Opinion by: Marcin Kaźmierczak, co-founder of RedStone

The fight for blockchain supremacy will not be won by the one with the lowest fees and the fastest consensus; The winner will be the one who mobilizes the largest user base.

Circle, Stripe, Coinbase and others will soon join them, rewriting their business models around their own networks. They already control payment flows, trade networks, and commercial activity that most blockchains have been trying to attract for years.

By redirecting this existing volume into their own ecosystems, they don’t just run chains; they are thrown into orbit by gravity.

This shift is the axis around which the next wave of blockchain dominance will revolve. Transaction fees that were once charged to neutral networks now remain at the expense of the company. Compliance and accountability may be built into the chain’s DNA. Merchants, traders and institutions are not asked to join – they are automatically converted into validators, liquidity providers and onchain participants.

For incumbents, the icy start problem disappears. For everyone else, it defines the difference between success and irrelevance. The result is a modern competitive landscape.

Distribution as infrastructure

Consider introducing Base by Coinbase. There was no need to “bootstrap” the modern chain. Instead, it redirected tens of millions of existing users directly to it. Overnight, Base became one of the most busy Layer 2s in the ecosystem, not because it offered radically different technology, but because Coinbase already had an audience.

Circle has a similar advantage with USDC (USDC). By routing settlement flows to its own Arc chain, Circle secures the network effects of the most popular dollar coin. Similarly, Stripe and its millions of merchants can migrate payment rails to Tempo, offering lower fees and faster payouts as incentives. Taken together, these moves show that the center of gravity in the blockchain has already shifted upwards.

Startups must develop effective incentive programs, invest heavily in marketing, and hope that speculators will stay in business long enough to start a real business. Incumbents, on the other hand, immediately transform existing customers into network participants. What would take startups years to build an ecosystem, these companies achieve immediately thanks to established customer bases.

New center of gravity

Some skeptics still argue that corporate networks fragment liquidity or isolate users from the open cryptocurrency ecosystem. They’re not entirely wrong. Liquidity may break down and not all flows will be composable on Ethereum or other general purpose networks, but the gravitational pull of distribution cannot be ignored.

While the launch of PayPal USD (PYUSD) may not have disrupted the stablecoin market overnight, if even 5% of its 400 million users start transacting on proprietary rails, the shockwaves of adoption will dwarf most cryptocurrency launches. If JPMorgan directs institutional settlement to Kinexys, the market effect will be immediate.

For this reason, the debate on “bandwidth wars” and the marginal improvement in consensus efficiency becomes less vital. Architecture is driven by distribution, not the other way around. A network with users will always compete with a network with features. The shift towards distribution-first networks has created a modern set of winners and losers.

An architecture fork is simply a strategy

We can already see how this battle has divided the landscape. Coinbase, Circle, and Stripe can automatically turn their users into validators, liquidity providers, and traders. To achieve this, the architecture is selected precisely. Sovereign Layer 1 enables them to embed compliance and control economic flows for high-value institutional settlements, while Layer 2 facilitates faster launches, Ethereum security guarantees, and instant onboarding for existing users.

From there, the formula is straightforward: launch the service with recipients, sweeten the deal with lower fees or faster payouts, ensure interoperability, and go beyond basic flows. This model overcomes technical tinkering by transforming existing customers into participants in a modern value system, whether they realize it or not.

Related: Coinbase shares rise after JPMorgan raised the potential of Base, USDC

Tier 1 neutrals and startups face a very different reality. They can’t outperform Stripe sellers or Circle stablecoin flows, and they can’t force users to show up. But “flaw” does not mean doom. Their way forward is specialization. Ethereum may continue to emphasize settlement neutrality and finality, Solana may focus on high-frequency environments, and other Tier 1s may develop niche, domain-specific ecosystems that enterprise chains cannot easily replicate. In this environment, the chain that best translates its distribution into network effects will dominate, but technical elegance alone will not be enough.

Code matters, but customers decide

The multi-chain future is certain and will be determined by the gravitational pull of companies that already control users at scale. Over the next five years, banks, fintechs, payment processors, social media platforms and even gaming companies will face the same choice: launch their own network to capture value from their user base, or watch early competitors do it. Success will not belong to the architect of the cleverest protocol, but to the one who mobilizes millions from the very beginning.

For conventional layers 1 this is an intersection. Competing on bandwidth or fees is not enough with companies that already have an audience. Their only sustainable path forward is to specialize and leverage domain-specific ecosystems that enterprise networks cannot replicate. The future will be multi-chain, but uneven. General-purpose Tier 1 may be pushed aside while platforms with large-scale distribution mark the next wave of adoption.

Technology creates opportunities. Distribution creates inevitability. In the coming era, user control networks will dictate the rules of the game.

​Opinion by: Marcin Kaźmierczak, co-founder of RedStone.

This opinion article represents the author’s expert opinion and may not reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This content has been editorially reviewed for clarity and relevance. Cointelegraph remains committed to lucid reporting and the highest journalistic standards. We encourage readers to conduct their own research before taking any action with the company.