The Death and Rebirth of Super Public Chains: Comparison of Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain

Author: Zuoye Waiboshan

Ethereum has no dream, Vitalik refuses to become a lifelong benevolent dictator;Solana has no bottom line, the only active conspiracy group left in the blockchain world; BNB Chain has no future, and only Binance diversion is left after the extreme marketing.

Why study public chains?

When you have connections with all retail investors in the cryptocurrency industry, you will inevitably become the infrastructure of this industry. So far, only BTC/ETH as a public chain and Binance and Coinbase as exchanges have achieved this. One is decentralized and the other is centralized. Do a business. Can it connect with everyone as it develops?

In 2025, there will no longer be L1, non-EVM and public chains with market influence. L2, Move VM and Sonic/Bear Chain are just doing business around tokens. The struggle between Solana and Base is more like a battle between business consortiums, and has little to do with the dispute over technical standards and routes.

Based on this, I summarize the three tones of this article, which is also a summary of the public chain from a historical perspective. Just like the new Edge chose to be compatible with Chromium and start again, an era of rapid development has ended.

1. The background of the birth of finance is to hedge business risks, but since its birth, finance has become the main source of risk, from the railway protection movement that buried the Qing Empire to Bitcoin that eroded the legal currency system.

2. The development of the Internet is a brief history of browser kernels, products and search engines. Converted to the public chain system, EVM/SVM-->ETH/L2, EVM compatible L1-->PoS node system + super dApp.

3. The public chain is still built on the bottom layer of the Internet protocol. After the wild west and the great voyages, the process of human civilization is the migration from rural areas to cities. The death and life of the super public chain reflects the developers' aspirations.

You have to go through these before becoming Bitcoin

"Send away the successor of Bitcoin and welcome the rebirth of Base?

The Ethereum system is an era of anarchism and personal free will, an era of decentralization, fighting against the legal currency system and the world computer, and it is also dedicated to this era.

After a year of ridicule, Vitalik chose to promote Aya to the position of chairman of the Ethereum Foundation (EF). After all, Vitalik himself said that he could decide everything about EF.

However, there is no need to have more expectations for Vitalik. Vitalik is a person who is extremely nostalgic. Aya is the "wasting mother" he met when he was sleeping on the floor at Kraken. The humble era of heroes is the softest part of his heart.

I don't want to list all kinds of data and charts to prove the problems of Ethereum, because there is actually no problem with Ethereum itself and the EF and EVM ecosystems. BNB Chain and Base will not switch to SVM for the time being.

Referring to the history of browser development, the most "halal", orthodox and free FireFox did not continue the glory of Netscape, but was incorporated under the combination of Google's open source Chromium and Google search commercialization. 90% of Firefox's revenue comes from setting Google as the default search engine, becoming Google's de facto "royal opposition".

The same is true for today's ETH/EVM system. Every dApp, every L2, every Dev, every VC, and every KOL that makes up the EVM circle has evolved through the process of natural selection on a unique historical trajectory and in a unique ecological environment.

ETH, L2 and EVM are closely linked to each other, forming the public chain system with the most "network effect" at present. The continuous positive feedback mechanism inherent in the network effect will double the ecological connection, which is also the fundamental reason why everyone curses but cannot leave.

Temporary rest will not last forever, and Trident IE will also be replaced by Chromium Edge The bottom layer of Ethereum is precisely Vitalik's personal problems, and the collapse of the governance system has led to the current dilemma.

Vitalik's parents are both from the Soviet Union. Vitalik himself is extremely opposed to centralized, autocratic and authoritarian systems. The seeds of the DAO system are buried here, but as mentioned earlier, he also said that he can decide everything about the Ethereum Foundation. The rollback after the DAO incident has proved that if there is no decentralization, it will move towards absolute centralization.

Referring to Satoshi Nakamoto, who left without leaving any name or credit, Vitalik is clearly in a state of chaotic neutrality, that is, he does not want to lead everything about EF in a legitimate way, but he also wants to retain the final decision-making power over EF. Unfortunately, this is the worst governance system.

