A Trillion-Dollar Public Goods Valuation Framework for Ethereum

Transcript

Right, welcome everybody to Crypto Monday's featured guests. It's our first one for 2026 and we are incredibly privileged to have William Maar to come and talk to us about his research paper that he's done on Ethereum. And so yeah, he's a legend in the space and um involved in many many uh ventures and um and associated with blockchain. So welcome to William and over to you to um to share your wisdom with us. Thank you for for for coming to share that with us. Really appreciate it.

>> Thank you for inviting me and hi everybody. Uh let me share my screen. Okay. Is it visible? Looks good. Okay great.

So, uh I'm going to talk to you for about 15 to 20 minutes about valuing Ethereum as a public goods infrastructure and what it entails. just about everything I am going to talk about. I can't advance the slide. Oh, here he was. So, uh, everything I'm going to talk to you about, most of it is in the report that I published in

December, and you can get a copy of it from going to the Ethereum Market Research Center, uh, frc.com. It'll be visible from the homepage. Um, and and I'm going to probably give you a summary of it in the next few minutes. uh what led to this work uh that I did um a few months ago is a fundamental question that I kept asking myself which is why aren't fundamentals driving crypto valuations.

Uh if you uh are following the space obviously as you all are uh you'll probably agree with me that just about everything that is not related to crypto seems to be moving crypto prices. Look what happened yesterday. Uh and you and Davos Lou uh the trade wars is a top of mind. Uh crypto tumbled uh the prices tumbled. uh there is a geopolitical event somewhere in the world uh crypto will take the hit. Uh uh inflation uh you name it uh crypto seems to be the first one to get hit and it's the last one to recover. Uh the the only time

when um the there is a correlation is when there are really really bad news like some kind of uh um scam or FTX uh some really bad things happen and then yeah for sure crypto will take the head. That's unfortunate. So I looked at the u whole uh sector and it dawned on me that uh you can you could not do a one-sizefits all for the metrics. Uh so I started to see some differences between the different uh sectors and the first sector that shows some promise in terms of uh being able to see some real fundamentals that could hopefully drive

prices or at least correlate uh prices uh was DeFi. Uh in DeFi as you will know there are some known metrics like total value locked. uh why it's important because it's the same as assets under management. So we can understand that um the treasury represents the strength of the balance sheet. Uh the fees from the protocol are the same as revenues. So that also is a meaningful number that we know about. Transaction volume um number of active users per day, number of accounts, all of that indicates a good product to market fit. So uh in other words, DeFi is becoming more

predictable. Uh it's not perfect, but it's directionally correct. So we have that segment kind of leading the way. Uh the second segment that I looked at was the the corporate chains uh or the centrally managed chains. Those ones uh resemble more a SAS model. uh they are like a platform business where there's usually a a main chain operator or a small governing group that captures the mean most meaningful part share of the value that's created on the network and and for these for these blockchains yes we could use traditional uh valuation tools like discounted cash flow uh or

revenue multiples uh and maybe even profitability profit metrics uh they are applicable because these systems are are meant to monetize user activity and in that bucket I put chains like Tempo or Salana even um because they they they have strong architectures with a lot of central coordination and and clear revenue uh extraction uh goals and they are run like businesses. The third sector is Bitcoin. So, Bitcoin likes to be seen as a special flake and it wants to be seen as digital gold.

>> Daniel Homer. Yeah, I came on my tour today. >> Oh, sorry. So, Bitcoin likes to be seen as digital gold. Uh, but digital gold or gold as you well know is supposed to be very stress resistant. It is supposed to do well in bad times or when there are uncertainties out there and risks. That is why gold and silver are doing well this the last few days the last few few weeks uh because of the uncertainty. So uh bitcoin lately has not done so well as a digital gold equivalent because it is going down with the rest of crypto unfortunately.

