Mapping Out Blockchain Protocol Ecosystem

The blockchain industry has gone through various cycles, from the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) phase to the DeFi Summer of 2020 to the Layer-1 race to develop an "Ethereum killer" and the NFTs/Gaming mania of 2021/2022. More recently, rapidly declining NFT market data, both on-chain and from the private venture capital perspective, indicate that the market is rotating away from NFTs/Gaming and toward Infrastructure companies and projects.

This rotation is cyclical and usually happens during bear market environments. Dani Grant and Nick Grossman of Union Square Ventures thoroughly described such a market phenomenon during the last period of uncertainty in the Web3 era. Applications require infrastructure; that, in turn, enables new application development, which exposes new flaws and shortcomings, guiding the market toward more innovative infrastructure - the cycle goes on. From this perspective, it certainly might feel that the current market, if not already past the "peak" of application creation, is indeed approaching it.