Coinbase Head of Research: Dedicated blockchain networks are emerging rapidly, reshaping the competitive landscape of crypto infrastructure.

On December 29th, David Duong, Head of Investment Research at Coinbase, stated: "We believe that dedicated blockchain networks—including Layer 2, standalone Layer 1, and application-specific chains—are rapidly emerging and quickly reshaping the competitive landscape of crypto infrastructure.

For example, the Arc platform, built by Circle, focuses on institutional-grade applications centered around USDC, aiming to create compliant and efficient institutional infrastructure;

the Tempo network, incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, focuses on opening up institutional payment channels, aiming to penetrate the massive cross-border payments and international trade market; while Canton..." Network is building a private, permissioned blockchain environment specifically designed to unlock trillions of dollars in institutional capital locked in asset tokenization and securities trading.

This fragmentation of infrastructure is not accidental, but rather a strategic response at the institutional level to a core issue: large institutions are generally unwilling to place their core business logic on platforms controlled by competitors.

The fundamental logic lies in maintaining strategic dominance. More and more companies are launching their own blockchains to secure their data sovereignty, compliance frameworks, and the financial value accumulated through network effects.

In the short term, this trend is expected to accelerate further, with institutions continuing to launch dedicated chains for high-value, heavily regulated capital flows, prioritizing customized governance mechanisms, fee structures, privacy controls, and compliance features, rather than relying on general-purpose shared blockchains. Infrastructure.

However, from a long-term perspective, we believe the final landscape will not be infinitely fragmented 'on-chain islands,' but rather a network-within-a-network architecture:

these highly customized blockchains will be deeply integrated through advanced interoperability layers, such as native cross-chain messaging, shared security mechanisms based on staking and re-staking, and cross-chain bridges with privacy protection capabilities.

The future winners will be those projects that can achieve a balance between deep vertical optimization and seamless horizontal interconnection—achieving cross-chain atomic settlement, unified liquidity pools, and smooth flow of real-world assets (RWA);

while participants who fail to keep up with this process may be limited by isolated ecosystems and gradually marginalized in a market increasingly emphasizing compliance, liquidity, and the free flow of institutional capital. (Source: BLOCKBEATS)