2021 was a sort of "coming-of-age" for many layer-one (L1) blockchain protocols because the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) forced users to look for solutions outside of the Ethereum (ETH) network where high fees and network congestion continued to be barriers for many.

Protocols like Fantom (FTM), Avalanche (AVAX) and Cosmos (ATOM) saw their token values rise and ecosystems flourished as 2021 came to a close. Meanwhile, popular projects like Polkadot (DOT) underperformed, comparatively speaking, despite the high expectations many had for the sharded multi-chain protocol.

Setting aside the specific capability that each protocol offers in terms of transactions per second and time to finality, here are several factors that may have played a role in DOT's laggard performance when compared to other L1 competitors.

One of the major themes of 2021 was cross-chain interoperability between separate blockchain networks, with a bridge to Ethereum being the most important connection to establish due to the fact that a majority of projects currently run on the network.

Protocols like Fantom, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche and Harmony developed cross-chain bridges and this led to a noticeable bump in their token price, total value locked and on-chain activity.

Despite the fact that Polkadot was specifically designed to offer multi-chain support as a “layer-zero” meta protocol, there was no major release of a bridge that connected Polkadot with Ethereum in 2021 and this left the protocol unloved by crypto traders looking to engage with DeFi and NFTs.

Cosmos, likewise, didn’t see the release of a major bridge that connected its ecosystem with Ethereum, but there were minor integrations like the