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Build additive blockchain infrasturcture

Founders should build more additive and less extractive blockchain infrastructure.

Additive infrastructure creates new optionality and features for existing developers, stakers and operators. Additive infrastructures grow the pie for everyone. Extractive infrastructure forces capital/resource reallocation. Let’s look at a few concrete examples:

EigenLayer, Optimism, Arbitrum, and others are additive infrastructures that help create value within the Ethereum ecosystem. OpStack chains, such as Base and Zora, are also additive.

Alt-L1, Celestia, Polygon AggLayer, et al. feel extractive. They attempt to create moats/value capture without growing the total value across the crypto economy.

Some extractives have internalized the end game and are switching to being additive, e.g., Canto.

Shared sequencers are an exciting space. Right now, Espresso’s threat to L2 Sovereignty can feel extractive. Without influence over sequencing, L2 becomes a relatively thin layer. Sequencers do two things: (1) process transactions in mempool and (2) submit to data layer/L1. It seems like shared sequencers can easily become additive if designed collaboratively.

I don’t have a strong opinion on this yet, but I think it’s an interesting topic to explore.

Discussion about this here on Farcaster.

Disclaimer: I respect all the stated projects and their work towards a decentralized future. This is more about building mental models as a builder within the space and less a critique of an individual project/team. Not financial advice.