Cointelegraph’s Brian Newar spoke with Alex Svanevik, the CEO of blockchain data firm Nansen at the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022 held in Seoul and discussed topics like the upcoming Ethereum (ETH) Merge and how it will affect other blockchains.

According to Svanevik, the industry witnessed a spillover effect in the last bull run. He said that in trading nonfungible tokens (NFTs), newcomers in the blockchain space didn't want to pay hefty transaction fees of up to $100 to purchase NFTs in the Ethereum network. The Nansen CEO noted that this demand for NFTs spilled over to other blockchains where the fees to purchase NFTs weren’t as high as in Ethereum. He explained that:

When asked what he thinks will happen to some other blockchains after the merge, the executive said that many may die off. “Many chains will probably become a ghost town or ghost chains. But I do think that some chains will find their own niches,” said Svanevik.

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Despite this, Svanevik believes that there are some chains out there that have been able to bootstrap their own ecosystems. Citing examples, the Nansen CEO pointed to Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX). However, Svanevik noted that there are more chains out there that have the infrastructure that makes it easy for developers to come into their ecosystems. He said that:

Svanevik also compared blockchains to cities. According to the executive, just as cities need hospitals, law firms and the media, blockchains need their decentralized exchanges (DEX), marketplaces, blockchain explorers and more.

In the same event, 1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz told Cointelegraph that the decentralized finance (DeFi)