“Death of the middle'' is a useful framework for predicting how new technologies will affect markets.

The classic example is retail, once dominated by department stores like Sears and Kmart, until the internet drove consumers to two extremes: high-status premium brands and hyperscale internet retailers.

Crypto/web3. Author of Read Write Own

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So.. I've heard a few references to Ethereum as the "middle" between BTC (value store/currency) and Solana (fast execution), and I'm obviously wildly simplifying. But I'm curious if the same principal applies there? Though I know some of the goals for this year aim to bridge it into the fast execution environment.

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The SOL ecosystem didn't really appeal to me, for a number of reasons, so I never tried it in 2020/2021.

This year, I actually bridged some crypto over to give it a try, especially since I was hearing "ETH is dead" and "lightning fast execution" a lot.

ETH has a very dedicated and large user base.

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and I mean a BUNCH (like 50% or close to) of times, my transaction would not go through, I would get feedback whatsoever about anything, so I was just left wondering if I'm crazy (which I certainly might be, but that's another story 🤣) or did the button I click literally do nothing. It did nothing. Doing it a 2nd or

3rd time usually did the trick.

As a long time ETH L2 user, I actually didn't see what all the hullabaloo was about.

Lastly, there's currently this narrative around DePIN on SOL. I predict we will have awesome DePIN apps on ETH L2s that may even overtake SOL DePIN in activity

after they launch. Actually working on trying to make that happen so there's definitely some bias here.

I think it is too early to call it. $BTC is definitely the OG, and personally I think $ETH is very well established as a base layer with a vibrant L2 ecosystem. That is what I see SOL competing with. Then there are

a TON of new L1s which are also competing for a piece of the pie. IMO SOL probably needs to go through this cycle, grow the ecosystem, and really create a long term user base for there to be talks of a comparison between it and ETH.

I hope the competition leads to be better web3 apps! That's what we really need!

A lot of folks going to SOL were 1. Either going for the meme coin drops (which is cool in the short term but doesn't last nor get you long term users), 2. Curious to try it out because of the all the noise or 3. Wondering if it was all that superior.

Gas was low. Sure. The UI/UX left a lot to be desired IMHO. A BUNCH