Original text fromRyan Berckmans

Translation / Odaily Star Daily Golem (@web 3_golem)

The previous era of the crypto industry dumped tokens through infrastructure, while its next era will choose Ethereum L1+L2 to build real businesses.

Travis Kling posed a question this week: “Is it now obvious that companies genuinely doing real work are not interested in L1/L2?” Robinhood was the first example he cited. On the contrary, Robinhood is almost a perfect counterexample: when real companies make business decisions, they almost always opt for the Ethereum L1+L2 model.

Robinhood chose an existing L1 — Ethereum, then it built its own Ethereum L2 using Arbitrum technology. Robinhood Chain uses Ethereum blobs to ensure data availability and uses ETH as its native gas token, with its security also provided by Ethereum.

Thus, Robinhood did not deny the Ethereum L1+L2 model; on the contrary, this model is operating on Robinhood as expected.

The “buyers” choosing Ethereum have changed; past crypto industry projects selected public chains and technologies to sell their tokens, while the emerging real-world on-chain economy is using the Ethereum L1+L2 model as the foundation for cash businesses.

As the composition of buyers changes, I believe the advantages of Ethereum will become more apparent.

The old crypto economic system centered on tokens

What I mean by “real enterprises serving real users” refers to a traditional business model: creating products needed by customers, earning profits through customer service, and enhancing the equity value of those profits.

Here, “real users” means consumer demand arising from normal economic needs rather than speculative demands mainly generated by new token issuances; crypto-native users are clearly real users. This is not a moral judgment about whether the protocol is useful or whether its developers are sincere, simply a distinction based on the operational goal of the real economy.

The value of tokens can only come from the following three aspects:

• Cash: a reliable claim to future cash flows, similar to on-chain equity or bonds;
• Utility: access, control, governance, or other privileged participation rights in a valuable system. Even without cash flows, tokens that control important things clearly hold value;
• Monetary premium: people hold the asset because they expect others to accept and recognize its value in the future. Such assets are no longer merely claims that must eventually be exchanged for something else but have become a store of wealth—a form of terminal value asset.

The monetary premium exists, but it is also challenging to maintain. It requires deep network effects based on trust, liquidity, distribution, integration, and practicality. Gold, the dollar, Bitcoin, and Ethereum have all built different versions of this effect, while other assets have found it almost impossible to do so.

Looking back, since programmable cryptocurrencies became popular, the vast majority of industry participants have not been regular cash flow businesses. Their economic goals are often to sell a token, which primarily derives its value from utility, expected monetary premiums, or distant promises of future cash flows.

Sometimes, their plans are straightforward—launch a protocol and sell its tokens; sometimes, their plans are more indirect—secure funding from a token-funded ecosystem and then realize the acquired tokens; sometimes, a project does expect to be profitable in the future, but due to the disconnection between the token's valuation and any possible future cash, the actual business model remains confidence in the token itself.

This has become the norm, as nearly every project is doing something similar, although there are some exceptions.

Centralized exchanges are essentially cash trading business platforms and naturally support multi-chain operations; connecting to another chain is like gaining another channel for deposits and withdrawals. Some stablecoin issuers are also cash trading businesses, initially serving clients in the cryptocurrency space and now rapidly expanding into broader economic fields.

But these exceptions prove one thing: businesses targeting ordinary cash transactions choose infrastructure that maximizes their business rather than maximizing token value.

Different business goals will lead to different projects

The ultimate goal of a business determines its technology choices.

If the goal is a cash trading business, then blockchain serves as infrastructure, with the selection criteria aimed at reducing risks, improving products, reaching customers, and securing profits; if the goal is token monetization, then the choice of blockchain has more freedom, and after obtaining funding from a public chain, the company can choose to develop on the blockchain that funded it.

For instance, if a protocol succeeds on Chain A, then you can launch a similar protocol on Chain B for investors to compare and price your token. Want to hype a new token? Then a new L1, L2, application chain, gas token, governance system, or certain special tech stack might all become selling points.

The issue is not the diversity of the technology itself; the crypto industry will continue to witness explosive growth in applications, protocols, L2 architectures, and dedicated execution environments. The problem is that people tend to transform every new idea into a sovereign independent ecosystem (with its own L1 architecture, security validation, liquidity base, and monetary assets), regardless of whether the underlying product is independent.

As the crypto industry shifts towards cash business today, various attempts continue, but these attempts will increasingly be built on common infrastructure. Companies will specialize in development on the application layer or L2 while relying on Ethereum L1 for settlement, security validation, liquidity maintenance, and monetary asset management. The result will not be a reduction in innovation but a balance: greater diversity at the edges, more centralization at the core.

