Why Crypto Still Struggles to Capture the Value It Creates | Roundup

Bullish:

• $ETH - Ethereum remains the only major blockchain committed to being purely open source, which is a fundamental advantage. It broke the trade-off of monetizing open source software through its fee mechanism.

  • “I would make the argument that Ethereum actually is still potentially the only one with the North Star to be a purely open source layer”

    Mike·0:10

  • “Ethereum itself deserves an enormous amount of credit for breaking this trade off around monetization of open source software”

    Xavier·27:03

  • “You solve this unbelievable challenge. The ability to generate fees should be massive here and super exciting”

    Xavier·28:10
• $CRYPTOAI - Open source AI on blockchains could become one of crypto's biggest use cases as open source models catch up to closed source performance.

  • “I do see a viable path actually as open source catches up to closed source in AI for it to become this massive thing in crypto as one of blockchain's actual biggest use cases”

    Mike·1:02:28

  • “I maybe would make the prediction, which might be a bold prediction that an open source AI company like a deep sea or like something else will try and monetize via blockchain at some point in time because it just makes sense”

    Mike·1:02:44
• $ARB - Arbitrum is the only L2 with a deep, liquid, and actively used DeFi ecosystem, which is extremely valuable.

  • “Arbitrum one has been unbelievably successful. Like, they I think are kind of the only l two that has this really, like, deep and liquid and used, DeFi ecosystem, which is super valuable”

    Xavier·45:27

Bearish:

• $LAYERTWO - Layer 2s face structural challenges as they don't own end users or the settlement layer, putting them in a weak position to capture value.

  • “I think where you don't wanna be right now on the OpenSL stack is, like, in the middle”

    Mike·50:28

  • “you don't have any economic power over these teams because they own the end user. Then on the flip side, that settlement layer of Ethereum, you also don't own that because you're never gonna out compete Ethereum”

    Mike·50:41

  • “You don't wanna be the Cosmos SDK of blockchains”

    Mike·51:09
• $BTC - Bitcoin's design is fundamentally unoptimized for monetization and fee generation, making it essentially a meme coin without productive value.

  • “Bitcoin hasn't really solved that. It it its design is you know, things like fees and REV are naturally it is unoptimized for”

    Xavier·27:11

  • “It is a big meme coin. I think it's a very compelling meme coin, just like gold is, but there's no hard productive value”

    Xavier·27:19