Since Machiavelli's "The Prince" and Max Weber's summary of bureaucracy plus Taylor's summary, companies are the most efficient organizational model in human society. Silicon Valley's technology right, such as Musk, Peter Thiel and others, believe that companies should take over the country, rather than bureaucrats managing society. DOGE is a direct product of this.

But for organizations that are not so "capital efficiency" oriented, such as technical geek groups, how to govern and collaborate with programmers who do not receive salaries and span the world has become a social need for foundations or DAOs. The Linux and RISC-V foundations are both role models, but it is not enough. There will always be conflicts in the community, and people's hearts are not always the same.

For Linux and Python, their founders will also assume the role of Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL), but that is not enough. Linus, the founder of Linux, did a terrible job of banning Russian administrators on October 24 last year. After the PEP 572 dispute in 2018, Python announced that it would no longer serve as BDFL. This move is quite similar to the resignation of Mo Shaikh, co-founder of Aptos, and the escape of many directors of AVAX.

However, one thing must be admitted. In the early stages of the development of technical organizations, the hard work of the founders is indispensable. However, the complexity of EF is not here. The capital efficiency-oriented company system only needs to be responsible to shareholders, and the social effect-oriented technology foundation only needs to be responsible for the project itself. Programmers are always free and can choose and fork freely in different organizations.

However, EF is not equivalent to the two. EF can ignore profitability, as the treasury has enough ETH, but the EVM ecosystem must consider profitability. This is the awkwardness of Vitalik--EF--EVM. Vitalik does the work of BDFL, but refuses to assume the corresponding duties. The downstream of EF is the hungry ETH Hodlers and the huge economic system, but they must operate under Vitalik's personal will.

Understanding this point can understand that Aya's route of the Infinite Garden is extremely correct. This is the only choice to ensure that everyone in EF can follow Vitalik's will, the master of sewing in the EVM Empire, and the water-balancing sister of the Central Military Affairs.

Vitalik is like a child holding gold. A young hero who has become famous cannot maintain balance in a complex world, so he introduces external helpers. However, the external groups are more concerned about profit issues. Vitalik can neither govern EF/Ethereum/EVM like a company, nor does he actually assume the nominal role of BDFL like a technical organization. After the DAO was falsified in stages, Ethereum is now in a state of slow and out of control in the strict sense. It will either slowly become silent or be possessed.

Now the Ethereum community is talking about the Pectra upgrade, but its attention has been reduced to a terrible situation where no one cares. This is a precursor to silence. Please believe that this cannot be solved by ETH pulling the plate or issuing a few meme big golden dogs. Now Ethereum has to answer whether it is Vitalik's decentralized test field for practicing non-financialization, Aya's infinite garden, or the real "world computer".

Vitalik personally has a dream of adhering to decentralization, non-financialization, and non-sovereignty, but EF does not, and it is hard to say that the entire EVM ecosystem has it either. The scale effect is both an advantage and a curse.

Base and other public chains have proved that ETH L2 can indeed strike a balance between efficiency and cheapness. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the OP/ZK L2 parallel route, but Base can run without tokens, which is more like an advanced version of the alliance chain. If this is the bouquet that the EVM system presents to the real world, it is a bit hilarious.

Family members, let’s take a look at Solana and BNB Chain in the distance. At least they are seriously working on the price of coins.

The only remaining conspiracy group in the blockchain camp

“The willows are swaying in the wind, and the flowers are hanging down in the mist.

Why choose Ethereum, Solana and BNB Chain as the comparison of super public chains?

BTC does not need to be compared. Ethereum’s EVM is the de facto industry standard. Just like Chrome has the highest share, Solana is more like Safari. The ultimate fluency is backed by centralization. BNB Chain is the only orphan among old coins such as ADA and XRP that has real on-chain activities.

