Looking at the crypto landscape, there are three sectors that stand out as particularly challenging right now: custody solutions, staking infrastructure, and data infrastructure.

What makes these verticals tough? They're caught in a brutal commoditization trap. You've got tons of players competing for the same slice, margins are razor-thin, and building a defensible moat feels nearly impossible. Everyone's offering basically the same thing, so differentiation becomes a nightmare.

The real question is whether these companies can break out of this cycle. Simply operating in your core vertical? That's a recipe for margin compression. The ones that might actually survive are those thinking bigger—expanding into adjacent products, bundling services, or finding entirely new revenue streams.

Without that evolution, staying pure-play in custody, staking, or data infra looks increasingly risky. The commoditization pressure is just too intense.