Uh that leads us to the fourth sector uh which is Ethereum specifically and and there I saw with in Ethereum something entirely different uh and and with Ethereum the difference that I saw was that it was more like an infrastructure uh for public goods and the equ the um analogy and the the precedent is with the internet. Uh so I'll take a pause here and and then let's go back to uh see how internet valuations uh progressed and evolved over time and uh we'll tie it back to the um correlation as to where

we are today. If you think about if you've been in the internet space for uh since the beginning in 1995 or so when it started to become meaningful uh and you look at how we were valuing and at least trying to uh to measure and understand companies from the beginning until now there is a wide range of difference between how it started and where we are today. If you remember in '9596 we used to measure eyeballs uh eyeballs and page views. Uh that is obviously not not even in the vocabulary today. That is so meaningless. Um that was really what all we had up until the first crash and and then we started to

become a bit more sophisticated. We looked at revenue multiples. We looked at some profit uh epida and and then um discounted cash flow started to enter the vocabulary uh and then the SAS models came about uh around 2015 and and there we have uh uh customer acquisition costs CAC and and the the usual SAS related metrics that you'll all know about. And then in 2015 and up, sorry, the SAS started in 2005 uh until 15. The um network uh effect started to uh become more prevalent in 2015 or so

with the advent of Facebook um specifically and and uh Twitter later um where yeah revenue are important but uh network effects and ecosystem value uh became uh even more important. Uh so you can see there's a whole uh pro progression between where we are today and where we started. And this is I think the same as where we are with the uh blockchain today. Uh that we we are still trying to discover what the real metrics are going to be. Uh let's talk about public goods and and why uh the uh the internet is a good analogy not just for the evolution of of

the matrix but also for how to value it uh as a public good. Um what is a public good? Just a couple of basics. Public goods have three properties. One is that they have this thing called non-rivalry. It means if I use it, if you use it, it doesn't reduce somebody else's usage of it. Uh second, it's it's it's open. Anybody can use it. It's like the roads. The roads are a good example of a public good. Uh water is a public good. Um uh highways uh and utilities are public goods. Uh you use it, it doesn't mean somebody else cannot use it. And and the other more important thing is that uh they are systemically enabling of

excuse me of a lot of value. So they uh create an an enormous amount of value economic value outside of uh the one that they capture. So it has to be disproportionate. They have to enable a lot more than they capture. uh and when you apply that lens to both the internet and Ethereum specifically, you start to see a lot of similarities uh in terms of architecture uh and in terms of operations. So uh at the most common basic layer obviously we both use the physical physical networks, the fibers, the cables and so on. But uh then the the most important uh public

goods layer is is what we call in blockchain speak layer one and in uh in the ethereum in the internet speak it's the protocols it's TCP IP uh and uh that is a public good that is what anybody can use then you move up a little bit then you have the layer 2s uh that are built around on top of the layer one and in in the internet analogy. It's the access network. It's like a a club good. So you you pay you pay a fee uh and you have access. Okay. And then the the third layer is the the apps uh the apps and the uh institutional adoption and and that is totally commercial and uh

when you when you look at the valuations most of the valuation is going to happen at the application layer uh at the uh institutional layer at the cap. that this is where the capture is the greatest. And uh when the the when we looked at the internet specifically as a public good um there has been uh many models to that that were successful in valuing uh the internet specifically as a public good. they were there are there are studies from MIT professors and others um and the um not the IMF but another glo global uh

NGO has has done work in in there that was very cred um it's we you can divide it into three buckets basically uh there's the visible value so this is um looking at the market cap of internet centric companies uh all the companies that are in the internet space and and then uh the second part is the what we we call the flow value this is like the digital economy slice of the global GDP and there is a a common belief that's well accepted that the digital economy is about 15% of the global GDP uh so the global GDP is about a hundred

trillion dollars so 15% of that is 15 trill trion and the assumption is that half of that is internet related. Uh so let's say it's 8 8 trillion. Uh but then you have to capitalize that it's and and and then if you capitalize it uh with a discount rate of let's say 5% uh you you get a big number u that would be the valuation of the digital uh uh digital economy part. Now the third the third um segment which is kind of very interesting and and that's the segment uh that is is not visible uh but it has a value it has a value for example um uh mail uh mail

has a value of uh it was estimated to be $1,500 per year. uh search has the the greatest value. Uh it's close to 15,000 uh per year. Uh and and uh uh even Wikipedia access to to content is is uh is valuable. Uh so this is kind of the surplus, the consumer surplus. This is the value that is not priced, but we take it for granted. But if somebody were to take your email away then you would value it a lot more than when you take it for granted. Uh so there are calculations in the report. I'm not going to go through the details. Uh but on average because not everybody is in

as rich as as the US. A lot of these models were based on the US uh consumer. The average is about $1,000 per user globally. And that let's say there are five billion uh users um uh internet users in the world. So you you can apply the math and and then again do a discounted uh uh model and you you get to a big number into the trillions. Um now let's apply this to the Ethereum.

