The app-centric model is broken. Users tolerate wallets, gas, and bridging because applications are built directly on raw protocols. The winning abstraction is a seamless user experience, not another frontend.
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Why the Next Wave of Crypto Unicorns Will Be Invisible
A first-principles analysis arguing that maximum value in the next cycle will accrue to foundational, backend infrastructure—ZK proof systems, interoperability layers, and decentralized data networks—not consumer-facing applications.
introduction
THE SHIFT
Introduction: The App-Centric Delusion
The next wave of crypto value accrual will be in infrastructure that makes applications feel like the internet, not the blockchain.
Value accrual moves down the stack. Just as AWS profits more than most websites, infrastructure like EigenLayer, Celestia, and Hyperliquid will capture more value than the dApps built on them.
The best tech is invisible. Users don't think about TCP/IP. The next unicorns are intent-based systems (like UniswapX and Across) and modular data layers that abstract away blockchain complexity.
Evidence: Over 80% of DeFi volume flows through aggregators like 1inch and CowSwap, not native DEX interfaces. The infrastructure enabling that flow is the real business.
thesis-statement
THE INFRASTRUCTURE SHIFT
Core Thesis: Value Follows Scarcity, Not Hype
The most valuable protocols will be the foundational, non-replicable infrastructure that enables user-facing applications, not the applications themselves.
Scarcity creates value. The crypto market misprices hype over fundamental utility. Protocols like EigenLayer and Celestia create economic moats through staked security and data availability, which are harder to fork than application logic.
Applications are commodities. A new DEX or lending market is a feature, not a protocol. Uniswap and Aave forks prove that front-end logic is replicable; the underlying settlement and data layers are not.
Invisible infrastructure captures rent. The next unicorns are oracle networks like Chainlink and shared sequencers like Espresso. They extract fees from every transaction without user recognition, mirroring AWS's dominance in web2.
Evidence: The total value secured (TVS) by restaking protocols exceeds $15B, while the market cap of most consumer-facing DeFi apps stagnates. Value accrues to the base layer, not the top.
key-trends
INFRASTRUCTURE ABSTRACTION
The Three Pillars of Invisible Value
The next wave of massive value capture will be in the plumbing that makes blockchain usage feel like the internet.
01
The Problem: Fragmented Liquidity Silos
Users and developers must manually bridge assets between chains, a slow, costly, and risky process that fragments capital and UX.\n- ~$2B+ is locked in bridge contracts, a constant target for exploits.\n- Users face 5-20 minute wait times and pay $5-$50 in gas per hop.
5-20 min
Wait Time
$5-$50
Cost/Hop
02
The Solution: Intent-Based Abstracted Networks
Protocols like UniswapX, CowSwap, and Across let users declare what they want, not how to do it. A network of solvers competes to fulfill the intent optimally.\n- MEV protection is baked into the design.\n- Achieves ~$10B+ in settled volume by abstracting away chain-specific execution.
$10B+
Settled Volume
0 Gas
User Experience
03
The Problem: Opaque and Unreliable RPCs
Every dApp relies on a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) node to read/write to the blockchain. Public endpoints are slow and rate-limited, while private ones are a single point of failure.\n- 99%+ uptime SLAs are non-negotiable for real applications.\n- Latency spikes cause failed transactions and lost users.
<99%
Public Uptime
500ms+
Latency Spikes
04
The Solution: Decentralized RPC & Data Networks
Networks like POKT Network and Lava Network create decentralized markets for blockchain data, distributing requests across thousands of nodes.\n- Guarantees >99.9% uptime and sub-100ms global latency.\n- Developers pay for usage, not bloated enterprise plans, reducing costs by -70%.
>99.9%
Uptime SLA
-70%
Cost vs. Infura
05
The Problem: Centralized Sequencing & MEV Extraction
On rollups and L2s, a single sequencer orders transactions, creating a centralized choke point and capturing most Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). This undermines decentralization and forces users to overpay.\n- >90% of L2 MEV is captured by the sequencer.\n- Users have zero guarantees of fair ordering.
>90%
MEV Captured
1 Entity
Single Point
06
The Solution: Shared Sequencing Layers
Protocols like Espresso Systems and Astria provide a neutral, decentralized marketplace for block space ordering. Rollups outsource sequencing, gaining security and fair ordering.\n- Enables cross-rollup atomic composability.\n- Reduces sequencer MEV capture by introducing competitive bidding.
