apps · Tier 4

Compose

Composability

Apps using each other as infrastructure. Money legos. Requires something to compose.

What it is

When a lending market can borrow against a position in a trading app, and a yield vault can wrap both, each app makes the others more valuable. This is the genuine, non-hype network effect in crypto.

How you’d recognise it

TVL that is diffuse across many protocols, not concentrated in two. Diffusion is the signal. Concentration means composability hasn’t happened yet.

Worked examples

Hyperliquid, running the tree backwards

Having built the sink first, Hyperliquid is now climbing the platform trunks in reverse — HyperEVM turns a single-product exchange into a general ecosystem, with builder-deployed perp markets (HIP-3) and outcome markets (HIP-4). But as of Q2 2026, HyperEVM’s TVL is concentrated in a small set of native protocols — one liquid-staking protocol alone (Kinetiq) holds 82.5% LST market share with $610M TVL. Composability is thin. The reverse traversal is real, and unfinished.

By Q2 2026 HyperEVM TVL is concentrated in a small set of native protocolsconfidence moderatesource: hyperevm-concentrated ↗verified 2026-07-12
Kinetiq holds 82.5% LST market share with $610M TVLconfidence moderatesource: kinetiq-share ↗verified 2026-07-12
HIP-3 enables builder-deployed perp markets; HIP-4 adds outcome marketsconfidence highsource: hyperevm-hip3 ↗verified 2026-07-12

What it buys

More value extracted per existing user.

What it does NOT buy

New users. Composability is a multiplier on a base. If the base is zero, so is the product.

Verdict

Real, and universally attempted three tiers too early.

moderate

cite thisverified 2026-07-12

“Composability” — The Ecosystem Tech Tree (v1.0). https://pareen.xyz/eco-techtree/tile/apps-t4. Last verified 2026-07-12.

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