Again the analogy now is very similar. Uh there is a capture value. It's what you see uh it and I'll get into that in a second that there's the flow value which is equivalent to the GDP and there's the the trust surplus value uh what are we gaining uh by using uh Ethereum specifically and and uh we'll go through these numbers the uh the capture value of Ethereum can be is is well known because ETH as an asset uh it binds the the the whole public good together. Uh it has multiple functions. Uh it's it's a gas. It has a

consumptive function. Uh it's it's can be used for staking. Uh it's a security function and it's also a reserve function as a collateral for DeFi for example. So that is the value that is captured that is visible uh and it is known uh and I'll quantify it in in a minute. Um the second value the second segment is the flow. Uh this is where you maybe have heard the term uh ETH being digital uh oil. If if e if bitcoin is digital gold, ethereum likes to be seen as digital oil. So oil flows and it's used in many different uh industries. Uh and

if the asset is like a digital oil, it is used um in in in in value transfers across stable coin settlements, uh DeFi liquidity, all of the layer 2 rollups depend on it. uh the tokenization uh of assets NFTTS uh Dow governance although that's not a big segment but it is still there and and as the identities at the stations grow and and the credentials that will become an important segment. So this is kind of equating Ethereum as a country and these pools would be like the same

as the GDP. uh so the same uh as as a uh as as as GDP uh it's it's measured by value settled not fees collected this is where the biggest uh disconnect is when uh some people try to apply fees uh to any blockchain that's where the model breaks because fees are not the res on that for blockchains if you want want to just look at fees.

It's very limiting. It would be almost like valuing Amazon on their shipping revenue. Uh yeah, it's a part of it. But it's it's not why Amazon exists. Or it would be like valuing the internet based on TCP IP packet fees. That's not what the internet is about. the value of the internet is way more than just packet fees. Okay, so that's kind of the important part here to understand is the value is in the flow in the value settled and and uh think of it like a GDP type. Um, and stable coins alone are into the trillions of dollars now in

monthly settlement uh with an annualized uh throughput that's even higher. And and when you add all of those up, we get into big big numbers. And then you can apply again some standard economic uh rules u saying that infrastructure financial infrastructure captures maybe only 3 to 1% of the value it intermediates and and that and you get a lot of value then you discount it and you get a big number. The third segment and I'm going through this a bit quickly because of of time and uh all the details are in the report. Uh the surplus is a simple question. Uh it's it's what's what you would have paid in

in the traditional sense what we have today minus what you actually pay by using this new infrastructure. Uh and whatever is is left is the trust surplus. And uh in there as well I did some uh estimate calculations. Um the assumptions being that uh Ethereum provides between $50 and $150 in net surplus per active user assuming there's 20 to 30 million meaningful users. That's 1 to4.5 billion in trust surplus.

And then you capitalize it. Uh and that's on a user level. Then you go into the systemic. It's not just per user, it's systemic. Uh think about all of the uh trust surplus in redu reducing fraud um settlement assurance uh uh global interoperability that becomes a lot easier counterparty risk uh and and you name it. Uh and you get into the trillions of dollars again. uh and you capitalize that at standard rates and you get a thresh valuation uh between 150 to 600 depending if you want to be conservative or or more uh more liberal. So you put all of these

together over different time horizons and you get a a low case today. This is today. If you add these three segments up, 600 billion, 300, uh, 150, Ethereum should be at 1 to1.2 trillion dollars in valuation. As it stands, it's just barely at 400. So today, I wouldn't be shy in saying, and I'm not the only one, that uh, Ethereum is is widely mispriced today. I'll get into that in a in a couple of slides. And then based on growth you can evolve it from there uh next year the year after how it's going to evolve it's going to keep growing

and we I've done a projection over the la next 10 years uh based on this acrruel of value uh and you can see that the numbers will add up uh to uh 10 years from now u this is a modeling this is not a a uh a prediction on the price necessarily this is a modeling of the value of Ethereum if could follow that valuation uh but it could not um but there is a precedent. This is how the internet value was hidden at the beginning and we did not know how to value it and we just looked at the shadow value but in reality uh the the real value the GDP and the consumer

surplus emerged later and it became more apparent that the internet's value is is uh is is very large. um why Ethereum is mispriced and this is kind of how I'm going to end here. Uh because the public goods are always mispriced early on because we take them for granted. Uh markets always uh undervalue uh infrastructure. They undervalue neutrality. uh um the the tragedy of the of the commons uh future like the network effects are not always visible at the beginning.