Atomic
Cross-Rollup TXs
Decentralized
Security Model
THE INVISIBLE UNICORNS
Infrastructure vs. Application: A Capital Efficiency Reality Check
Comparison of capital efficiency, business model, and risk profile between application-layer protocols and foundational infrastructure.
| Metric / Feature | Application Layer (e.g., DeFi, NFT, Social) | Infrastructure Layer (e.g., RPC, Indexing, Oracles) | Hybrid Layer (e.g., L2s, Intent-Based Systems) |
|---|---|---|---|
Revenue Model | Direct user fees, token incentives | API/service fees, protocol revenue share | Sequencer fees, MEV capture, gas subsidies |
Capital Efficiency (Revenue / TVL) | < 0.5% |
| 1-3% |
Defensibility Moat | Tokenomics, first-mover liquidity | Network effects, data moats, technical complexity | Ecosystem lock-in, validator/staker security |
Protocol-to-Token Value Accrual | Weak (speculative governance) | Strong (fee burn, staking rewards) | Moderate (fee sharing, staking) |
Regulatory Surface Area | High (direct user interaction) | Low (B2B, developer-facing) | Medium (varies by design) |
Example Protocols | Uniswap, Aave, Blur, Friend.tech | Alchemy, The Graph, Chainlink, Pyth | Arbitrum, Optimism, Across, UniswapX |
Time to Product-Market Fit | 6-18 months (hype-driven) | 24+ months (grind-driven) | 12-24 months (ecosystem-driven) |
Failure Mode | Vampire attack, liquidity flight | Technical obsolescence, centralization | Bridge hack, sequencer failure |
deep-dive
THE UNSEEN ENGINE
Deep Dive: The Flywheel of Invisible Infrastructure
The next wave of crypto unicorns will be invisible, abstracting complexity to fuel user-centric applications.
Infrastructure becomes a commodity. The value migrates from the base layer to the orchestration layer. Just as AWS abstracts servers, protocols like EigenLayer and Celestia abstract security and data availability.
Invisible protocols capture value. The best infrastructure is the one users never see. ERC-4337 account abstraction and intent-based systems (UniswapX, CowSwap) hide gas and slippage, creating superior UX.
The flywheel is self-reinforcing. Better abstraction attracts more users, which funds R&D for further abstraction. This cycle creates unassailable moats for infrastructure that is deeply integrated yet completely hidden.
Evidence: Chainlink's CCIP and LayerZero's OFT standard are becoming the invisible plumbing for cross-chain applications, processing billions without direct user interaction.
counter-argument
THE ABSTRACTION LAYER
Steelman: But What About the User?
The next wave of adoption requires protocols to become invisible, abstracting away complexity through seamless intent-based systems.
The user experience is the protocol. The winning infrastructure will be the one users never see, abstracting away wallets, gas, and cross-chain complexity. This is the shift from explicit transactions to declarative intents, where users state a desired outcome and a network of solvers competes to fulfill it.
Intent-based architectures are the abstraction engine. Protocols like UniswapX and CowSwap demonstrate this model, where users sign a desired swap outcome and off-chain solvers handle routing, MEV, and bridging. This solver network abstracts the entire execution layer, making the underlying blockchain a settlement backend.
Invisible infrastructure drives adoption. The success of Arbitrum's native account abstraction or Coinbase's Smart Wallet proves users adopt what feels like Web2. These are not features but foundational shifts that hide private keys and gas fees, making the blockchain itself the invisible settlement layer.
Evidence: UniswapX processed over $7B in volume in its first year by abstracting execution. Across Protocol's intent-based bridge fills 90% of user requests in under 30 seconds by leveraging a decentralized solver network.
protocol-spotlight
INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE
Invisible Giants in the Making
The next wave of crypto unicorns won't be consumer apps; they will be the foundational, often unseen, infrastructure services that power the entire ecosystem.
01
The Problem: Cross-Chain UX is a Fragmented Nightmare
Users face a maze of bridges, DEXs, and wallets for simple cross-chain actions, leading to ~$2B+ in bridge hacks and lost funds from user error.\n- Solution: Intent-Based Transaction Abstraction\n- Platforms like UniswapX and CowSwap let users declare what they want, not how to do it.\n- Solvers compete to find the optimal route across chains, abstracting away complexity.
-90%
User Steps
$2B+
Protected TVL
02
The Problem: RPC Endpoints Are a Centralized Chokepoint
Most dApps rely on a handful of centralized RPC providers like Infura and Alchemy, creating single points of failure and censorship.\n- Solution: Decentralized RPC Networks\n- Services like POKT Network and Lava Network distribute requests across a global node fleet.\n- Ensures >99.9% uptime, ~200ms latency, and resistance to geo-blocking.
