I think the market is slowly realising we probably don’t need another 50 Layer 1s and Layer 2s.

For years the pitch was simple. Ethereum was where all the liquidity, DeFi, NFTs and attention lived, but it became painful to use. Gas wars were brutal, transactions were expensive and that opened the door for L2s.
Then Solana came along and made on-chain trading feel fast, cheap and normal. Then we got Sui, Sei and a bunch of others all pitching some version of “we are faster, cheaper and better" but the game has changed.
Wallets are better. Bridges are easier. Traders can move between chains in a few clicks. Platforms are starting to abstract the chain away completely. Privacy options are growing. Perps, memes, AI coins and airdrops all have their own ecosystems now.
People don’t care about your chain because it exists, they care if there is money, attention, culture, liquidity or opportunity there. That’s why Solana can hold attention through memecoins, Hyperliquid through perps, Base through AI and other chains slowly bleed out despite having “better tech”.
The market is telling us something pretty clearly... we don’t need more chains, we need more reasons to use them otherwise they will trend to zero.