They are only visible when they are there and it's too late to catch up. Uh so the markets tend to underestimate network effects. Um and the how everything is is interrelated. Uh and and these diffuse benefits are overlooked because they benefit everybody. Um and and the Ethereum fits that uh because its token supply obscures the the systemic function that that the token does. Uh you look at the supply. Yeah. What does it mean? Not on it on its own, the inflation is very low, but if as a as a it's an asset that binds the whole system together

and it is so decentralized, you cannot apply corporate centralized analogies to it. Uh the the L2 system gets criticized sometimes that it doesn't add anything. It's not true. it it has a lot of base layer dependencies because all of the security settles on L1. Uh it takes a small fee but the volumes make up for it and a lot of the vi invisible activity the surplus uh um it's it's um sorry the the visible activity uh that you can see uh but it's not enough because the institutional flows are into the trillions already when you look at the stable coins and

the real world uh tokenization assets uh And uh like the internet the valuation model is going to trail uh its economic role. So this requires a shift in the paradigm of thinking. Uh so we we should not be thinking anymore of feebased valuation uh of discounted cash flows. If it's an infrastructure you can think of it if it's a SAS model. Think of the flow-based valuation. That's kind of the public goods thinking. Uh do don't look at TPS transaction uh per second comparisons. Uh a lot a lot of uh uh blockchains like to talk in speeds and feeds. Uh but that's really not

important. It it blockchain wasn't blockchains were not invented to to become high frequency trading uh engines. We have databases that can be very very fast. Uh look at economic settlement. That's more important. Uh and uh and shortterm revenue. Yeah, you can maximize short-term revenue if you tweak uh some numbers and validator fees and so on, but really look at how how trust minimization is being achieved in the long term. uh how much are we saving uh by having less intermediaries in the middle and uh um the the blockchain competition uh

is is really the thinking is is that um think of digital GDP and and think of institutional adoption again uh as the the important uh uh value factor here. Um so that that's really the thinking uh that that we have to have uh in in the long term. Uh in the same way that the internet has reorganized information in my opinion Ethereum is going to be the most important blockchain that is going to reorganize value and that that's why it's its valuation should be measured in into the trillions.

And and I want to thank you for your attention and uh I'm going to stick around obviously for questions. Thank you, William. That's that's absolutely fantastic. That's a it's a messing with my mind a little bit here because like we understand how to value, you know, Apple, Google, Amazon and things like that. But, uh, yeah, for someone used to valuing companies like that, I mean, why why is this a better way to think about Ethereum? And I'm thinking like, how does one capture that value? because that value isn't really an invested value from a consumer perspective. It's a it's a value to the world at large. Is is that correct? Am I

understanding you correctly? >> That's the aspiration. That is the aspiration. And um um the signs are there. It it's headed in that direction across the many sectors. Um again in the same way that the internet uh has done that and at the beginning it was a bit obscure as to how it was going to get there. Um and then before you knew it, it it was there. Um so that that is that is the u the the assumption and you you have to study a little bit more uh public goods and and what what it means but this is at the global scale. We're not talking about public goods in in a small scale here. Uh this is something at the at the global scale.

>> Got it. Please put up your hand if you'd like to ask William a question. In the meantime, I've got a couple more of my own. Um, I also didn't quite understand the the gas fees. So, um, you know, most analysts look at gas fees to see if Ethereum is profitable. Why do you say that charging high fees is the wrong way to um, you know, for for a system like Ethereum to win the fees, the fee price? you you spoke about the pricing, you know, charging high fees and that it's the wrong way to look at it and you can't value it based on the high fees.

>> Yeah, I didn't say charging high fees. I'm saying that fees are a part of it. The fees are the way that fees are um designed within Ethereum. It's that there's it's a complicated equation. uh and um it's it's it's not meant to extract too much value from the user and fees right now are non-issue. Uh there was a time um a few years ago when fees were a little bit high on Ethereum comparatively speaking but that is in the past >> and uh fees are are are now a non-issue.

Uh they add up to some revenue. Yeah, a little bit of revenue. It is part of it. Uh it is not zero. It is significant but it's only a part of it. That that is the main message. Got it. Sean, go for it. >> You're on mute, Sean. Or we can't hear you. Not yet. Do you want to see if you can fix it?

