain market will greatly reduce friction, significantly increase participation, and—since more predictions bring more liquidity—make prediction markets far more dominant than they are today.

8 | Consumer – Scaling On-Chain Capital Formation

Problem:

On-chain fundraising tools (e.g., Echo.xyz, pump.fun, and Zora) have validated the effectiveness of community-driven on-chain funding models, but current participants are mostly crypto-native users. Now is the time for these models to break out of the crypto-native segment and reach the mainstream through distribution channels.

Opportunity:

Coinbase’s acquisition of Echo is a first step in this direction. Next, we’ll see on-chain capital formation’s next major step—embedding these fundamental features into mass-market platforms. Imagine integrating on-chain token/equity sale infrastructure as white-label solutions within apps like Revolut, Nubank, or Kickstarter, reaching hundreds of millions globally. This will unlock vast new capital pools and extend proven fundraising models far beyond niche token buyers.

9 | Consumer – Crypto Discovery Layer

Problem:

Crypto still lacks a unified “landing page” or search engine. Existing tools are narrow in scope, forcing users to rely on Crypto Twitter and scattered forums for information. No platform aggregates all relevant data (prices, on-chain metrics, news, social dynamics, yields, governance, attention, sentiment) in one place. This fragmentation means most participants today need a complex, extensive toolbox to keep up with the latest in crypto.

Opportunity:

Aggregation in crypto remains siloed—no one has solved crypto’s discovery problem. We see an opportunity to build a comprehensive, AI-powered landing page (a true “Google for crypto”) that integrates on-chain data, news pushes, and social signals into a coherent search/discovery feed. Owning this position will capture early adopters and newcomers, and as crypto’s adoption grows, it will create a powerful distribution moat.

10 | Regulation – Clear Protocol Rules and Bank Open Access

Clearly, this isn’t a challenge any single protocol can solve alone—it requires ecosystem-wide coordination. Since regulatory clarity is foundational for everything we build in the future, we’ve included it as a wish-list item and a collective industry aspiration.

Problem:

Despite significant progress, regulatory frameworks still play a decisive role in shaping crypto’s next phase of growth. Decentralized protocols lack clear, applicable rules: the US has no clear criteria for when tokens cease to be securities, and the EU’s MiCA framework lacks a clear decentralization standard. Frameworks built for intermediaries impose inappropriate burdens on decentralized systems, creating legal uncertainty for protocol design, token architecture, and ecosystem participation.

Meanwhile, Basel III gives most digital asset exposures punitive risk weights of up to 1250%, effectively excluding regulated financial institutions (especially banks) from crypto. This bars banks from investing, providing liquidity, or supporting ecosystem growth. Unclear decentralization rules and restrictive prudential standards jointly lead to market fragmentation, reduced liquidity, and limited participation for both protocols and institutions.

Opportunity:

Clear, globally harmonized regulatory standards will unleash innovation and foster institutional participation. For decentralized protocols, simple, transparent standards—such as the US Clarity Act’s maturity test—will finally give teams the certainty to design architectures that fit their risk profiles and are appropriately regulated. Europe can follow suit with practical decentralization thresholds, rather than vague or overly complex tests.

At the institutional level, ongoing Basel III reassessment and US proposals for differentiated stablecoin treatment reflect growing recognition that existing rules don’t match actual risks. Revising prudential standards will allow banks to hold digital assets, participate in DeFi, and provide new liquidity channels. Altogether, these reforms will build a regulatory foundation supporting borderless decentralized innovation, encourage institutional capital flows, and broaden global access to liquidity without sacrificing consumer protection.