It seems that every day there is news about a 'new chain' sweeping the crypto market. Payment giant Stripe partnered with Paradigm to launch Tempo, and stablecoin issuer Circle quickly followed with the announcement of Arc; prior to that, Plasma and Stable raised funds to develop a chain specifically for USDT; and participants in the tokenization field, from Securitize to Ondo Finance, have also revealed plans for building their own blockchains.

This wave is not merely about technical flaunting but is an inevitable strategic layout. Stablecoins and tokenized assets are gradually being recognized as the two most promising growth tracks in the crypto economy. They directly connect the flow of funds in the real world with traditional financial markets, and are expected to develop into asset classes worth trillions of dollars in the future. Cross-border payments, round-the-clock settlement, and the tokenization of bonds and stocks—these scenarios are changing financial infrastructure, and controlling the 'chain' equates to controlling a new financial track.

Martin Burgherr, an executive at crypto bank Sygnum, succinctly stated: 'Building your own L1 is about control and strategic positioning, not just technology.' In his view, the competition for stablecoins and tokenization is not merely a struggle for market share, but a comprehensive game concerning settlement speed, compliance, fee structure, and dominance.

In the eyes of giants, true competition is no longer about 'can it run', but 'who controls the track'.

Giants' 'required course' on blockchain

Companies building their own blockchains are not trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch, but are driven by the core demand for blockchain as a 'settlement layer'. Their requirements for a chain often focus on several aspects.

First is performance and predictability. Building their own chains allows giants to isolate unrelated transactions, ensuring performance always meets their business standards. Whether it's stablecoin payments or tokenized bond trading, it involves high-frequency, low-latency settlement demands. This means accepting the reality of competing for bandwidth with thousands of other assets and applications—once the network is congested, the payment experience is immediately compromised.

Next is the rebalancing of costs and revenues. On Ethereum or Tron, every transfer means fees go to miners or validators. For payment giants like Stripe or Circle, this equates to handing over potential profits. If they control the underlying chain, they can not only internalize transaction fee revenue but also issue their own gas tokens, creating new economic cycles. Alchemy's CTO Guillaume Poncin stated plainly: 'The revenue opportunities from owning the settlement layer will far exceed the profit margins of traditional payment processing.'

Moreover, there is compliance and embedded regulation. One of the biggest challenges traditional financial institutions face in entering the crypto space is how to meet regulatory requirements. KYC, AML, transaction monitoring—these are typically patched at the application layer, while proprietary chains can embed them directly at the protocol level. In other words, regulation is no longer an added constraint but is internalized as rules of the chain itself. This gives giants a stronger voice when communicating with regulators.

Finally, there is strategy and security. Relying on Ethereum or Tron means bearing the risks of governance decisions, technical upgrades, and even security vulnerabilities. For a network that could settle hundreds of billions of dollars annually, this external dependency is unacceptable. A proprietary chain can provide greater controllability and resilience, ensuring stable cash flow even in extreme circumstances.

Morgan Krupetsky of Ava Labs pointed out that the value of custom chains lies not only in technology but also in enabling companies to treat blockchain as a 'backend', truly integrating it into their operational systems. This positioning means that blockchain is transitioning from an experimental field for crypto enthusiasts to the infrastructure for multinational enterprise operations.

Why not directly use existing public chains?

Since Ethereum and Solana already have a large user base and a mature ecosystem, why do giants still need to start from scratch?

An obvious reason is control. Ethereum is a globally neutral public network whose governance is driven by foundations, developers, and the community. For payment companies or financial giants accustomed to complete control, tying their fate to the voting and upgrade pace of an external community is too risky. Although Solana is known for its high throughput and low fees, it also means sharing network resources with various applications like NFTs and DeFi, which cannot tolerate such uncertainty in payment and settlement scenarios.

Another key factor is differentiation. Issuing stablecoins on public chains can quickly achieve liquidity, but it is difficult to build a moat. USDT and USDC now circulate on networks like Ethereum and Tron, but because of this, user loyalty to the underlying chains is extremely low; they only recognize the tokens themselves. To stand out in the competition, building their own chain provides the possibility: it is not only a settlement tool but also an independent ecosystem built around the token. This allows issuers to upgrade from being mere 'asset providers' to 'infrastructure providers'.

Of course, this does not mean that public chains will be marginalized. Analysts at Coinbase have pointed out that Circle's Arc and Stripe's Tempo may directly challenge Solana's positioning in terms of performance, but Ethereum, with its large institutional user base and proven security, is unlikely to be shaken in the short term.

Burgherr from Sygnum emphasizes that the migration of liquidity and trust often takes years. In other words, even if giants launch their own chains, attracting truly large-scale transaction volumes is not something that can be accomplished overnight.

This also explains why many new chains choose to remain compatible with EVM. Compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine means developers can seamlessly migrate existing applications, reducing the difficulty of cold starts, while still being able to interoperate with mainstream public chains. This is a strategy of 'being independent while also connected': being able to control their own network without being isolated from the crypto world.

Driven by Stripe, Circle, and a series of tokenized newcomers, blockchain is moving from an 'open experimental field' to 'enterprise-level backend'. The motivation behind building their own chains ultimately lies in the pursuit of control, efficiency, and profit. Their requirements for blockchain go far beyond the technology itself, focusing more on compliance, business models, and strategic security. In the eyes of giants, true competition is no longer about 'can it run', but 'who controls the track'.

This new blockchain 'involution' has only just begun.