Reflections on public blockchains in 2026:

Random Thoughts About Public Chains in 2026:

1. “Control inflation + high interest rates to attract deposits + the DeFi triple combo + the founder’s damn dog meme + we have our own hyperliquid +疯狂 OTC selling to liquid fund” — this playbook is already not going to work anymore.

2. This is not only a problem Monad and MegaETH need to face; it’s also a problem Rise, Fogo, and even N1 need to face. As for the old public chains, let’s see. Sei and Polygon feel like they’re still tinkering, while most have basically given up.

3. The loyalty of projects incubated from a public chain on day one is still questionable, because within the industry, there are only a few founders who already have choices like BNB Chain and Solana and even Base. Most of the ones deploying to a new chain are eyeing the public chain’s funding “money bag.” And once they’ve raised capital with a backer endorsement, then after they’ve gotten the first wave of launch users from the public chain community, the founder has incentives: 1) to build their own app chain to support the valuation, and 2) to switch to other chains and participate in competition.

4. To the point where some founders no longer say they’re part of the xx ecosystem, but instead say that xx chain is our “GTM Partner.”

5. So ecosystem projects that are too weak are unliftable; too strong, and it’s betraying the benefactor, like Lü Bu.

6. The laissez-faire, neutral public chain development model has basically come to an end. The valuation model based on MEV revenue needs to be revised (here, @LeePima 老师). Now, most public chains are about supporting a kind of controllability rather than possibility. Under the premise that the economic system is controllable, you build fintech.

7. The public chains after this will have a centralized power structure: top-down dev shops and CVCs. The treasury’s main job is to do M&A —疯狂 vertical mergers rather than cultivating an ecosystem. In other words, there won’t be a king maker like Solana anymore (cc. @mablejiang).

8. In that sense, BNB Chain, Tempo, and Monad are moving in the same direction—just with the differences of south oranges and north citrus and resource preferences.

9. The last question is here: at this point, what kind of model should we use to estimate FDV and then follow the hype? And the skill sets are entirely aimed at growth roles like heads of growth, operations, and so on under the growth-and-money-draining economic model of selling coins and running a token ring. The tickets for the old era probably can’t get you on the ships of the new era.