Br3akthroughs #9 – Better UX. Bigger Markets.
by Markus Hujara – August 15, 2025
Better UX, Bigger Markets.
Ethereum turned 10 and precocious by any measure. Smart contract-driven crypto is growing fast, pushing boundaries, and starting to find its place in the (real) world. Meanwhile, the world takes notice and is now anything but dismissive: Regulatory headwinds have turned into tailwinds, with the recent GENIUS Act, the Clarity Act, and Project Crypto opening doors instead of closing them. Macroeconomic shocks remain limited, merchants and TradFi are finally engaging – led by stablecoin-powered on-chain payments and real-world asset tokenization use cases. And bitcoin just hit an all-time high above $124k. With this momentum, the industry's prospects have never looked brighter than this summer. It's more important than ever that crypto does its homework – particularly in a subject it has long ignored and where it trails far behind its Web2 peers: user experience.
In this 9th edition of Br3akthroughs, we explore – through research and recent Greenfield investments – how crypto products can become easier to discover and understand (Layer3), how shorter block times can radically improve Ethereum's trading UX (nuConstruct), and how mobile-first apps can meet new audiences where they already are (Rebind).
Contents of Br3akthroughs issue #9:
- Backing: Layer3 | Rebind | nuConstruct
- Building: Arcium – the encrypted supercomputer
- Broadening: Mobile adoption
- Community: Events and Stages
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_Backing
Layer3 – the leading engagement network
From our initial investment in Layer3 to our recent follow-on: What began as a quest platform has become the definitive engagement layer for web3. Triggering over 150M transactions across nearly 40 chains, Layer3 isn't just growing, it's redefining how users interact with crypto protocols. They've steadily expanded their customer base and footprint while rapidly growing their product suite, reinforcing our view that Layer3 has one of the strongest execution teams in crypto. One of the newer products we're especially excited about is Layer3 Intel, which enables autonomous agents to stake $L3 tokens to deploy tasks and create community spaces. In our follow-on thesis, we share why we more than doubled our $L3 position and why Layer3 should be valued like an L1.
–> Backing post
Rebind – the intuitive mobile gateway to DeFi
Despite $28T in stablecoin settlement volume and 65M+ smart accounts onchain, crypto's UX still keeps most of the world's 560M holders on the sidelines. Rebind is building the missing mobile-first layer that abstracts away seed phrases and multi-chain friction delivering a consumer-grade DeFi experience that feels as seamless as Revolut or Robinhood. Users can onboard in seconds, earn passive yield, and swap thousands of tokens all self-custodially. By stitching together the proven primitives of DeFi behind intuitive UX, Rebind turns idle holders into active participants. With leading Rebind's €1.6M pre-seed funding round, we back the intuitive mobile gateway to DeFi.
–> Backing post
nuConstruct – catalyzing Ethereum's 1-second block time revolution
nuConstruct is developing TOOL which introduces 1-second subslots via early confirmations, enabling Ethereum to offer a trading UX on par with higher-frequency chains like Solana, but without protocol changes. By restructuring block auctions and unlocking over $300M in additional value for validators, TOOL strengthens the economic backbone of mainnet. As efforts to scale Ethereum L1 reaccelerate from gas limit increases to block time optimizations we believe nuConstruct's approach is pragmatic, validator-friendly, and vital for restoring Ethereum's role as the default venue for deep, liquid, and trustless trading. By participating in nuConstruct's $6M seed funding round, we're backing the infrastructure layer that ensures Ethereum L1 remains competitive where it matters most.
–> Backing post
_Building
Arcium – the encrypted supercomputer
A truly functional ledger must offer both verifiability & privacy so that users can interact with confidence, without exposing their data or trading intentions. Arcium enables encrypted computation while preserving Solana's public verifiability which unlocks confidential, trustless trading. Since we led Arcium's $5.5M strategic funding round, they have built close relationships with leading Solana projects, successfully raised a coinlist community round this March, and are now transitioning toward their public testnet.Explore the progress and use cases of the encrypted supercomputer in our updated analysis of Arcium.
_Broadening
How Mobile will unlock adoption in Web3
Over 80% of Americans now manage finances via mobile apps, with similar trends across Europe. Platforms like Robinhood redefined investing by turning complex financial actions into intuitive mobile gestures. That same behavioral shift is now making its way into Web3. A new generation of mobile-first DeFi apps is emerging, designed for everyday users not crypto experts. Innovations like embedded wallets (using email or biometrics instead of seed phrases), account abstraction (enabling gasless, automated transactions), and crypto-native smartphones like Solana Mobile are removing friction across the board.
The result? A DeFi experience that feels more like Revolut or Venmo than a developer tool. Users can earn yield, swap tokens, bridge assets, and onboard in seconds all from a mobile device. The takeaway: mobile is not just a delivery channel for crypto it's the behavioral infrastructure for the next billion users. If Web3 wants to scale, it must be mobile-native by design.
_Community
This year's event season made it clear: interest in crypto is running high – not just from within the community, but increasingly from institutional investors. At Greenfield, we aim to strengthen the ties between both worlds, showing up for the conversations shaping the future of the industry. At SuperReturn/SuperVenture in Berlin, we addressed institutional interest in crypto with the Greenfield Crypto Salon and talks like Principal Claude Donzé's presentation at LW3 Digital's debut event. Our Research Partner Felix Machart spoke during Berlin Blockchain Week, including panels at DappCon and the Onchain Growth Summit. Associate Anies Khan moderated a DePIN-focused panel at TOKEN2049 Dubai's Unchained Summit, and Jascha Samadi joined The Fabricant's Kerry Murphy at South Summit Madrid to discuss post-investment founder-investor dynamics. In July, our investment team attended EthCC in Cannes – Europe's premier crypto tech and community event – where we met with founders, sourced early-stage opportunities, and spoke at the main conference and side events on topics like mobile-first crypto, DeFi, stablecoins, the intersection of crypto and AI.