Blockchain
The crypto infrastructure revolution
For years, cryptocurrency skeptics and believers alike have decried the lack of mainstream use cases for blockchain technology. Thousands of decentralized applications have been deployed, but traditional use cases are scarce. Things could change.
It is theorized that a singularity, a point of infinitely dense matter, caused the Big Bang when one of these points exploded, distributing matter throughout the universe. I think we’re in a similar moment in the history of cryptocurrencies.
Over the past year, developers have provided builders with fast and affordable blockspaces.
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The “majors” have made giant strides, with Ethereum (ET) implemented its Dencun update in March, reducing transaction costs for users of layer 2 blockchains to less than $0.01. Solana (SOL) has (largely) resolved the downtime issues that plagued it until last year, leading to a massive increase in the economic value of the protocol.
New entrants are also arriving thick and fast. New layer 1 blockchains like Come on, SixAptos (APP) and others have launched over the past 18 months, promising unprecedented levels of productivity. This process is nowhere near completion, with another host of new and announced blockchains with new design elements coming to market throughout 2024 and beyond:
Chris Dixon, in his new book “Read Write your own,” predicts that “a key moment will be when the infrastructure becomes so good that application developers no longer need to think about the infrastructure.”
Since cryptocurrencies began, application developers have only had to think about infrastructure. Even if you had a new idea for a crypto use case, infrastructure limitations would likely prevent you from realizing it.
Now that multiple blockchains with different designs can operate reliably at scale and at low cost, developers can focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t do.
The following figure illustrates how much technology there is to experiment with:
Over time, new applications will become more popular and more performant as they discover which infrastructure best suits their needs. Perhaps this process will end with scaled applications running on modular solutions returning to Ethereum, or perhaps the monolithic vision will win, and Solana, Monad, Aptos or Sui will become the blockchain of choice for the masses. Ultimately, the market will decide which solutions will work best once they can be tested on a large scale.
Note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.