2026 Layer 1 Outlook

The Layer 1 (L1) landscape in 2025 became highly fragmented, with distinct roles emerging: Ethereum solidified its role as a settlement and data availability hub, largely driven by L2 growth and resulting in very low mainnet fees. Speculative retail demand concentrated on high-throughput chains like Solana and BNB Chain, fueled by memecoins, though Solana's dominance was heavily front-loaded by early-year meme activity.

Stablecoins became a defining theme, driving over $90 billion in net new issuance and leading to the launch of purpose-built "stablechains" like Plasma, which attracted significant early funding by optimizing for narrow use cases like compliance hooks and simplified fees. Other L1s saw stablecoin growth tied to specific narratives, such as Hyperliquid linked to perpetuals volume and Aptos/Polygon benefiting from institutional RWA deployments.

Beyond speculation and settlement, specialization defined the base layer, with L1s focusing on privacy (like Zcash's revival via NEAR integration), performance (Monad and Fogo aiming for web2 latency), and app chain hubs (Avalanche subnets and Initia) coordinating specialized environments. The outlook for 2026 suggests continued fragmentation, making interoperability crucial for abstracting complexity and achieving mainstream adoption.

(Source：The Block)