Naturally, projects that aren’t able to compete with the larger competitors will look to merge their businesses to stay afloat. “The next wave of M&A is likely to occur in sectors where there is a high degree of fragmentation, like Layer 1 chains that didn’t break Top 10, DEXs, DeFi protocols, node operators, and possibly even NFT projects,” said Aki Balogh, co-founder and CEO of DLC.Link