In recent times, meme coins have been experiencing a frenzy, overshadowing mainstream projects. However, the author of this article believes that value investments will not be in vain, and that a thriving and enduring bull market still requires these mainstream narratives to take over. This article is sourced from the author’s online observations and is compiled and written by PANews.
Table of Contents:
AI+web3
ETH layer2
BTC layer2
Alt-layer1 high-performance chains
Chain Abstraction
Others
The continuous frenzy of meme coins and the relative dullness of mainstream narrative coins have led people to mistakenly believe that this bull market will rely on AltCoins. This has left many people who are still building mainstream coins feeling confused. Does this mean that value investments will lose to pure emotional FOMO? Obviously not.
In my opinion, the frequent breakthroughs of meme coins are just a prelude to mainstream narratives such as Layer2 Summer, AI+DePIN, and Chain Abstraction. The big narratives may still be brewing:
Firstly, BOME’s listing on Binance within three days has achieved the miraculous day of the meme market. The narrative of pure asset issuance of meme coins, although risky like dancing on the edge of a knife, has become the “mainstream narrative” to bridge the gap between the long period of no progress. However, it is important to understand that the fundamental of pure asset issuance narratives is emotions. Some funds that prefer high-risk and high-volatility tend to speculate on emotions, and some new off-chain funds and users are easily FOMOed by emotions. However, emotions are ultimately just emotions. The low issuance and operating costs of meme coins determine that their lifespan will be short, so don’t be greedy.
In fact, through my interactions with VC friends during this period and my study of early-stage projects in various vertical narratives, I firmly believe that the dominance of meme coins is just a result of the fermentation of mainstream narratives, and value investments will not be in vain. A thriving and enduring bull market requires these mainstream narratives to take over. Next, I will share my trend observations:
AI+web3
AI+DePIN will definitely be the main narrative wave of this bull market. The reason is simple: it is a new story with strong scalability and slow implementation.
The AI concept covers both web2 and web3, which will attract a large number of developers, VC funds, and a large number of users. Whether this bull market can break the vicious circle of existing funds depends on the impact of the AI breakthrough effect. At the same time, AI has great possibilities for extension in various scenarios, such as computing power convergence, model training, interactive operation of model communication, intelligent automated trading execution, AI decentralized data verification, data IP ownership, and more. The narrative space of AI+Web3 is beyond imagination.
With this narrative space, various developments in different vertical directions, combinations of various infrastructure projects, industry development driven by VC investments, applications development, and more can take place. The key is the prosperity of the infrastructure and the market’s expectations for application implementation. As we all know, the implementation of AI applications is difficult, but isn’t this an opportunity for the infrastructure market to reach new heights?
Just imagine, if the mainstream narrative of the market can shift from DeFi infrastructure to AI+web3 infrastructure, even without considering the implementation of applications, the AI narrative framework can span two bull and bear market cycles.
ETH layer2
Although the modular one-click chain launch and the upgrade of the Cancun agreement have reduced the development and maintenance costs of layer2, it has also burdened layer2 with market expectations for comprehensive chains.
Which layer2 technology is more unique and differentiated, which layer2 has faster user and traffic growth, which layer2 has a wider coverage of B-end stack strategies, which layer2 has faster progress in ecosystem implementation, and which layer2 can have killer applications, etc., will all become indicators of the value evaluation system for layer2.
This means that the layer2 track will become more competitive, and more projects like Metis will come up with different moves to disrupt the market. The four major players standing on the layer2 forefront will face great pressure. The huge market expectations and slow ecosystem implementation will make it extremely difficult for these layer2 projects to reorganize to a higher level.
To some extent, choosing layer2 means enduring the suffering and loneliness. Fortunately, the layer2 track has strong scalability. Modular combination of new chains, Rollup As A Service, stack strategies, layer3 application chains, Paymaster subsidy war, Tokenomics catalyst, primitive component commercialization, and more are all points of strength.
I have always believed that the current layer2 fundamentally “soft forks” the layer1 mainnet of Ethereum. Standing on the shoulders of giants, it conducts Crypto-Native chain improvements in a more flexible and autonomous way. To some extent, it also gives Ethereum a second life.
