Often hear people conflate one thing with another when talking about blockchain network quality. Let's be straight about it.

People think token listings define a network's strength. That's backwards. Where a token trades is just distribution mechanics—it doesn't say anything real about what's happening under the hood.

What actually matters? Three things: Is the network doing meaningful activity? Are developers actually building on it? Does it have real usage, or just hype?

You can list on every major exchange tomorrow, but if your on-chain activity is dead, your builder community ghosted, and nobody's using the protocol for anything substantial, those listings mean nothing. They're just cosmetic.

Flip it around: Some networks stay under the radar in terms of listings but quietly accumulate genuine builders, transaction volume, and application ecosystems that just work. That's health. That's what survives.

Listing is a tool for distribution. But a healthy network? That's defined by what's actually happening—the developers shipping code, the users interacting with it, the real economic activity flowing through the chain. Everything else is theater.