Previously, traditional crypto economies typically chose architecture around the tokens they wanted to sell, whereas the emerging on-chain economy will choose architecture based on the products they hope customers will buy.

Buyers are changing

The future of the crypto industry will be starkly different from the past, as the “buyers” have changed.

The former US government strongly suppressed the development of on-chain transactions, but this trend has now reversed. The “GENIUS Act” has come into effect, providing a legal framework for payment stablecoins, and Europe’s MiCA regulatory framework is also fully applicable. Brokerages, payment companies, banks, asset management companies, and governments around the world are formulating strategies for stablecoins, tokenization, and on-chain trading.

However, this does not mean that all regulatory issues have been resolved, but it at least demonstrates that large institutions can attempt more blockchain-related business.

We are approaching the beginning of the S-curve of true adoption within the crypto industry.

As we emerge from this stage, the crypto industry and traditional finance will no longer be sharply distinguished. Property, money, trading, finance, identity, and trust will be coordinated through networks formed by on-chain and off-chain systems. Ultimately, “Web 3” will be gradually phased out like “Web 2,” and everything will return to the internet itself.

As this process advances, there will be a larger proportion of real enterprises among crypto market participants, which will serve ordinary consumers in a wider economic system. This proportion will be reflected not only in the number of companies but also in funding sizes, user numbers, asset scales, and institutional influence.

These companies are no longer crypto projects searching for a business model to support token sales, but enterprises leveraging crypto technology to optimize existing or emerging cash businesses. This also determines their technology choices; infrastructure intended for a token economy cannot effectively guide infrastructure choices aimed at a cash economy.

Real enterprises do not build infrastructure from 0 to 1

Typically, real enterprises have limited budgets for adventurous infrastructure construction. They do not want consensus mechanisms, cross-chain bridges, validator economies, gas, governance tokens, and liquidity starts to become six unrelated side businesses; each additional component must create customer value, or it will become a burden.

Chains should serve businesses, not the other way around.

Some businesses are essentially multi-chain. Exchanges, wallets, stablecoin issuers, and some asset issuers may require extensive distribution. Even so, “multi-chain” seldom means that each chain is equally significant; in terms of liquidity, issuance, settlement, product status, or deeper integration, different chains often have their specialized domains.

Most on-chain businesses need to make special commitments to one chain or a few chains; their choices typically take three forms:

• When on-chain businesses need maximum decentralization, trusted neutrality, risk minimization, or liquidity, they use Ethereum L1 services. L1 execution costs are higher because it bears the heaviest shared environment;
• When companies need control, customizable features, compliance, predictable unit economics, low latency, or high throughput, they build their own Ethereum L2 layer. This allows them to have a dedicated chain on their own terms while maintaining direct contact with Ethereum;
• When companies do not require L1 and do not find it necessary to build their own L2, they typically use one or more mature shared L2 layers. Base, Arbitrum One, Robinhood, and other established Ethereum L2 layers have become common deployment platforms.

These on-chain businesses will still conduct asset bridging, “product exporting,” and connect to other networks; having their main chain does not mean being cut off from the world, as importing, exporting, and interoperability are also core components of on-chain business. However, the main chain remains crucial as it determines the system's security, normative states, liquidity relations, operational models, and long-term dependencies.

Why does Ethereum's L1+L2 model still thrive?

Ethereum separates two essential factors required by large enterprises.

The L1 layer provides a highly decentralized, trusted neutral, and highly liquid global hub, while L2 offers a quick, cost-effective, specialized, controllable, and customizable execution environment marketplace.

L1 remains neutral, while the edge L2 can adapt to different operators, jurisdictions, products, and users. L2 not only technically extends Ethereum but also politically expands it: organizations can operate in their own way without requesting the global center (L1) to become their private chain.

Independent L1s can provide control and performance advantages; in some cases, having complete sovereignty over consensus and data availability is worth it for a project, but acquiring these advantages is not cheap.

New L1s must create and maintain their own security systems, validator or operator sets, cross-chain bridges, liquidity, tooling, integrations, and reputations. This will create a new island of security and liquidity, escalating the costs and frictions associated with interoperability with Ethereum L1 and the broader L2 economy (i.e., the dominant on-chain economic networks).

For the vast majority of enterprises, the value created by an independent L1 is not enough to offset these costs.

Custom Ethereum L2 can obtain most of the business advantages that enterprises desire from adopting an independent L1: high TPS, control over execution, upgrades, fees, ordering, latency, access rules, and product-specific features.

Additionally, L2 provides advantages not available with an independent L1 itself: Ethereum for settlement and data availability, standard L1 bridges, proximity to Ethereum assets and capital, and a pathway to achieve increasing minimal trust interoperability.