Thinking this way, does it bring a new expectation for layer2, which has always fallen short of expectations? There is no other reason, the Ethereum layer2 battle is difficult but necessary.
BTC layer2
If we look at the BTC ecosystem from a modular perspective, it seems more suitable to promote a series of BTC layer2 derivative ecosystems because it has stronger consensus, obvious technical flaws, and weaker technical boundaries and principles. Using the BTC mainnet as the settlement layer and then building a BTC derivative market that can release huge liquidity is uniquely advantageous.
However, the BTC ecosystem that emerged from Ordinals’ ordinal theory and flourished with the regularization of token issuance after BRC20 is currently exploring implementation around a series of technical narratives such as RGB, Lightning Network, CKB alternative chains, BTC-EVM chains, and more.
The much-anticipated third wave of token issuance is likely to be driven by the upcoming BTC layer2 narrative, or rather, the BTC layer2 infrastructure itself will take on the third wave. After all, the BTC ecosystem has already accumulated a large number of users and funds through asset issuance, and only directly implementable layer2 can continue the story.
From a pessimistic point of view, the BTC layer2 market is just old wine in a new bottle. But from an optimistic point of view, Ethereum’s development in terms of resources, manpower, and funds is too high, and BTC layer2 is a completely new strategic highland. More developers can join the ranks of builders with relatively low thresholds.
Moreover, BTC has stronger consensus, and the road for BTC layer2 is wide and broad. Why not let developers go all out?
Alt-layer1 high-performance chains
In the previous bull market, everyone discussed who would be the Ethereum killer, but in this bull market, Alt layer1 is competing to become an effective supplement to Ethereum.
Whether EVM-compatible layer1 extensions attract more developers by diverting them with subtle differences or want to share the development of Ethereum’s ecology, everyone is just repeating what Ethereum has already done. However, this time, high-concurrency transaction chains, parallel EVM chains, MOVE language-based chains, and more are trying to take a path that Ethereum cannot take, attracting more innovative developers to “start from scratch” once again.
I have confidence in this round of high-performance layer1 chains. This includes the potential of Solana’s high-concurrency transactions in the DePIN narrative, SUI Move language’s reshaping of DeFi security, and the efforts of various parallel EVM chains such as Sei, Artela, Monad, etc.
In my opinion, these emerging chains have surpassed the technical limitations that existed when Ethereum was launched and are trying to activate a new Lego narrative using greater underlying innovations. Whether Solana can activate DePIN or SUI can revive new DeFi, it is still unknown, but it is worth looking forward to.
Chain Abstraction
Modular thinking has developed to the point where I don’t think it is just a narrative. It has become a fundamental blockchain ideology. The account abstraction that has been discussed around the Ethereum EVM environment for many years has become out of date in the environment of more complex UTXO chains and non-EVM multiple chains. Thus, a more abstract concept has emerged: “Chain Abstraction”.
It should be said that chain abstraction is the combination of “account abstraction” and “modularity”. It is extremely important. The slogan of Mass Adoption has been shouted for so many years without landing. Ultimately, it is because the market is still in the stage of trading chains, wallets, exchanges, DeFi, and other basic infrastructure, which brings a high threshold and challenges for new users to onboard web3.
Chain abstraction is based on user experience and reduces barriers by providing more B2B services such as intermediate chains or chains within chains, enabling a smoother user experience for a wider range of web2 users entering web3. This will fundamentally change the basic aspects of the Crypto market, which has always been niche and a game of existing markets.
Others
In addition, there are other niche tracks such as restaking, fully-onchain games, intent-centric transactions, privacy transactions, and more. They all carry a part of the mainstream narrative progress.
I know that some people may view these mainstream narratives as memes, or even worse than memes. When the market’s FOMO becomes too impetuous, it is inevitable that people’s values will be confused. Anyway, let’s consider this article as a motivational piece written for people who stick to value investments, reflecting the true voices of dedicated builders.
The road ahead is as tough as iron, but now we must start from scratch. Stay firm on the correct path that aligns with your own understanding and keep building!
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