Crypto Unicorns launched on Polygon in October 2021, before Arbitrum and Optimism Mainnet were even live. At the time, if you wanted cheap onchain transactions, Ethereum wasn’t an option. L2s were a necessary evolution, reducing gas costs and enabling better UX. Then the VC-driven infra boom hit, and suddenly every chain had a war chest, a pitch deck, and zero users.

We have had too much blockspace, not enough blockspace consumers for years now. Builders don’t care about theoretical TPS or whatever new consensus buzzword just dropped. They care about users and liquidity. Instead of making access easier, the industry has created a mess of bridges, silos, and unnecessary complexity.

The reality? L2s are parasitic and largely unnecessary. The future isn’t fragmented ecosystems fighting over adoption. It is dapps launching as their own rollups, inheriting security from Ethereum. Instead of competing for a slice of liquidity, native rollups will plug into shared sequencing, zk interop, and ETH-native security, making chain choice almost invisible to users.

DeFi, games, marketplaces (everything from the next EA to an Etsy store) will eventually run on appchains. Some will be massive ecosystems, others hobbyist sites. Most infra tokens will be worthless. Liquidity black holes like ETH will dominate, and network effects will dictate the winners.

Maybe one or two L2s build a strong enough network effect to survive this transition, but it’s hard to see how their competitive edge is maintained once interop, shared sequencing, and native rollups become the standard. Feels like we will see this play out over the next 12-18 months. We are experimenting, watching closely, and keeping an open mind as the landscape evolves.