"the base layer will be the most valuable" I agree with this.

This is very similar to how computers developed. The companies that became the most valuable were the ones who had developed the most used operating systems - hence Microsoft and Apple. All the other companies designed programs based upon these OS and (almost) all computers came with these operating systems built in.

So same with the cryptos - the dapps will be written based on an underlying base layer, like now with Etherium.