The following is an invited article by Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs.
In a world of false news, disinformation and faith in decline in traditional institutions, blockchain should fill the ditch by bringing something incredibly powerful and quite unique to the table: non-confidence. Or, at least it should.
Unfortunately, the blockchain has always suffered from its own divisions, which prevented the decentralization revolution from achieving its potential. In 2024, things started to change. We have seen incredible technical progress to unite the fractured blockchain ecosystem. This year, we will finally see decentralization starting to keep its promises to fill the gap.
The inevitability of fragmented ecosystems
If Crypto, Defi and Web3 were fully formed and with a set of unified and interoperable standards, you would rightly be suspicious. A truly decentralized ecosystem – the one that is not monopolized by a single entity – will be fragmented by its very nature.
But decentralization came at an initial cost. New technologies and platforms have evolved organically and with little reference (or interoperability) with each other. This has left the liquidity and functionality trapped in discreet silos, fixing serious limitations on the capacities and ambitions of individual chains.
And now for the good news. Some of the most brilliant minds and the most innovative companies have worked on this problem, and in the past 12 months, in particular, we have made spectacular progress. Together, we build infrastructure that connects the channels, the DAPPs and the communities, and we align incentives and design systems that can resist the test of time.
More importantly, we do it without betraying the underlying principles of decentralization.
A world without compromise: towards an aggregated future
The layer 2 networks (L2) were supposed to be the miracle solution which resolved the deficit of interoperability and liquidity of the blockchain, but they have created as many problems as they have solved. It is true that L2 have increased the transaction capacity, but they remain partitioned – even among the rollups claiming to be interoperable.
As recently underlined Vitalik Buterin, “Ethereum should feel like an ecosystem, not 34 different blockchains.“” And this is a very conservative number; Unfortunately, there are more than hundreds of blockchains.
Meanwhile, alternatives like Solana and other Alt L1 aims to be so fast and integrated that separate networks will not be necessary. But here is the reality: no chain, as powerful, can manage the total weight of a blockchain propulsion internet. There is always a ceiling.
We have recently experienced major progress towards unification, led by Agglayer. Agglayer uses zero knowledge of knowledge (ZK) to connect the channels – L1, L2S, EVM, SVM and everything else – allowing them to share liquidity, state and users in a seamless manner, low latency and secure.
If 2024 was the year of Agglayer, 2025 will see them begin to transform the ecosystem, bringing a multitude of new capacities and services in a global market. Since Rollup clusters can connect to the agglayer and still interact with each other, it creates a system with maximum security, sovereignty and unit.
He brings Crypto, Web3, DEFI and more together in a single “equal ecosystem”, where the unique capacities of each channel combine to create something much larger than the sum of its parts.
By using ZKEVM or ZKVM unification layers, developers can build with lower costs and faster speeds, while remaining anchored to safety and resistance to unmatched censorship of Ethereum. At the same time, these protocols decompose the “fenced gardens” of web3, allowing ecosystems to share liquidity and work together in a transparent manner.
This interconnection does not only help developers – it benefits everyone in the web3. It creates stronger network effects, which makes the space more equitable, inclusive and accessible. It brings back the feeling of the Internet, the one who feels unified almost all over the world. And while we head around 2025, this momentum is only growing.
But what is a unified experience look as?
Case study: How the stable -coated yields will redefine the PEGED USD tokens
One of the main examples of community -oriented trends that has experienced explosive growth this year is the rapid emergence of stablescoins provided, such as AUSD and Susde.
Unlike traditional PEGED USD tokens such as USDT or USDC, which are supported by funds invested in low -risk assets, their counterparts carrying the return share the profits with each holder, so that everyone can benefit passively – not only the issuer.
By generating a yield natively in DEFI as well as through cryptographic derivatives and traditional finance (tradfi), this new type of stablecoins aligns not only the incentives of all participants in the network, but also benefits from an aggregated approach to blockchain, ensuring transparent interoperability between blockchains.
Once natively aggregated, an asset is available in all blockchains connected to the aggregated network – like the agglayer. When stable -to -yield stablecoins are struck in this way, they can effectively help develop and evolve the crypto in a fairer and more inclusive way, encouraging the long -term participation in Defi and Web3 as a whole. Similarly attractive to professional investors and regular users, these assets represent a new dimension of community finance, promoting financial inclusion and democratizing access to investment opportunities previously limited to Tradfi.
They offer a unique opportunity to win the performance while maintaining an exhibition to stable assets, making it an attractive option for experienced investors and those that are new in the crypto space. By offering a secure and coherent return, these stablescoins promote financial inclusion and democratize access to investment opportunities previously limited to traditional finance.
The brilliant future of the blockchain begins in 2025
The confidence in everything, from politics to institutions, has regularly been eroded for years. Thank you largely to the digital revolution of the last 30 years, the world is already desperately divided. Blockchain offers an alternative convincing future in fields as diverse as finance and digital identity. Until very recently, fragmentation has threatened to steal these gains from us
Stimulated by the paradigm shift from the blockchain industry to unification in 2024, these trends are proven to massively accelerate mass adoption by making the web3 financially inclusive and interoperable like never before. The brilliant future of the blockchain therefore starts again in 2025, when we will see even more innovations that bring together historically partitioned decentralized ecosystems like “the Internet of the Future”.
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