And David, you jump in. >> I could jump in until he fixes it, too. >> Can you guys hear me? >> Yes, David. David's New York. >> Hey guys, >> New York. >> Uh, question. William, you talk about um and I'm a big fan of Ethereum, right? um whether it be proof of stake or proof of work. And I was one of those guys that paid over $800 in one transaction in failed Ethereum fees back in the day when I was doing NFTTS and such. So, but we won't go there and how much money I made or lost. Um yeah, so one of the

metrics you you put it was don't look at CPS. Um trust it because a lot of the liquidities here, I get it. But a lot of the other chains are touting their TPS and Ethereum itself, it it's going to upgrade, right? So, I'm not sure if not putting looking at TPS because a lot of these like L2s and side chains are are touting and and other L1's are touting their throughput and they're going to be replacing or partnering with all these payment systems. So, I'm not sure if I agree with the TPS because because Ethereum is going to upgrade itself and make it more scalable itself, right? So

there a lot of these L2s are going to you know I I I I think a lot of L2 is going to go away because a lot of the scalability issues and and performance issues going to bring it to mother chain I call it. So um I want to know your thoughts on on that. >> Well it depends on the use case first of all there there's two parts to this uh answer. It depends on the use case and not all the blockchain use cases require a super high speeded uh transaction settlement. Uh and you're right about mentioning the L2s because they've been uh faster on the settlement aspect because they have more room to um to do the roll up with the rollups technology meaning they they delay the settlement

and then they settle later. Uh but they they can be very fast. Uh but in terms of longevity I would not say that the L2s are going to go away because the L1 is going to get faster. I think they all are going to grow. The L2s are interesting because there's a lot of innovation in the L2 models. They can do a lot of things that the L1 is not going to do. L1 is going to continue to be very neutral, very infrastructure-like, but in L2 uh could be uh one day regulated like you recently Polygon wants to get into payments. Robin Hood is already regulated. they use they are an L2 and they will do KYC for example and they they will they will

fit the L2 to their model. Um so I would not discount the L2s in the long term even if the L1 continues to to gain in speed uh because it depends on the user on the on the use case and it depends on uh um what what the L2 is doing and that there's a lot of innovation right now in the L2 ecosystem. Look at Bass. Bass wants to be multi-chain now, but its foundation was on on Ethereum. Uh there are some applications like forecaster uh that are are base um they started on base. Their wallet works across six or seven different chains in a very seamless manner. Um so it's all innovation that goes on top of it.

>> Thank you for that. Don't do do you think though like if the L2s become too big that they'll just fork off and be there on L1? >> Oh, I don't know if it would be architecturally possible. Um there's a lot of variety in the L2 ecosystem and some of them compete with each other by the way. There is some healthy competition. >> They all do. >> There's about 200 of them. I think a hundred are already live and there's another hundred by the end of the year or something like that. Um, but they each have their own segments, their own modes. Um, and uh, they they all rely on L1 at the end of the day. The security uh is all settled

on on L1. Um, so uh, it it would be very diff like blockchain migrations are very difficult. We we can talk about it theoretically, but migrating from one blockchain to another is is is not is not very easy. >> Thank you, David. Sean, you you having success? >> Uh I don't know. You tell me. >> Yep, we got you. So Sean's manifest. Welcome Sean. >> Yes. Uh thank you. So super interesting uh way of looking at it. Uh I in order for the Ethereum system to be a public good, it has to both

have enough utility for the public to be a public good, which I'm not sure if it's it's there yet. And uh there might be other technologies uh other other systems of sort of decentralized connection and uh governance that will allow for that. Uh, and also it has to scale in a way that's more effective than its competitors. And I'm not convinced of either of those two things to be completely honest. And I was wondering if you could speak to them or if if I'm wrong and it's already like a serious public good. Which other change you think might be more suited for it >> if if if it's not Ethereum?

>> I mean, I guess the the thought would have my my honest thought would be a combination of a lot of chains. Uh so L2's uh the way that things are set up now, they basically use Ethereum for almost nothing. uh Monad and a few others potentially have the ability to create more secure transactions uh and more private transactions than Ethereum and may be uh handle a lot of like personal traffic or company traffic. Um the honest thought is that I I still think there might be a multi-chain world and that Ethereum might only have a small slice of that.

