Product Keynote: Glider (Brian Huang)

The days of manually signing transactions, worrying about gas fees, and missing overnight price movements could soon be over. Glider, a startup backed by crypto heavyweights A16Z, Coinbase, and Uniswap, has officially launched on Solana—bringing its "calm, intelligent way to invest on-chain" to the fastest-growing blockchain ecosystem.

Summary

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Brian Huang, co-founder of Glider, took the stage at Breakpoint 2025 to announce what could be a pivotal moment for DeFi accessibility. Glider eliminates the friction that has long plagued cryptocurrency investing: the endless clicking, the gas management across multiple chains, the constant vigilance required to protect positions from liquidation. Instead, users simply declare their investment intentions, and Glider's system handles the rest.

The platform represents a fundamental shift in how users interact with decentralized finance. Rather than requiring users to understand the technical complexities of bridging assets, managing gas tokens across different chains, or manually executing trades at optimal times, Glider abstracts all of this complexity away. Users can set up portfolios that automatically rebalance, move between yield sources, and even react to external triggers like social media activity.

Huang drew a stark comparison between the current state of crypto and automotive technology: while self-driving cars can safely transport passengers without human intervention, crypto still requires users to navigate every step of their investment journey manually. Glider aims to bring that same level of automation to on-chain investing, leveraging the programmable nature of blockchain assets that—until now—has largely gone untapped by consumer applications.

The Solana launch marks a significant expansion for Glider, which has already proven its model with over 50,000 active users and 30,000 portfolios on EVM chains. By integrating both EVM and SVM in a truly chain-agnostic manner, Glider positions itself as one of the few platforms capable of seamlessly managing assets across the entire blockchain landscape.

Key Points:

The Broken Onboarding Experience

The current state of crypto onboarding is fundamentally broken. Huang walked through the typical process of setting up a wallet: at minimum 10 steps, previously including the cumbersome task of copying down seed phrases and verifying them. But that's just the beginning. New users must then fund their wallet, acquire gas tokens, discover applications, learn how each one works, deposit assets, and track their positions across multiple platforms.

This fragmented experience creates countless friction points where potential users drop off. Need to interact with a protocol on a different chain? You'll need to figure out bridging. Don't have the right gas token? Your transaction fails. Want to protect a leveraged position overnight? Better not sleep. Huang argues this experience is fundamentally incompatible with mainstream adoption—a view that's hard to argue against when comparing it to the streamlined experiences users expect from traditional financial apps.

The Transaction Signing Problem

Perhaps the most telling moment of Huang's presentation came when he displayed the standard transaction confirmation screen. Despite being designed to provide security assurances—letting users verify they're signing the correct transaction—the reality is that nearly everyone scrolls straight to the bottom and hits confirm. The interface that was meant to protect users has become meaningless through overuse and complexity.

This desensitization creates real security risks. Users who have trained themselves to blindly approve transactions become vulnerable to malicious smart contracts and phishing attacks. But more importantly, it highlights how current DeFi interfaces fail to serve their users. If the security mechanism is universally ignored, something is fundamentally wrong with the design paradigm.

Glider's Automated Approach

Glider reimagines on-chain investing around the concept of "orchestration." Rather than requiring users to execute each individual step of a complex transaction sequence, Glider allows users to declare their desired outcome and handles everything in between. Want to sell an on-chain stock when it hits a certain price and move the proceeds into a stablecoin lending protocol on a different chain? With traditional DeFi, that's 20 different steps requiring gas on multiple chains and possibly multiple wallets. With Glider, it's a single instruction.

The platform can automatically rebalance portfolios, migrate between yield sources, protect positions from liquidation, react to price triggers, and even execute trades based on social media activity. All of this happens without users needing to manage gas, sign individual transactions, or understand the technical details of cross-chain bridging. The system remains fully non-custodial—users retain ownership of their assets while delegating the execution logic to Glider's infrastructure.

Technical Infrastructure: SWIG and Chain Agnosticism

Building this kind of system required solving significant technical challenges. Glider describes its architecture as "chain agnostic, gas-free, and declarative." The declarative approach means users specify what they want rather than how to achieve it—a fundamental shift from traditional transaction-based interaction models.

For the Solana integration, Glider partnered with SWIG, another company in the A16Z ecosystem, to implement account abstraction on Solana. Account abstraction allows for more sophisticated transaction execution logic, enabling the kind of automated, conditional transactions that Glider requires. This partnership demonstrates the growing maturity of Solana's infrastructure and its ability to support advanced DeFi applications.

Traction and Market Validation

Glider isn't launching on Solana as an untested concept. The platform has been live on EVM chains (Base and Plume) for two months and has accumulated impressive metrics: over 50,000 active users and 30,000 portfolios holding real value. Huang emphasized that Glider has become part of users' daily routines, with people checking their portfolios regularly just as they would traditional stock portfolios.

