Big Ideas 2026: New Infrastructure Primitives

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Dec 26, 2025

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In this discussion, Guy Willett, a crypto expert focused on on-chain finance, enlightens us on the emerging trends of programmable money and synthetic financial products. Oliver Hsu, a partner in AI and robotics, shares insights on autonomous labs that integrate AI and automation for rapid scientific discovery, emphasizing the need for interpretability. James DaCosta introduces the Greenfield Strategy, advocating for AI-native startups to sell to each other at formation, outlining how this model can foster growth and community in a rapidly evolving landscape.

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INSIGHT

Programmable Money Beyond Stablecoins

Guy Willett argues on-chain finance will evolve from stablecoins to native credit origination and synthetic products.
Native on-chain origination reduces back-office costs and enables greater composability across DeFi.

INSIGHT

Perpification Over Tokenization

Perpification creates synthetic derivatives on-chain rather than tokenizing spot assets.
Synthetic perps scale notional volume more easily and open access to emerging market derivatives.

ADVICE

Build Crypto-Native Credit Origination

Do build crypto-native credit origination instead of just tokenizing off-chain loans.
Use on-chain processes to cut servicing costs and increase integration with DeFi composability.

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New infrastructure primitives are creating entirely new rails for building.

In this episode of Big Ideas 2026, we explore three foundational shifts that unlock new markets and workflows, not through incremental upgrades, but through primitives that compound over time.

First, programmable money evolves beyond stablecoins into on-chain credit origination and synthetic financial products, offering lower operational costs and greater composability than traditional finance. Second, autonomy begins entering scientific research through collaborative labs, where AI reasoning models work alongside automation and robotics, and interpretability becomes essential for progress. Third, distribution itself becomes a primitive, as AI-native startups win early by selling to other startups at formation, then scale alongside the next generation of companies.

You will hear from Guy Willette on the next phase of on-chain finance, Oliver Shu on autonomous labs and AI-assisted discovery, and James da Costa on the greenfield go-to-market strategy.

Together, these ideas define what new infrastructure primitives really mean: the rails that enable entirely new systems to emerge, compound, and scale.

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