I continue to hold the belief that on-chain activity is principally governed by the tokens themselves. Tokens own the end user – and downstream of this – the only moat for blockchains today is token issuance In a world where the most-used apps across every chain are indistinguishable (spot DEXs, perps DEXs, money markets) users don't have a relationship with apps – they have a relationship with tokens I don't use Ethereum because I like Uniswap or Aave. I use Ethereum simply because I want to trade tokens that are tradable on Ethereum. And as soon as there are tokens that I want to trade on Solana or BSC, I'll use Solana or BSC. It's that simple This is the only framework that perfectly explains the entire arc of blockchain market share: - How did BSC gain 60% market share in 2021? It fostered an ecosystem of tokens people wanted to farm and trade - How did Solana get up to 70% market share this cycle? It established itself as the canonical chain where memecoins are issued - How does Ethereum mainnet still do ~20% of all spot volume despite being slow and expensive? It was the original chain where tokens were issued and intuitively this has some inertia Interestingly, the fact that CEX volumes consistently trump DEX volumes is yet another supporting data point. CEXs provide an abstracted UX for simply trading tokens irrespective of chain This is not to reduce blockchains to merely infrastructure for trading and speculation (although this is neither good nor bad in my view). I remain confident that non-speculative use cases will eventually prevail (stablecoin payment volumes are already eating into speculative volumes) However, ignoring what ultimately drives user behavior today – and downstream of this – what is the true source of defensibility for blockchains results in a flawed mental model Blockchains are asset ledgers. Intuitively, the moat is being the asset ledger where everyone wants to issue their assets