If there is palace fighting in the currency circle, then Solana It is Huan Huan. After Ling (F) Yun (T) Feng (X) was robbed, she was still able to play the heroine drama of Xi (coin price) Fei (rising) back to (ecological) palace (recovering). To cite just two examples, as of February, Solana DEX transaction volume has surpassed Ethereum for 4 consecutive months. In March, Solayer's market value surpassed EigenLayer. In the decline of Meme, Solana still proved itself.

Especially the latter, the pledge/re-pledge system is the original creation of Ethereum and the most important content of the PoS system. Here is also a brief explanationThe corresponding search engine is PoS node and super dApp. Google is essentially an advertising company. Its profit source is to sell Google search traffic to advertisers, while the income of the PoS chain is node pledge in exchange for public chain Gas Fee. Super dApp is also the generator of public chain fees. This is the root of the benchmarking between the two.

Therefore, the prosperity of the public chain is actually directed to the transactions of the public chain, and the SOL coin price and cheap Gas Fee can strike a balance between stimulating nodes and encouraging user transactions. Of course, the price is to become a "computer room chain". It can be said responsibly that Ethereum is still decentralized enough, even when Lido occupies about 30% of the pledge share.

So I like the name of the coin issuance group very much. Solana has been closely associated with conspiracy since childhood, from the high control of Jump and SBF to the Jupiter DeFi group in the Meme era, which is closer to the color of the PayPal gang than the words community and DAO - the pursuit of extreme capital efficiency.

In terms of the absolute scale of the ecosystem, Solana/SVM is much smaller than ETH/EVM, but Solana has found the most suitable way of playing: embrace any conspiracy group. If you think that the coin issuance group will destroy Solana's image, then please flash back to Jump, SBF and the current Trump family. I can’t say that they are not good people, but they are definitely not good people.

Labs and Foundation are divided. Labs is more concerned about technological progress. The Foundation is actively marketing under the leadership of Lily Liu, which is in contrast to Ethereum Vitalik's personal leadership and EVM's attraction to the ecosystem. This does not mean that EF should be transformed into SF, but more to emphasize that Vitalik should live up to his name. Either he should do it himself, or he should completely delegate power and concentrate on being a spiritual leader. Obviously, you will get nothing if you want both.

Solana has been growing in the dark since its birth, embracing extreme capital efficiency. In the name of decentralization, the original amount of the coin issuing group is returned, and the retail group has a 20-80 split.

From this perspective, Solana is the opposite of the scale effect, the relationship between the public chain's net income and total assets relative to its number of people: for Web2 and industrial companies, the more people there are, the larger the company's assets are, but this is not the case with Web3, which is supported by the coin price. BTC strictly speaking has no employees, while the large number of staff in EF and Linux has caused bloat. Solana has maximized its economic value under a system with relatively few controllers.

If you want to evaluate the labor efficiency ratio, then Solana deserves the first place and is rewarded with a little red flower. With a developer scale of 1/4 of Ethereum, Solana has surpassed Ethereum in active addresses and dApp revenue, and it is even more rare that it lags far behind in DeFi TVL and stablecoin issuance.

In fact, this was mainly achieved when PumpFun occupied the vast majority of memecoin issuance. It cannot be considered that Solana DeFi as a whole has completely surpassed Ethereum, because the huge scale of Ethereum is also reflected in the L2 and EVM ecosystem. We will use BNB Chain to illustrate.

Tugou Paradise Incarnates as Big Cousin Miaomiao House

"The key to the problem is not the size of our brains, but having the right ideas.

EVM is Chromium, and the best way out for BNB Chain is to become Edge. Binance happens to be Microsoft's role, an absolute top traffic entrance in the industry. Just now we said that Solana has the highest human efficiency, so BNB Chain's active addresses crush everything. BNB Chain has 4.4 million active addresses, far exceeding Solana's 3 million and Ethereum's 300,000.

