🧞Why does everyone want to make their own chain now?

Why is everyone creating their own chains?

Jun 02, 2025

Gm and happy Monday frens🖖

Everyone seems to be launching their own blockchain. From ex-trading desk engineers to major DeFi protocols, the race to build new chains has accelerated in 2024–25. Monad, Berachain, Uniswap’s Unichain, and a dozen others are leading a shift where infrastructure isn’t just a platform, but a product.

What’s driving this wave? To understand it, we need to look beyond the hype and into the mix of technical breakthroughs, economic incentives, and strategic ambitions that make building a blockchain more appealing than ever.

In today's issue:

❤️ What to do at EthCC?
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⛓️‍💥 Why so many chains?
🧵 Branding, Arbitrum test tokens & more
📰 News

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🛠️ Deep-dive: Why is everyone creating their own chains?

According to recent Routescan research, there are 4,080 blockchains right now. Of them 1,973 are unique. Why the hell there are so many of them?

We found three types of reasons.

Wanna learn more and talk with other builders making new chains? Don't forget to register for L2con in Cannes!

The tech is finally ready

Let’s start with performance. Ethereum may be the dominant smart contract platform, but it’s not fast or cheap. New chains like Monad are rewriting that equation. With a parallel execution engine boasting up to 10,000 transactions per second and EVM compatibility, Monad aims to outpace Ethereum while keeping developer tooling intact.

Berachain took another route, inventing a “proof-of-liquidity” consensus model that rewards stakers in one token while collecting gas in another. It’s a multi-token design trying to align users, validators, and builders.

Behind these efforts lies a broader trend: modularity. Projects like Celestia let developers decouple consensus, data availability, and execution—meaning chains can be leaner, faster, and easier to customize. And frameworks like the OP Stack are making it drag-and-drop simple to launch a Layer-2.

Follow the money

Then there’s the cash. In 2024 alone, crypto startups raised $13.7 billion, and blockchain infrastructure got the largest share of that pie. Monad raised $225M. Berachain and Celestia each raised $100M.

Why the flood of VC money? Because owning a chain means owning the fees, the MEV, the upside. Projects like Uniswap, which generate massive volume and gas fees, see a clear path to capturing more of that value by launching their own chain. Instead of being a guest on Ethereum and paying rent, they want to be landlords.

The OP Stack playbook takes this further. When Coinbase launched Base, it received 118 million OP tokens from the Optimism Foundation. Kraken reportedly receiveda similar incentive to build its own OP chain. These grants reduce the risk and offer early upside—a deal few ambitious teams can ignore.

Strategy, identity, and control

But not all motivation is financial. There’s a deep strategic shift underway. Having your own chain is now a statement about your brand, your roadmap, your values.

For Web3-native communities, building a chain is a path to sovereignty. Instead of relying on Ethereum’s roadmap or another chain’s governance, projects can design their own environments. Game studios can optimize for throughput and asset standards. DeFi protocols can write fee rules that serve their DAOs, not third-party validators. Regulatory arbitrage is also part of the playbook: launching from crypto-friendly jurisdictions and experimenting with legal models.

Even philosophically, many see the multi-chain world as truer to crypto’s ethos. If decentralization is the goal, then no single chain should rule them all. Having many chains, each with its own culture, rules, and economy, feels more aligned with the vision of a permissionless internet.

So, where are we headed?

Not every chain will survive. Many will struggle to attract users, developers, and liquidity. Fragmentation is real. But the tools, capital, and conviction driving this movement are here to stay.

In the end, launching a blockchain in 2025 is a bit like launching a startup in 2010. It’s no longer just for protocol engineers or cryptographers—it’s for founders, brands, and communities who want control over their stack. And whether for performance, money, or ideology, everyone wants their own piece of the onchain world.

Welcome to the age of chain proliferation.

Learn more about future of chains and what your project needs to be succesful with L2con. Get ready for: