Reflections on public blockchains in 2026:

Thoughts on public chains in 2026, a bunch of random musings:

1. “Control inflation + high interest rates to attract deposits + the defi trifecta + the founder’s dog meme + we have our own hyperliquid +疯狂 OTC selling to liquid fund”—this playbook is no longer workable.

2. This isn’t only a problem that Monad and MegaETH need to deal with; it’s also a problem that Rise, Fogo, and even N1 need to deal with. As for old public chains, we’ll see. Sei and Polygon feel like they’re still tinkering, and most have basically given up.

3. The loyalty of projects incubated from public chains on day one is still questionable, because within the industry there are only a few founders who already have options like BNB Chain and Solana, even Base. Most teams deploying on a new chain are watching the public chain foundation’s money bag. And once they raise capital with endorsements and secure that first wave of startup users from the public chain community, the founder has motivation: (1) build their own app chain to support the valuation (2) switch to other chains to participate in competition.

4. So much so that some founders have started no longer saying they’re part of the xx ecosystem, and instead saying that xx chain is our “GTM Partner.”

5. Therefore, ecosystem projects that are too weak are like “Dous” you can’t support; too strong, and they’re like Lü Bu who stabs their benefactor in the back.

6. The original hands-off, neutral-style public chain construction model has basically come to an end. The valuation model based on MEV revenue needs to be adjusted (here @LeePima). Now public chains are more about carrying a kind of controllability rather than possibility—operating fintech under the premise that the economic system is controllable.

7. After that, public chains will be a centralized power structure: dev shops and CVC from top to bottom. The treasury’s main role is to do m&a—endless vertical mergers instead of nurturing the ecosystem. That means there won’t be king makers like Solana anymore (cc. @mablejiang).

8. In that sense, BNB Chain, Tempo, and Monad are all moving in the same direction, it’s just a matter of south orange and north mandarin and resource allocation tendencies.

9. The last question is this: at that point, what model should we use to estimate FDV and then keep trading it? And the skill sets are completely tailored to a growth management, operating management, and other roles for an “sell coins, scoop liquidity” type of economic model. The tickets for the old era’s ship might not get you onto the ship of the new era.