Ever since the turbulent events of 2022, the DeFi landscape – and with it, the protocol go-to-market (GTM) playbook – has been constantly evolving. We’ve seen protocols rise to prominence and maintain their positions, while others have lost their early momentum just as quickly as they gained it. This research takes a retrospective look at some of the most notable and ambitious DeFi GTM strategies – analyzing which approaches succeeded, which fell short, and why. By identifying common patterns across these launches, we aim to distill key lessons and actionable insights that today’s protocols can apply to design more resilient and effective GTM strategies.

Last year, we shared our predictions about what could shape the year ahead. This time, we’re taking a different route. Rather than claiming to know what the future holds, we want to share what we hope to see: a 10-point wishlist of ideas, problems, and products we’d love founders to take on in 2026. By anchoring these reflections, we gain a nuanced understanding of where the next set of meaningful opportunities may emerge across Infrastructure, DeFi, and Consumer – and in how evolving regulation will shape the ground beneath them.

We’re excited to announce that Greenfield is leading Semantic Layer’s $1.5M Series A funding round, which brings the total funding to $5M. Semantic Layer is building the execution and sequencing infrastructure for the Agent Economy. As autonomous AI agents begin to transact, trade, and collaborate on-chain, Semantic Layer gives dApps and agents sovereignty over how these interactions are executed, empowering them to define transaction sequencing, capture MEV fairly, and design entirely new economic primitives.

We are excited to announce our participation in Warlock Lab's $8M seed funding round. Warlock is a crypto-native trading firm focusing on market making and MEV strategies across chains, as well as orderflow monetization, helping DeFi protocols improve their efficiency and sustainability by re-capturing value otherwise lost due to malicious MEV.