This behavioral shift is significant. By making on-chain portfolio management as natural as checking a traditional brokerage account, Glider bridges the UX gap that has long separated crypto from mainstream finance. The fact that users return daily suggests the platform delivers genuine value rather than just novelty.

Facts + Figures

• Glider is backed by A16Z, Coinbase, Uniswap, and other notable investors
• The platform currently has over 50,000 active users across EVM chains
• More than 30,000 portfolios have been created on the platform holding real value
• Glider has been live on EVM (Base and Plume chains) for two months prior to the Solana launch
• The typical wallet onboarding process involves at least 10 steps regardless of which wallet you use
• Traditional complex DeFi operations can require approximately 20 different steps and gas on multiple chains
• Glider uses SWIG's account abstraction technology for Solana integration
• The platform is now one of the only apps to combine both EVM and SVM in a truly chain-agnostic manner
• Glider is fully non-custodial despite its automated execution capabilities
• The platform supports automatic rebalancing, yield source migration, liquidation protection, price triggers, and social media-based trading triggers

Top Quotes

"How many of you enjoy the process of opening up your wallet, connecting to an app, and manually transacting every single day throughout every day? Literally nobody here."

"We can all agree this is never going to work for normal users."

"We live in a society today where we have cars that can take us from point A to point B without any human in the loop... Why don't we have this in crypto?"

"While we're in MapQuest era in crypto, the rest of the world is in the Waymo era."

"The irony of all of this is we actually have truly programmable money at this point. Why aren't we using it?"

"Every web3 application you see these days is a really poor copy of something that you can do in web2. We're not taking full advantage of the potential that you have with on-chain assets."

"No gas, no signing, no bridging, and fully non-custodial."

"You no longer have to stare at a screen 24/7 and ensure that you don't miss a price jump in the middle of the night. Glider works for you based on your intentions."

"Our number one goal with Glider is to grow the wealth of our users."

"We are now one of the only apps to combine both the EVM and the SVM in a truly chain agnostic way."

Questions Answered

What problem does Glider solve for crypto investors?

Glider solves the overwhelming complexity and manual effort required to actively manage DeFi investments. Currently, users must navigate multi-step wallet setups, manage gas tokens across different chains, manually execute every transaction, and constantly monitor positions to avoid liquidation or missed opportunities. Glider eliminates all of this by allowing users to simply declare their investment intentions while the platform handles execution automatically. This means no more worrying about having the right gas token, understanding bridge mechanics, or staying awake to catch overnight price movements.

How does Glider remain non-custodial while automating transactions?

Glider maintains non-custodial operation through account abstraction technology, specifically partnering with SWIG for Solana integration. Account abstraction allows for sophisticated transaction logic to be executed on behalf of users without requiring them to hand over custody of their assets. Users retain full ownership of their funds while delegating the execution logic to Glider's infrastructure. This approach provides the convenience of automation while preserving the core self-custody principle that makes crypto valuable.

What kind of automated actions can Glider perform?

Glider can automatically rebalance portfolios to maintain target allocations, move assets between different yield sources to optimize returns, protect leveraged positions from liquidation, execute trades when assets hit specified price levels, and even react to external triggers like social media activity. All of these actions happen without manual intervention, gas management, or transaction signing. The platform handles cross-chain bridging, protocol interactions, and timing optimization behind the scenes.

How does Glider handle cross-chain transactions?

Glider is built as a chain-agnostic system, meaning users don't need to think about which blockchain their assets are on or how to move them between chains. The platform abstracts away all bridging complexity, allowing users to specify their desired outcome—such as moving from an asset on one chain to a lending protocol on another—without understanding the technical steps required. With the Solana launch, Glider now supports both EVM chains (like Base and Plume) and Solana's SVM, making it one of the few platforms to truly unify these ecosystems.

What traction has Glider achieved before launching on Solana?

Before the Solana launch, Glider spent two months live on EVM chains (Base and Plume) and accumulated over 50,000 active users with more than 30,000 portfolios holding real value. The platform has become part of users' daily routines, with people returning regularly to check their portfolios similar to how they would monitor traditional stock investments. This demonstrated product-market fit on EVM chains provided validation before expanding to Solana.

Who are the investors backing Glider?

Glider has secured investment from some of the most prominent names in crypto venture capital. A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz) leads the investor group, joined by Coinbase Ventures and Uniswap. The company has also partnered with SWIG, another A16Z portfolio company, for technical infrastructure. This backing from major players in both the investment and product sides of crypto suggests strong confidence in Glider's approach to solving DeFi's usability challenges.

Why does Huang compare current crypto UX to MapQuest?

Huang uses the MapQuest-to-Waymo comparison to illustrate how far behind crypto user experience is compared to other technology sectors. Just as MapQuest required users to manually follow turn-by-turn directions while Waymo drives you autonomously, current crypto requires users to manually execute every step of their investment strategy while the technology exists to automate the entire process. The comparison highlights that crypto has the underlying capability for automation (programmable money) but hasn't yet built consumer products that take advantage of it.