Thought about this a bit and my take is basically: Most defi primitives are just finance primitives and have been invented already, just not necessarily built/deployed in Defi yet. That is because higher-layer primitives require the presence (+ maturity/liquidity/etc) of lower level primitives to become viable. Thus, technology matters very little for Defi innovation and network effect + ecosystem maturity matters a lot. To give just one example, interest rate swaps (Pendle) became possible once Ethereum had a flourishing yield ecosystem. That yield ecosystem only became possible when it had deep savers and borrowers, which in turn required mature repo and swap markets, etc. -- Skip any of these steps, and the whole pyramid stops working. As a result, I expect 90%+ of Defi innovation to continue to occur first on Ethereum and Solana and not any of the new "more powerful" chains. They need to focus on catching up first, paired with focusing on novel areas of apps that need fewer complements to exist. @HyperliquidX , then, is really a special case among new chains because it has the deepest perps liquidity in Defi, giving it a unique advantage to dominate products where perps are the essential complement/enabler. The first ones include arguably: volatility and options markets, commodities and certain types of negative carry RWA, and synthetic equity products. In summary, I expect - Hyperliquid to take the lead in these areas - Ethereum (and with some distance, Solana) to continue to lead Defi innovation at large, and - A more difficult time for new chains because Defi is 90% about network effects and maturity, and little about better technology, and building that takes time.