TL; DR
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Crypto is still in the early stages of its mainstream adoption cycle, which – if it is anything like other network effect technologies – will ultimately end in a winner-take-all situation (not winner-take-all).
Full story
Are you feeling exhausted by the tribalism within crypto?
Is it your natural instinct to reject that kind of thing outright?
Good!
This is not a winner-take-all contest, but a winner-take-all contest. That means if you’re tired of the ‘Bitcoin vs Ethereum vs Solana vs promising newcomers like Aptos’ debate – you are on the right track.
This is why:
Blockchain projects have network effects.
That is, the more people use a blockchain, the more valuable it becomes → whichever chains can attract the most users will capture defensible shares of the overall market.
Crypto is still in the early stages of its overall adoption cycle, but – if it is anything like other technologies with network effects – it will ultimately end up in a winner-take-all situation.
Many of the 10,000+ cryptocurrencies will still die a slow death, yes.
…but again, there won’t be “one cryptocurrency to rule them all” – no single blockchain would be able to handle all the world’s transactions.
Instead, a small group will survive and thrive as users/companies eventually concentrate around them, encouraging further development and expanding their collective advantage.
It is similar to the social media space:
Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
Love it or hate it, but ultimately this process makes every platform better.
Here are some crypto-specific examples of feature adoption:
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Bitcoin did not allow users to create NFTs or memecoins on its network, as Ethereum did. Now it is.
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Ethereum’s user experience was terrible compared to Solana’s. So a bunch of developers with big brains created smart wallets to compete.
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Solana is fast and cheap, but doesn’t play well with Ethereum. So the people who created Movement (the new coding language behind Aptos, Sui and Sei) built Ethereum compatibility into it.
Long story longer:
Crypto-tribalism won’t make you that much richer in the long run.
It’ll just give you a lot of pointless online fistfights.