Thread by @cburniske

Having written about...

The Defensibility Of Middleware Protocols: placeholder.vc/blog/2019/2/14…

Fire Before Growth: The Likely Fate Of Ethereum Killers: placeholder.vc/blog/2019/10/2…

...I have to say the next 12+ months are going to be tense.

Middleware protocols may be the deciders 🧵

Middleware protocols provide a specific service to the interface layer, be they financial, social, or technological.

In 2019 @placeholdervc posited they would achieve cross-chain, winner-takes-most dominance in their respective services - we're seeing things move that direction

Meanwhile, many #EthereumKillers have gone through their "fire period" and are entering their "growth period."

While many will claim to not be focused on dethroning #Ethereum, make no mistake, the knives are out.

The biggest middleware protocols (@MakerDAO @AaveAave @compoundfinance @UniswapProtocol @BalancerLabs etc) currently all exist on #Ethereum, and are being hotly pursued by up-and-coming #EthereumKillers that have money to burn.

Middleware-protocols sit in a really tough position:

#Ethereum is currently high-cost to use, pricing out many users (centralizing)

However, the economics, governance, and ethos of Ethereum tends to fit well with the founding intent of many middleware-protocols (decentralizing)

#EthereumKillers are currently low-cost to use and tend to be faster, opening up access to users that are priced out of #Ethereum (decentralizing)

However, the economics, governance, and ethos of many Ethereum Killers reeks of Silicon Valley shareholdership (centralizing) 🤢

To complicate things further, there are a handful of quality layer-2 solutions on #Ethereum (@optimismPBC & @zksync stick out), which are racing to offer smart-contract functionality to entice the big middleware protocols.

Not to mention the race to ship ETH 2.0...

In the year ahead, large middleware-protocols have the power to cement:

-an #Ethereum layer-2 + ETH 2.0
-an #EthereumKiller

...as the winner-winner chicken dinner.

Once a few make the call, the rest will follow. #Ethereum will reign on, or face a real challenge.

Expect war.

As a (relieving?) sidenote: crypto will expand far beyond these feudal wars.

But these wars are bound to play out in the coming year due to the 1) relative smallness of the space 2) network effects of liquidity, composability, and developer tooling 3) 2017 over-funding.