Have you noticed how much fewer new L1 and Ethereum L2 are launching these days?
Just a year or a year and a half ago, launches were happening all the time, and every single one came with “cutting-edge technology” and “solutions to the biggest problems.”
Today, we’re seeing the exact opposite trend.
Most of the chains that launched back then are quietly winding down their operations.
Linera (they didn’t even make it to launch), ZetaChain, Zero Network, Sophon, Harmony — and that’s just a small part of the list.
The market has decided for everyone who’s actually needed and who was just another empty shell.
And in the end, the reasons are pretty much always the same:
❌ Not enough organic demand for the product.
❌ Users prefer established giants.
❌ Infrastructure is difficult to make self-sustaining.
So that raises the question:
Were these really the “next-gen technologies that Web3 can’t evolve without,” or were they simply another batch of chains that didn’t bring much value in the first place?