Has technology become less important? In the future, products oriented towards users will be more important than infrastructure.

The co-founder of the cryptocurrency venture capital firm Lattice, Regan Bozman, believes that projects driving the development of the cryptocurrency field in the future will mostly be applications oriented towards general users, rather than infrastructure. The market will shift towards a user-centric development strategy.

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Consumer Products Outperforming Infrastructure Protocols

Bozman believes that the biggest winners of this cycle will be applications that vertically integrate and build on-chain business models, such as products targeting general users like Blast, Galxe, and Zora, rather than the foundational projects of the past like public chains or general-purpose Rollups.

Brands and Visibility Over Technology are Key

Due to the following three reasons, the focus of future development in the crypto space will shift from technology-focused infrastructure projects to consumer-centric products:

• Maturation of the tech stack: For instance, using OP Stack or ZK Stack, most developers can easily launch their own blockchain.
• Establishment of consumer-facing applications: Examples include Uniswap, Aave, and Blur.
• Saturation of the infrastructure market: The market might not be interested in the fifth data availability layer project, and capital is seeking new opportunities.

Consumer applications will drive the growth of the crypto industry in the future. These applications will commercialize existing tech stacks and vertically integrate by capturing market attention, distribution strategies, brand value, and attracting the market to join their ecosystem.

Blur and Manta Setting Precedents

For example, the NFT exchange team at Blur, after establishing a successful NFT market, deployed their own Layer2 to support new products like NFT perpetual contract trading, thus creating the Blast network.

Exploring the revenue-generating L2 network Blast from Blur: native on-chain interest rates, NFT perpetual contracts, and more

The greatest innovation of Blast is not technological. It integrates Lido and Maker to enhance returns, which is financial innovation; on the other hand, it successfully leverages Blur's brand advantage for user acquisition, which can be considered marketing innovation in the industry. These advantages represent a different innovative direction from previous Layer2 innovations like Arbitrum or zkSync.

Ultimately, Blast successfully became the fourth-largest Rollups project.

Manta Network followed a similar path by allowing users to stake ETH and USDC to earn Stone for increased yield efficiency, along with marketing initiatives like New Paradigm, successfully advancing their Layer2 to the seventh-largest project.

How will the privacy-focused Layer2 project Manta Pacific break through zk Rollups competition as a latecomer?

Technology will not be the primary innovation in the upcoming market cycle, but rather branding and sales.

More Application-Oriented Projects Building Network Infrastructure

More examples include Aave, Frax, Zora, CyberConnect, Swell, Galxe, DODO, etc., which are either planning or have already launched their own Rollups infrastructure to expand their ecosystems and reach the market.

Aave's latest roadmap Aave 2030: V4, Aave Network, Liquidity Integration

Centralized Exchanges Already Building Layer2 Solutions

On the other hand, centralized exchanges have been adopting this model earlier, with platforms like Kraken, Binance, Coinbase, OKX already building or in the process of building their own Rollups to expand their ecosystem influence based on their existing user base.

Kraken to launch its zk Layer2 expanding into the Web3 ecosystem?

The Future Will Be Driven by Consumers in the Crypto Market

As the narrative around infrastructure is coming to a close, market capital is still seeking new investment targets, and perhaps application-driven ecosystems are meeting that demand. With frontline crypto applications reaching a certain scale, it is expected that more projects launching their own Layer2 networks or public chains to attract market participation will be more powerful than technology-driven infrastructure.