The design of L2 remains crucial. Admin privileges, upgrade keys, proof systems, and withdrawal guarantees determine how much security assurance users can obtain at any moment. However, even an L2 with control held by a few operators can provide users with a solid settlement foundation on Ethereum L1. Companies do not need to operate and maintain their own L1 layers to run their businesses.

Ethereum L2 is both an independent blockchain and a part of the Ethereum economic system. It can have and customize its own execution environment while utilizing Ethereum for settlement, data availability, and interoperability management.

L2 often deeply integrates ETH into its application economy, such as using it as the native gas token. Standard cross-chain models provide a minimally trusted path for capital and assets on L1 to enter L2's “native economy.” Each new L2 has a unique product interface, and Ethereum's network effects will continuously amplify.

Robinhood made such a business decision

The development path of Robinhood is quite enlightening.

It first issued stock tokens on the mature L2 Arbitrum One, and after validating the product and understanding its needs, Robinhood launched a proprietary chain built on the Arbitrum platform.

This is likely to become a standard strategy for real enterprises: first build businesses on a certain blockchain, then upgrade to a dedicated L2 once scale, product demand, and unit economics reach a certain level.

Robinhood Chain is tailored for the financial services industry. It uses Arbitrum technology to provide 100 milliseconds of latency, predictable trading pricing, high throughput, and infrastructure customized to Robinhood's performance, security, and regulatory needs.

At the same time, Robinhood Chain remains Ethereum's L2. It uses Ethereum blobs to ensure data availability and employs ETH as the native gas, connecting to Ethereum's official bridge without third-party validators. This is how a real enterprise builds actual on-chain products.

Robinhood does not need to launch a Robinhood gas token or persuade the public that it deserves a lasting monetary premium. Robinhood itself possesses stocks, generating its economic returns from customers, products, assets, trading, and cash flows, with the blockchain merely serving as its infrastructure.

Using ETH as gas is a straightforward business decision. L2 services already use ETH to pay for L1 service fees, ETH is highly liquid, widely applicable, and is the system's native token; deploying a proprietary gas token would complicate allocation, liquidity, pricing, and legal issues, and issuing a token would not improve Robinhood’s core product.

Robinhood's success will depend on its application layer and the off-chain businesses supported by that application layer, rather than its efficiency in creating new monetary assets. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that Robinhood built its own blockchain and rejected existing L1 and L2 services.

Robinhood simply refused to share its proprietary execution environment with other projects, rather than rejecting Ethereum; on the contrary, it chose Ethereum as the parent chain of its proprietary blockchain.

Previously, Coinbase made a similar decision by launching Base. Coinbase is not a proponent of Ethereum and it is well-known that Brian Armstrong has publicly stated that his enthusiasm for Bitcoin far exceeds that for Ethereum, yet when Coinbase selected infrastructure for its on-chain businesses, it chose to become an Ethereum L2.

Base is actually powerful evidence that the Ethereum L1+L2 model is not just theoretical; Coinbase's decision was based on business considerations rather than ideology.

When companies build cash businesses instead of engaging in token sales, they are making business decisions, which determines that the infrastructure they choose will be the Ethereum L1+L2 model.

What does this mean for Ethereum and ETH?

This change in participant composition is extremely favorable for Ethereum.

Historically, the competitive landscape of blockchains has been dominated by teams whose incentive mechanisms focus on token creation, ecosystem funding, and token valuation. Looking ahead, the competitive landscape of blockchains will increasingly be led by companies optimizing security, customers, control, distribution, liquidity, and interoperability, all aimed at serving cash businesses.

This shifts demand towards Ethereum's “barbell” structure: L1 is used to minimize risk and enhance liquidity; L2 is used for scaling, customization, and operator control.

Ethereum has grown into a globally universal platform not by forcing all companies into a common shared execution environment but by becoming the underlying settlement, security, liquidity, and asset layer for numerous environments.

This is also good news for ETH. The success of ETH lies in building a monetary network and global trust, and ETH serves as an excellent stake credential as well as the native asset of Ethereum's global settlement layer. Throughout the ecosystem, it serves as collateral, liquid asset, treasury asset, productive asset, and is becoming a form of terminal asset.

As more real enterprises build applications on Ethereum, they will distribute ETH to more users, integrate it into more products, and enable it to play roles in more sectors. This will enhance ETH's liquidity and investor confidence, further strengthening the monetary premium, which will ultimately evolve into a greater network effect.

Robinhood is not an exception but a beacon.

Real enterprises will use Ethereum L1 when they need the most neutral, lowest risk, and most liquid shared environment globally. When control, customization, and high performance are needed, they will build their own Ethereum L2. But when their business isn’t substantial enough to support constructing an independent blockchain, they will deploy to mature blockchains, typically Ethereum L2.

This is not because they are fans of Ethereum but because they made rational business decisions.

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