>99.9%
Uptime
~200ms
Latency
03
The Problem: Smart Contract Wallets Are Insecure By Default
Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) with seed phrases are responsible for billions in permanent losses. Social recovery is clunky.\n- Solution: Programmable Account Abstraction\n- ERC-4337 enables smart contract wallets with gas sponsorship, batch transactions, and session keys.\n- Infra providers like Stackup and Biconomy handle the bundler and paymaster layer, making it seamless for dApps.
0
Seed Phrases
10x
TX Security
04
The Problem: MEV is a $500M+ Annual Tax on Users
Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) from front-running and sandwich attacks silently drains value from everyday traders.\n- Solution: Encrypted Mempools & Order Flow Auctions\n- Protocols like Flashbots SUAVE and Shutter Network encrypt transactions until inclusion.\n- This creates a fairer auction for block space, returning value to users and validators.
$500M+
MEV Extracted
-90%
Sandwich Attacks
05
The Problem: Oracles Are Expensive and Laggy
DeFi depends on oracles for price feeds, but they are costly to update and can have critical latency, leading to exploits.\n- Solution: Low-Latency, Verifiable Data Feeds\n- Pyth Network's pull-oracle model lets dApps fetch data on-demand with ~100ms freshness.\n- Chainlink CCIP provides cross-chain data and computation, becoming the messaging layer for DeFi.
~100ms
Data Freshness
-70%
Update Cost
06
The Problem: Interoperability is a Security vs. Speed Trade-Off
Bridges like LayerZero and Axelar face a trilemma: security, speed, or capital efficiency—pick two.\n- Solution: Light Client & ZK Verification Bridges\n- Succinct Labs and Polygon zkBridge use cryptographic proofs to verify state transitions trust-minimally.\n- This enables ~3 min finality for cross-chain messages with security derived from the underlying chain.
~3 min
Finality
Trust-Minimized
Security Model
risk-analysis
THE FRAGILE BACKBONE
The Bear Case: When Invisible Infrastructure Fails
The promise of seamless, user-centric crypto is built on a new class of infrastructure that is designed to disappear. When it fails, the entire user experience collapses.
01
The Liquidity Aggregator Blackout
Intent-based systems like UniswapX and CowSwap rely on solvers competing for user orders. A major solver failure or a liquidity network outage (e.g., Across, LayerZero) creates a silent failure state where transactions simply don't happen, eroding user trust.
- User Impact: Orders hang or fail with no clear error.
- Systemic Risk: Reliance on a few dominant solvers creates centralization vectors.
~100%
Success Rate Required
0s
User Tolerance
02
The RPC Choke Point
Applications depend on RPC providers like Alchemy, Infura, and QuickNode for blockchain data. An outage here is a total application blackout, as seen in past incidents. The abstraction becomes a single point of failure.
- Scale: A single provider handles millions of requests per second.
- Blast Radius: One provider outage can take down hundreds of dApps simultaneously.
99.99%
Uptime SLA
10min+
Downtime Cost
03
The Cross-Chain Consensus Lie
Bridges and omnichain protocols (LayerZero, Wormhole, Axelar) sell the dream of unified liquidity. A vulnerability in their off-chain validator sets or message relayers can lead to catastrophic fund loss, making the abstraction lethally opaque.
- Security Model: Trust shifts from the base chain to a ~$1B+ staked external validator set.
- Opaqueness: Users cannot audit the live security of the bridging layer.
$2B+
Bridge Hacks (2022-23)
19/32
Validator Threshold
04
The Gas Abstraction Trap
Paymasters and account abstraction (ERC-4337) allow sponsors to pay fees, hiding gas complexity. If the sponsor's backend fails or their fee logic breaks, user transactions revert silently, stranding assets in a 'meta-transaction limbo'.
- Dependency: User's tx viability is outsourced to a third-party's infrastructure and solvency.
- Debugging Hell: Failed transactions have no clear on-chain reason, complicating support.
Zero
Gas for User
100%
Sponsor Risk
05
The Indexer's Silent Fork
dApps use The Graph or centralized indexers to query blockchain data. If the indexer falls out of sync or serves incorrect data due to a chain reorg, the application state becomes corrupted without the underlying blockchain being aware.
- Data Integrity: The app reflects the indexer's truth, not the chain's.
- Propagation Delay: Can take hours to days to detect and resolve stale data.
1000+
Subgraphs
~10 blocks
Sync Lag Risk
06
The MEV Searcher's Invisible Tax
Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) and private order flow auctions (like those by Flashbots) aim to democratize MEV. In practice, a dominant builder/searcher cartel can extract maximum value from every block, making the 'fair' infrastructure a covert rent-seeking machine.
- Market Share: Top 3 builders often control >80% of blocks.
- Opaque Auction: The winning bid and extracted value are not transparent to the end-user.
