Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik said that while many chains will become ghost towns post-merger, some will be able to carve out their own niches.
Cointelegraph’s Brian Newar spoke with Alex Svanevik, CEO of blockchain data company Nansen, at Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022 in Seoul, discussing topics such as the upcoming Ethereum (ETMerge and how it will affect other blockchains).
According to Svanevik, the industry has seen a side effect of the recent bull run. He said that when it comes to trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs), newcomers to the blockchain space are reluctant to pay high transaction fees of up to $100 to buy NFTs on the Ethereum network. CEO Nansen noted that this demand for NFTs has spilled over to other blockchains, where fees for buying NFTs have not been as high as Ethereum. He explained that:
“It will be interesting to see to what extent these others will continue to have demand if much of it is due to this side effect. You can use a lot less.”
When asked what he thinks would happen to some of the other blockchains after the merger, the executive said many of them could disappear. “Many networks are likely to become ghost towns or ghost networks. But I think some networks will find their niches,” Svanevik said.
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Regardless, Svanevik believes there are some networks that have been able to launch their own ecosystems. CEO Nansen cited Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX) as examples. However, Svanevik found that there are more networks with an infrastructure that allows developers to easily break into their ecosystems. He said this:
“I think some networks have been able to reach blistering speeds where there is enough infrastructure to allow them to develop more projects.”
Svanevik also compared blockchains to cities. Just as cities need hospitals, law firms and media companies, blockchains need their decentralized exchanges (DEXs), marketplaces, blockchain explorers and more, the executive said.
At the same time, 1inch co-founder Sergey Kunz told Cointelegraph that there is plenty of room for growth in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market in South Korea. Despite this, Kunz noted that there are challenges and barriers to entry, including a lack of knowledge about using crypto wallets and understanding DeFi.
