Permissionless Capital, Global Consensus and New Markets

The article argues that crypto's most durable value lies in permissionless capital formation and global consensus over a distributed ledger of financial assets, rather than in consumer apps or non-financial products. It cites $100B of VC capital poured into private crypto markets since 2016 and an estimated $230B in liquid value for VC investors, most of it driven by outliers such as Solana and Coinbase, ICOs and memecoins. It credits pump.fun with earning more in eight months than 99% of crypto projects combined, and says DeFi, Ethena's basis trade and Polymarket's markets show the financial categories working best. It also presents tokenized marketplaces such as Kettle, Baxus and SkyTrade, and DePIN, as areas where crypto creates new markets, though it says DePIN has not yet found product-market fit.