My biggest mistake in crypto was ignoring rollup infrastructure tokens and chasing application layer hype

Putting this out there because I know a lot of people in this sub are focused on finding the next 100x altcoin and I was doing the same thing for years. looking at every new defi protocol, every gaming token, every ai narrative play. Sometimes it worked, mostly it didn't because picking individual application winners is basically gambling.What changed my approach was studying how the biggest returns in tech history happened. The people who made generational wealth from the internet didn't pick which websites would win. They invested in cisco, in aws infrastructure, in the protocols and services that every website needed. The same pattern is playing out in crypto right now.

Look at what happened with ethereum l2s in the last two years. Hundreds of new chains and rollups launched. Most of them use the same handful of infrastructure providers to run. The infra providers captured value from every single one regardless of whether the individual l2 succeeded or failed. That's a completely different risk profile than betting on individual chains. a16z made this bet early and paradigm has been increasingly weighted toward infrastructure. The "infrastructure phase" of crypto adoption where the picks and shovels play generate outsized returns. These aren't random opinions, these are the most successful crypto investors in the world all converging on the same thesis.

Projects deployed through caldera and astar surprised me with the volume and diversity of chains using shared infrastructure. Gaming chains, defi chains, social chains, all different verticals but same underlying provider. That kind of diversified demand base is exactly what you want in an infrastructure investment. Not saying ignore the application layer entirely but consider what percentage of your portfolio is infrastructure vs applications. Most retail is like 90% applications and 10% infrastructure. The smart money is closer to the opposite.