>> I would say uh I would agree with the first part of what you said. It could be a multi-chain world. Yes. But Ethereum will continue to have the largest share of that multi-chain world. Almost like the Google effect. It's already happening and it's continuing to happen. You cannot underestimate the network effects uh and the actual existing market share in terms of flows and dollar volumes and uh institutional adoption. Uh it's not about speeds and fees. Again, all of these competing blockchains, the only thing they can come with is a a faster uh type thing or a theoretical better, but theory is is easy on paper, much more difficult to

apply it in practice. And uh uh all the signs are that Ethereum right now is going to continue to grow. And if you look at the Ethereum Foundation and how the Ethereum ecosystem is being managed or not managed but it could be a paradox. It it it is very decentralized and it is a bit ugly sometimes. The sausage making is not pretty. Uh because it is decentralized um there is that that that feeling that things will will grow slowly because they are so decentralized and and that's a good thing. It's by design and the ethos of the founders and the

ethos of the foundation as stewards are going to continue to make sure that Ethereum is is a public good for everybody and the value again is on top of it. The value is on top of it. The public good uh it's it's success is on how much value can be built on top of it like the internet. I mean, imagine if if the CPIP had a token, what would be its value? It would be tremendous. And it doesn't have a token, but Ethereum has a token. And and that's kind of the analogy.

>> Thank you, Sean. Is that everything from your side? >> Uh, sure. Yeah. >> Great. Thanks. Uh, please keep going. and Alan, thank you. Um, Alan is uh with me and Lou on running the Crypto Mondays Collective. He's building our agent a what? Agent Mandai, our AI agent and helping run our infrastructure. So, over to you, Alan.

>> Yeah, thank you, William. Very um interesting perspective. Just kind of fascinating to look at it in a different way. I'm I'm wondering what what you explained was value was really spread across so many different items and entities and and perceptions of of what you're actually um of what's actually happening in the world if if you were to try to invest in this. I mean, how would you capture that? Would there be like a a uh index fund or something for all of the L2s and all the applications and tokens that exist? I mean, is that >> something might happen in the future?

>> That's a good point. Uh I'm not sure uh if there must be some uh I mean there are existing there are indices already um I mean bitwise and uh um there are there are there are indices that that exist out there. I'm not sure which ones are the best ones. I haven't followed them. Um uh but ETH ETH as as an asset of course I'm a big ETH proponent. Um uh you you you can you can bet on a basket or you can bet also on the on the house in in in a way uh or or do both and and your bets. Uh I'm sure that there are indices uh I'm thinking

of Grayscale I think might have another index as well. Uh but um and there's another one in Europe uh that has an index. So, it's possible. It's possible that yeah, you could participate by uh being part of a basket of u of assets. >> And do you think that would actually reflect the the majority of the value? Maybe. I don't think it'd ever reflect everything but >> it would if you pick if you pick them carefully, it would be the equivalent of an S&P index. And as you well know, the S&P index always outperforms over time over time.

uh Warren Buffett famously is known to uh his advice to his wife is to put 90% of their money is in the S&P index uh and not worry about anything else and 10% in treasuries, US treasuries, something like that. So um yeah, I would say an index is is not a bad idea. But uh if if ETH is a proxy and for this it's it's also a big part of the index and I'm sure if there is such an index ETH would be a big part of that index.

>> Yeah. Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you. There's a question in the chat from Dina. How will quantum computing affect Ethereum and other chains? Is that something that you have had a look at? >> Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a non-issue. I mean actually I was on a call yesterday with the Ethereum Foundation. Uh it's a non-issue. Ethereum is going to be quantum compliant. Uh uh there's already work uh in that regard. Today it's not an issue and it will not be an issue tomorrow either. Uh we're at 100 bit uh security right now. It's going to 128.

Uh Ethereum is at I mean Bitcoin is at 70 to give you an idea. Um, I'm not going to get too much technicalities, but uh, Ethereum is and will be quantum resistant uh, 100%. >> Cool. Sean, were you asking another question or was your hand up from the previous one? >> Should I ask? >> No, I was not. Sorry. >> Okay, cool. And then I I was wondering like um you you use the internet analogy and and how the internet's changed how we share information and Ethereum is going to change the way we share value. Is that correct?

>> Yeah, that's yes. >> And and so what does what does a daily life look like in the future when Ethereum is is like an invisible uh and and essential as the internet is today? Yes, that's that's a good qu. I mean that it's it's part of kind of how I ended my my talk. Um it's going to include a lot of tokenized uh money market funds that will depend on Ethereum. Uh tokenized treasuries uh credit and depth uh credit and private debt will be also tokenized. Uh you you see all of the ETF products um uh central banks could could have

collaterals on on on crypto at least a part of them. Um and another another segment uh we didn't talk about is AI. Uh AI will be interacting with onchain assets. uh AI agents are already in in some cases doing good job from the user interface uh aspect because crypto is not always very user friendly as you know interacting with a wallet is not all wallets are very easy to use >> but I've seen some early examples of u uh AI an AI layer on top of a wallet and you just talk to it in English and say transfer this to that or create a token or uh check the balance just in English in natural language queries

