For much of crypto’s history, most services were standalone products whose main appeal was farming their own tokens. When token prices fell or airdrop campaigns ended, demand dried up, and the services gradually faded away.
But since the last cycle, a meaningful shift has started to emerge: some DeFi projects are becoming established infrastructure for financial activity.
They are being integrated into exchanges and custody platforms to power lending and trading. As traditional financial institutions and fintech companies adopt blockchains as core infrastructure, this trend is accelerating.
Ecosystems like ripple:native and canton-network:native are also carving out their own distinct domains, with institutional partnerships gradually translating into real-world adoption.
As a founder of
@doppler_fi, I believe we need to understand what infrastructure these ecosystems need—and build it. Meeting those needs is how we can help these expanding ecosystems grow faster and create lasting demand for what we build.
Narratives like XRPfi are gaining traction, but I believe their staying power will ultimately depend on whether the builders succeed in building an infrastructure that finds clear product-market fit.