Remember when GMX and Vesta were pretty much dominating the DeFi landscape across multiple chains? Things have shifted, but here's what keeps me up at night: if all the grants and growth capital keep flowing to the same heavyweight protocols deployed everywhere, chains lose their unique edge.

When every ecosystem just mirrors the big players, there's no real differentiation. You end up with a sea of identical financial primitives across different L1s and L2s—and that's not sustainable for long-term competitiveness.

What's needed is for the operations teams behind these chains to get behind the emerging players too. Fund the builders trying bold new approaches, the protocols experimenting with novel mechanisms. That's how you actually build distinct ecosystems that matter.