that get translated into queries into the blockchain. Um and we already have prediction markets for example that are becoming very prevalent. Um so a lot of institutional adoption and a lot of social adoption which has lagged a little bit uh recently. uh I want I want to see more self-s sovereignty types of applications uh where digital identity on blockchain uh is more meaningful in terms of use cases today we still use Google to sign on uh we still use Facebook in some cases we still use um central players that um have our identity proxies

uh but there's no reason why in the future technology wise you should be able to own your own identity and take it with you. Um I'm seeing um some good work in the messaging uh area. For example, there is a a new protocol called XMTP uh XMTP.org. Uh it's a portability uh messaging protocol that's u kind of blockchain uh related. uh and uh it's going to free us up from the signal and the WhatsApp of the world uh where uh your messages uh will be portable across different platforms. Uh world coin the world uh pay application

is using XMTP for example. So the idea is almost like um like the u SMTP analogy of of of email uh where you you can have multiple clients. If you if you use Gmail one day, if you use Yahoo email one day, another day, it's still your email. It's still you you can access your your mail your email with a different platform. Um and and the same thing is going to happen with messaging. uh but today if you message somebody on Signal you cannot take those messages and and take them to WhatsApp for example or or take them to another uh platform it's it's a it's it's a closed walled garden

>> but XMTP is already making it such that you'll have this portability across messaging platforms uh that that use the XMTP because the analogy is it's SMTP but for messaging Yeah, very interesting. And uh Mike, Iron, I see. Do you want to just open your mic and tell us what or ask your question? >> Uh oh, sure. Um so my question is what happens to ETH if Bitcoin gets a smart contract layer? Uh which by the way is about to happen.

>> Well, it's been they've been trying Bitcoin has been trying to do that for a number of years. Unfortunately, it has not succeeded. Um I'm not saying they I'm not discouraging it but if you go back to the genesis of Ethereum the reason why Vitalik started Ethereum is because he was in the Bitcoin space uh for a while and he was playing with colored coins at the time which which were kind of pushing the envelope on the programmability of Bitcoin uh for specific use cases and he saw the limitations of colored coins and he said well we have to start from scratch and have more of a general purpose uh uh blockchain that you can then apply smart contracts on top of it. Uh there's been

many attempts to add smart contracts on Bitcoin uh I would say even including Blockstack uh who I was involved with. The attempts have been have been genuine attempts but the results have not been so great and for good reason. It's not so easy. Uh um I think at this point it would be better off for a Bitcoin holder to join uh to wrap their Bitcoin and join uh the Ethereum DeFi machine and get some yield uh yield from there because it's very easy to wrap a BT Bitcoin and and let it enter the DeFi

space and and generate yield make it make it as a collateral that is productive. U because Ethereum is a uh that requires a third party, you know, trusting a third party. I'm talking about no bridges, no wraps, actually having smart contracts on Bitcoin the way you do on Ethereum. What happens to ETH? >> Well, it's a hypothetical question, I would say. Let's see when it happens first and we'll get there by that time. Fair enough.

>> Continue to increase the market. >> It's gonna happen about a year from now. >> Great. >> It's it's happening. >> So, uh uh the uh the name of the t the company is called Tachi. T a c hi. Um >> yeah, >> we'll we'll look we'll uh follow it. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Thanks, Mike. Cindy, do you want to open your mic and ask your question? Uh I see two questions on the Okay. On the question. Yeah.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um super interesting. Thanks for sharing your uh findings. I'm just wondering uh if you have look at Ethereum from geographic uh point of view, you know, uh Americas versus outside um in Asia, Tron is pretty popular. Um and other chains as well. I'm just wondering if you have to look at it from that perspective. >> I haven't, but uh the Ethereum Foundation and other u entities are doing deep dives into specific countries. There was recently a very uh comprehensive report about Ethereum in South Korea and it was tremendous. The

adoption there was is is very um is very deep and very broad. Uh another one recently, two weeks ago, uh somebody wrote a an important report about Ethereum in Brazil. Um so that was quite uh interesting as well to see the adoption there. Uh I'm very well aware of course that Tron is very successful uh in certain parts of the world uh especially in Asia and maybe in the Middle East as well. Um and I think they'll continue to have a good share. Uh but uh maybe yeah maybe Ethereum has slightly less market share in Asia because of Tron. Uh but o overall um overall on the global level uh it kind

