L1

A Layer 1 blockchain is a sovereign network that handles its own consensus, execution, and data availability without relying on any other chain. It maintains its own ledger, runs its own validators, and processes its own transactions. Bitcoin is an L1 for value settlement. Ethereum is an L1 for general-purpose smart contracts. NEAR, Solana, Aptos, Sui are L1s competing on different combinations of throughput, decentralisation, and developer experience.

The distinction matters because L1s have very different economic and security profiles than L2s built on top of them. An L1 has its own validator set, its own native token used for fees and security, its own governance, and its own attack surface. The validators are paid in the L1’s token. The security budget is the value of all staked or mined tokens. If an L1 fails, every project built on it fails. If an L2 fails, only that L2 fails — the underlying L1 keeps running.

In DeAI, most projects that need on-chain settlement use an existing L1 (Ethereum, NEAR, Solana, Base) rather than launching their own. Bittensor is an exception: it runs as its own L1 (built on Substrate) precisely because the AI subnet incentive layer requires custom consensus rules that don’t fit on a general-purpose chain. NEAR’s positioning as an “AI-friendly L1” leans on its low fees, fast finality, and chain abstraction features. Each project’s choice of base layer affects its decentralisation, cost, and addressable market.

The honest question for any project is “what would happen to this if its base L1 went down?” A project running on Ethereum has Ethereum’s roughly $300B+ security budget behind it. A project running on a thinly-staked L1 inherits the L1’s much smaller security budget. A project running its own L1 has whatever security its own validator set provides, which is usually much less than Ethereum at the margin. The OYM Infrastructure dimension of the Freedom Score factors this in when scoring projects whose security depends on a base layer they don’t control.