>80%
Builder Concentration
$500M+
Annual MEV
investment-thesis
THE INFRASTRUCTURE SHIFT
Investment Implications: How to Allocate in an Invisible World
The next wave of value accrual will be in the protocols users never see, not the applications they directly interact with.
Invest in plumbing, not faucets. The highest-margin, most defensible businesses in Web2 are infrastructure (AWS, Cloudflare). This pattern repeats in Web3. The value of intent-based architectures like UniswapX and CowSwap is not the UI, but the underlying solver networks and shared order flow.
Protocols beat products. A slick wallet front-end is a commodity; the account abstraction standard (ERC-4337) and bundler/relayer networks are the moat. Investment must target the permissionless back-end systems that enable seamless user experiences across chains.
Metrics are now invisible. Traditional TVL and active addresses are lagging indicators. Forward-looking metrics are cross-chain message volume (LayerZero, CCIP), verifiable compute credits (EigenLayer AVS), and intent settlement rates. These measure the hidden economy.
Evidence: The $10B+ valuation of Chainlink is a precedent. Its oracles are critical, invisible infrastructure. The next unicorns will be the universal RPC layer, the dominant intent solver marketplace, and the decentralized sequencer network that underpins all rollups.
takeaways
INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE
TL;DR: The Invisible Mandate
The next wave of value accrual in crypto will be in the foundational, often unseen, layers that power seamless user experiences.
01
The Abstraction of Complexity
Users don't want to manage gas, sign multiple transactions, or bridge assets. The winning infrastructure abstracts this away.
- Intent-Based Systems like UniswapX and CowSwap let users declare a desired outcome, not a series of steps.
- Account Abstraction (ERC-4337) enables gas sponsorship, social recovery, and batch transactions, removing wallet friction.
- Unified Liquidity Layers (e.g., Across, LayerZero) make cross-chain actions feel like a single transaction.
-90%
User Steps
10x
Conversion Rate
02
The Verifiable Data Pipeline
Trustless applications need reliable, low-latency access to off-chain data and computation. This is the new middleware battleground.
- Oracles (Chainlink, Pyth) provide $100B+ in secured value with sub-second price feeds.
- Verifiable Compute Networks (e.g., RISC Zero, Espresso) prove off-chain execution was correct, enabling complex dApps.
- Decentralized Sequencers (e.g., Espresso, Astria) offer censorship-resistant transaction ordering for rollups.
<1s
Data Latency
$100B+
Secured Value
03
The Interoperability Fabric
Monolithic chains are dead. The future is a network of specialized execution environments (rollups, app-chains) that must communicate.
- Interoperability Hubs (e.g., Polymer, Hyperlane) provide secure messaging between any chain, not just bridges between two.
- Shared Security Models (EigenLayer, Babylon) allow new chains to lease economic security from Ethereum or Bitcoin.
- Universal State Proofs enable light clients to verify the state of any chain, making wallets and bridges inherently trustless.
100+
Chains Connected
-99%
Trust Assumptions
04
The Privacy-Through-Utility Layer
Regulatory scrutiny has made anonymous cash impossible. The next wave hides user activity by making it irrelevant, not secret.
- Programmable Privacy (Aztec, Fhenix) uses FHE or ZKPs to compute on encrypted data, exposing only the result.
- Intent-Based Relayers (like those in UniswapX) act as a privacy buffer, submitting transactions on a user's behalf.
- Stealth Address Protocols (e.g., Daimo, Etherscan's new feature) break the on-chain link between identity and activity.
0
Exposed Data
100%
Functionality
05
The Modular Execution Engine
General-purpose blockchains are inefficient. The future is modular stacks where execution, settlement, data availability, and consensus are separate, optimized layers.
- Rollup-As-A-Service (RaaS) providers (AltLayer, Caldera, Conduit) let teams launch a custom rollup in <1 hour.
- High-Performance VMs (Solana VM, Move VM, Fuel's UTXO model) offer ~10k TPS for specific application needs.
- Unified Developer SDKs (like Polygon CDK or OP Stack) abstract the underlying modular complexity.
10k TPS
Specialized VM
<1 Hour
Chain Launch
06
The Economic Security Backbone
As the ecosystem fragments, the cost of securing new chains becomes prohibitive. Shared security is the only scalable model.
- Restaking (EigenLayer) allows Ethereum stakers to re-deploy $20B+ in ETH to secure AVSs, from oracles to new chains.
- Bitcoin Security Leasing (via Babylon, Nomic) brings Bitcoin's $1T+ economic weight to secure PoS systems.
- Cryptoeconomic Primitives transform idle capital (staked assets) into productive, yield-generating security for the entire stack.
$20B+
Securing AVSs
$1T+
Bitcoin Security
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