Crypto quietly evolved and I don't think most people noticed.

Most platforms are moving chain agnostic. You trade in and out of positions in stablecoins and never actually touch the chain. That shift alone tells you everything about where value is flowing in future years.
Layer 1s and layer 2s built their entire pitch on people needing to be on chain. Meanwhile airdrops have dropped off a cliff, on chain gaming can't compete with regular web2 games, the metaverse fell off the face of the earth, NFTs went from asset class to seasonal collectables and memes now trade straight from a stablecoin balance.
The chains still matter for liquidity, transfers and the odd opportunity, but attention is the scarce resource unlike previous bull cycles and the platforms removing friction are the ones capturing it.