of averages out and Ethereum will continue to be a dominant player. >> Sure. Yep. Thank you. >> Good. Anybody? We've got five minutes. Any more questions? I have one last one just because I I can't quite get my head around how um this where this value occurs because it's not an investable value. Am I correct in saying that or is it actually just going to is it going to reflect in the token over a period of time or are we saying it's like freeways? It's like uh you know it's like infrastructure that we have in the world and we're saying that's where the value lies as

opposed to in the token itself. >> Well the token is the val is where the value should be acrew acrewing to >> it will acrue to the token. >> ETH ETH is the as they say ETH is the ticker. um the value is in ETH and it's it's a bit it's it's mispriced right now because it's misunderstood and once you understand it as a as a public goods infrastructure once you start to understand the different um places where value is captured where value is created where surplus is quantified uh and um whether it's a saving or whether it's a benefit and uh the the settlement numbers um at the institutional level uh and and the whole

ecosystem, the innovation that's going on in the L2 space uh infiltrating um things like uh uh like Robin Hood for example or or Sony uh and even the banks are now adopting uh Ethereum as a base layer uh settlement infrastructure. And then you you will realize that the analogy is very much the internet in '95 96 97 where we didn't know exactly how to value it and then suddenly it's it was everywhere and it was being valued a lot. And I'll end by saying imagine if DC if the internet uh with DCPIP had a token uh what would it be at? It would

be into the trillions. and and that's the the minds the mind uh um kind of paradigm shift we we have to think about. >> Very interesting. Thank you very much. I think on that note we um like to thank you so much for very very thoughtprovoking conversation and I think it's going to be fun to look at it. We'll we'll review this in a year's time and see you know what you know where it's going. And this we've recorded this so it'll be up on our YouTube channel and we'll put it out on the social media. So, thank you very much for you know providing us with that research paper and all this in-depth research in into Ethereum because it's well it's you know Bitcoin and Ethereum are really the two leaders in so it's

it's important that we understand them clearly and how it's going to transform society. So, thank you so much. >> I I know this being recorded but can I ask the question? This is a fun question. This is no nobody's liable for this but curious William this year ne next year at this time where where's Ethereum going to be? What's your what's your target? Again, this is not financial advice. Just just your own personal opinion. >> I I I made a very conservative prediction by the end of the year. 8,000. I wouldn't be surprised.

>> 8,000. Okay. >> Ethereum blows the 8,000 off the top. Um, my next project right now, I'm I'm writing a new book actually. It's going to be all about Ethereum. Um, so I'm going to be expanding a lot more about all of these concepts and explaining it. So part of it is we have to explain it to the world. Uh, and and that's where I'm putting my time in the next several months. >> Sorry for putting you on the spot. I was just, you know, asking the question. >> Well done, David. That was a good idea. >> Thanks, guys. Thank you. >> Can I also ask a followup follow-up question as well?

Go for it, Cindy. One minute there. >> Um, given that how bullish you are on Ethereum, I'm just wondering, um, what do you think of the key use cases contributed to this growth that you mentioned? >> The key use cases? >> Yep. Is it payment? Is it, you know, DeFi? >> Well, yeah, DeFi is a big part of it. It's the ones that we know of today that are growing. The stable coin adoption is going to be very big. Ethereum is going to be a big beneficiary of the Congress bill that's about to be signed. U real world assets uh are are a big are we're just barely scratching the surface of uh

tokenization uh of all kinds of assets and then the settlement and the flow. uh I mean right now we're putting the assets on the blockchain but now imagine when the actual uh transactions start to happen in terms of uh exchanging hands, exchanging ownerships back and forth uh and when the banks start to get into it they are going to be serious about it. They are there to make money so to so it's an important aspect. Uh DeFi is going to continue to grow. I think I I'm going to see I see a lot more I'm going to see um we're going to have to see a lot more traditional finance getting into DeFi uh trying to understand it better and and lift it off. Uh and then I also want to see we'll see more

consumer I think it'll be the year where we see some consumer uh apps um start to to emerge that are meaningful. >> Thank you. Super helpful. >> Thank you Cindy. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. Thank you to Lilia and Ellen for helping us set this up. >> So, we'll see you at the next featured guest. We don't have in one book just yet, but we'll let you know as soon as it happens. >> Great job putting it together, Robin. And you >> Thanks again. >> Thanks.