The Rise of Blockchain Again, but This Time It's Clearly Different

Blockchain may ultimately just be a part of the backend, as the trend suggests today.

Written by: Blockchain Knight

In recent years, there has been an unresolved question in the blockchain industry: should we build the chain first and then find users, or should we have users and business first and then decide whether to build a chain? The development path in the past few years has almost always been the former.

Launching a new chain, creating an ecological fund, attracting developers, offering incentives and airdrops, and then finding ways to attract users—this model has almost become the industry standard in recent years.

However, the problems have become increasingly apparent. A chain can exist without users, and a bunch of projects can have no revenue. No matter how impressive the technical parameters are, it does not mean that people are willing to use it; there are too many such cases.

However, recent actions by Robinhood provide another perspective. Robinhood itself has a large user base, a mature trading system, and real capital flow.

Launching the RH chain on this foundation is essentially not about building a chain for the sake of building a chain, but about gradually moving the existing trading and assets onto the chain.

Therefore, it does not follow the traditional public chain logic of moving from technical development to ecological project implementation and then to attracting users step by step. Instead, it reverses the process: first, there are users and trading needs, and then the chain is added as new infrastructure.

In other words, the chain here is not the starting point but the result. Similarly, the stablecoin giant Circle's Arc is also following a similar route.

According to information released by Circle, Arc is scheduled to launch its mainnet on September 16, positioning itself as an open network for financial markets, focusing on scenarios such as stablecoins, payments, settlements, and on-chain finance.

For it, the biggest issue is not whether people know Circle, but how to ensure that these assets and capital flow operate on infrastructure that is more suitable for financial business.

Thus, Arc is not simply recreating a generic Layer 1. Currently, Circle has announced that over 100 institutions and ecological participants have joined the construction and verification system of Arc.

Robinhood has investment users and trading scenarios, while Circle has stablecoins, payment networks, and financial institutions.

The resources held by the two companies are different, but their choices are becoming increasingly similar. When users, capital, and business have already formed a scale, the chain is no longer just a technical project but may become part of the business infrastructure.

In the past, discussions about blockchain in the industry often focused on TPS, gas fees, and cross-chain capabilities. However, when real financial business begins to enter the chain, the demands will become more specific.

Different businesses have varying requirements for speed, cost, privacy, permissions, and security. A generic public chain can provide basic capabilities, but it may not be the best choice for all financial businesses.

In the future blockchain market, there may not only be a few super public chains, and it is unlikely that every project will need to launch its own chain.

A more likely scenario is that some large networks continue to play the role of open ecosystems and liquidity centers, while companies with a large number of users, assets, or transactions begin to establish blockchain networks that are more suitable for their own business.

In the future, chains themselves may increasingly be seen as not an independent product, and users do not need to care about which chain they are using. Ultimately, blockchain may just be a part of the backend, as the trend suggests today.