Perhaps it is Binance's past glory that crushes everything. Most people will still call BNB Chain BSC. From the small, we can see the big. All the highlights of BNB Chain are in the past. How to make progress in the future is not something that Meme can bear, because BNB The coin is the entity, not the ecosystem, which is also the wonder of BNB Chain.

To complain, the changes in the name of BNB Chain all highlight the big company disease. It has definitely experienced more than one person in charge. It is obvious that BNB Chain has completely different focuses during the industry hot cycle.

The confusion of the name is the manifestation of entropy increase. Entropy can kill people. Whether it is genius, technology or money, everything will move towards disorder and disorder.

Especially the weird name of BNB Chain, which is as strange as ETH Chain or SOL Chain, focusing too much on the price of the currency rather than the ecology. Judging from the experience of Solana and Ethereum, moderation is the real gentleman.

If we summarize the development ideas of BNB Chain, then the following strategy is the best evaluation. From imitating Ethereum in the early days to "copying" Solana now, please note that this is not a criticism. Everyone likes useful things. AMM DEX sweeps everything. You can't say that everyone copied Uniswap. In fact, Bancor is the first one.

But the biggest problem of BNB Chain is that it follows the idea of ​​​​making an exchange, which is actually very different from the thinking of making a public chain, and what's more serious is that it confuses the two.

We can sort out the mixture of the current BNB Chain ecosystem:

• Ethereum thinking: DeFi/Staking/RWA/DePIN/DeFAI/Meme

• CZ thinking: AI First/DeSci/Meme

• Solana thinking: Payment/Stablecoin/Meme

In fact, Meme is not the focus of BNB Chain development because it is the “latest”. It is more of a three-party consensus zone after the game. Although CZ/Binance have stated that they do not own or manage BNB Chain, their influence is still huge.

Especially after CZ was banned from managing Binance, BNB Chain became its main battlefield. We can understand the value of BNB and BNB Chain according to the split Binance ecosystem.

BNB has a dual identity, that is, as a Binance platform currency, it undertakes the empowerment of the Binance main site ecosystem. Then BNB serves as the value support of BNB Chain, while meeting the needs of "old" large users for node income and new users for high-speed and low-fee Meme.

If Binance's own shares are CZ/He Yi 9:1, then the increase in BNB prices and node income are the only way for it to give back to node users. In this way, it can ensure the willingness of large users to hold BNB, so the Gas Fee of retail users must be consumed through explosive products.

As long as the price increase (ecological construction fee) is lower than the transaction fee contributed by users, then BNB is a cash cow, especially at the moment when CZ actually starts to sell his own shares, the stability of BNB is crucial. After all, when Binance went online, it sold BNB instead of Binance shares, maintaining the value and price of BNB.

Only in this way can we understand the meaning behind BNB Chain's frequent liquidity subsidy tricks. BNB Chain should become a barrier to the cash flow of Binance's main site, rather than a flood outlet for bleeding.

However, now the flowers do not last forever, and the river has 103 palms. Whether Binance, which is completely close to the existing political system of the United States, can maintain the status quo in the mid-term elections and 4 years later, only God knows.

Because Base and Solana are more American, Ethereum and BTC are more global, there are only two development paths for public chains at present, 99% belongs to the United States, 1% belongs to all mankind, and there is no middle ground.

Conclusion

FireFox, the spiritual sequel of Netscape, nurtured the Rust language, and Rust became the forerunner of Solana and Move VM. This is also a kind of bond between Web3 and Web2.

Vitalik once wanted to intern at Ripple and almost became a colleague of Sun Ge. I don’t know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that Sun Ge failed to inject Eastern philosophy into Vitalik, and also made Tron bear the notoriety of plagiarizing Ethereum.

Compared to them, Solana’s story is not so legendary, and BNB’s story is more like a commercial company, but now everyone’s focus is on Vitalik himself. He “defeated” the 7 co-founders of Ethereum and became the most important spokesperson for Ethereum. This is a historical opportunity, but also a heavy responsibility.