For me, the metric i wish more people tracked: unique addresses that use a protocol >3 times per month.
One-time users inflate DAW stats, repeat users reveal actual product market fit. Huge difference.
On-chain reputation is an underbuilt primitive.
Your wallet history is a better CV than LinkedIn for a lot of roles.
Who you funded. What you built. When you showed up.
Projects like Gitcoin Passport and Orange Protocol are early. The use case is real.
WORLD:
the best wallet UX is the one where users never say the word "wallet." they just… use the app. that's the bar. we're not there yet but the path is clear.
Just to understand how big it is, account abstraction (ERC-4337) is 18 months old and already has 50M+ deployed smart accounts.
Nobody talks about it because it's infrastructure. But this is quietly the biggest UX shift since metamask.
It’s always the case, the best products are not the most hyped ones, but they solve a real pain point for users and provide a clear and precise solution
Everyone is chasing the next L1 but the real alpha right now might just be in boring infrastructure.
Modular chains, data availability layers, settlement networks.
The apps that will matter in 2028 are being built on top of things most people cannot even name today.
@ethereum L2s processed more transactions in Q1 2026 than the mainnet did in all of 2022.
The infrastructure won.
The argument about whether L2s would fragment the ecosystem kind of settled itself.
Airdrop meta 2026 is different from 2021 and most people have not adjusted yet.
Protocols are filtering harder. Raw transaction count no longer works. What actually gets you qualified now: meaningful on-chain activity, and being a real user of the product.
hot take: the next 10x in DeFi won't come from a new primitive.
it'll come from someone packaging existing primitives so well that a non-crypto person can actually use them, the tech is there, the UX isn't.
Something i keep thinking about:
The internet's first decade was also mostly garbage products on real infrastructure email, forums, bad e-commerce
But, the infrastructure (TCP/IP, HTTP) was the bet, not the apps, feels familiar in the ecosystem.
Solana's biggest advantage isn't speed.
It's that you can build a consumer product on it without making the user think about gas. That UX gap is enormous and still underpriced.
Today, airdrops are extremely selective there are about 10 scams for every 1 good airdrop. You need a framework:
- Does the protocol actually solve a real problem?
- Is the airdrop meaningful or is it just mindless farming?
- Does the team have sustainable revenue streams ?
Stop farming everything blindly.
Pick 3 protocols you actually believe in, use them like a real user, and qualify naturally.
Protocols can tell the difference. The allocation reflects it.
Unpopular opinion: most governance tokens are worthless.
Not because governance is bad, because 0.001% of holders actually vote. If nobody uses the power, the token has no power.