Great article and thoughts. I just listened to the podcast on Empire. Everything you said makes total sense. It’ll be the apps and not the infrastructure that provide value/profits and onboard new users!
You nailed the disconnect between activity and value capture. But there’s a deeper structural issue underneath your argument that the industry keeps missing.
Crypto still behaves as if value should accrue at the blockspace layer. Yet every mature digital ecosystem shows the opposite pattern. Once compute becomes cheap and horizontal, value moves up the stack to the layer that verifies intent and coordinates behavior.
We’ve already seen this play out:
• When servers became cheap to run, the power shifted to Stripe and Shopify, who verify payments and coordinate commerce.
• When bandwidth became abundant, Google and Facebook captured the value by verifying identity and social relationships.
• As raw compute exploded, the winners were the platforms that coordinated billions of users, not the companies providing the hardware.
Crypto is now repeating this same migration. L1s pushed execution outward to L2s. L2s centralized ordering through sequencers. MEV feeds on the gaps between them.
Every step moves trust up the stack and leaks value away from the base token.
That’s why adoption can rise while prices stall. It isn’t an Ethereum problem. It’s an architectural problem.
Crypto built enormous execution infrastructure but never built a verification layer. And in every digital ecosystem, value eventually consolidates at the layer that verifies intent, orders activity, and coordinates trust across systems.
RealityNet is building that missing verification layer. Instead of treating blockspace as the endpoint, we verify computation, ordering, and intent across any chain through a customizable consensus engine. rApps can prove what happened, when it happened, and who executed it, then feed those verified results back into L1s, L2s, or subnets. It turns fragmented execution into a coordinated system where trust is programmable and value can finally compound at the protocol layer rather than leak outward.
We are building a meta-ledger that unifies verification across chains. rApps are the modules that run on top of it, small, customizable consensus engines that let developers define how transactions are ordered, how computation is verified, and how state is proven. Instead of relying on one global set of rules, each rApp can tailor consensus to its use case.
Great comment Santiago, but do believe that if Eth will become the most trusted chain the internet of value will operate on, then there is a value to this. Ofcourse the Dapps will be more profitable but without EVM none of them will be anywhere. Just like the Telecom operators and MVNOs.
Great explanation. Another thing to note: these aren't stocks. A project may have 10 million MAU and $100M in annualized revenue but its token is tanking.
Why? Because it doesnt accrue value to token holders. Tokenomics and fundamentals go hand in hand.
This is great stuff.
Great article and thoughts. I just listened to the podcast on Empire. Everything you said makes total sense. It’ll be the apps and not the infrastructure that provide value/profits and onboard new users!
Most reasonable explanation by far. Thanks. Will share it!
Bring GDP onchain
You nailed the disconnect between activity and value capture. But there’s a deeper structural issue underneath your argument that the industry keeps missing.
Crypto still behaves as if value should accrue at the blockspace layer. Yet every mature digital ecosystem shows the opposite pattern. Once compute becomes cheap and horizontal, value moves up the stack to the layer that verifies intent and coordinates behavior.
We’ve already seen this play out:
• When servers became cheap to run, the power shifted to Stripe and Shopify, who verify payments and coordinate commerce.
• When bandwidth became abundant, Google and Facebook captured the value by verifying identity and social relationships.
• As raw compute exploded, the winners were the platforms that coordinated billions of users, not the companies providing the hardware.
Crypto is now repeating this same migration. L1s pushed execution outward to L2s. L2s centralized ordering through sequencers. MEV feeds on the gaps between them.
Every step moves trust up the stack and leaks value away from the base token.
That’s why adoption can rise while prices stall. It isn’t an Ethereum problem. It’s an architectural problem.
Crypto built enormous execution infrastructure but never built a verification layer. And in every digital ecosystem, value eventually consolidates at the layer that verifies intent, orders activity, and coordinates trust across systems.
RealityNet is building that missing verification layer. Instead of treating blockspace as the endpoint, we verify computation, ordering, and intent across any chain through a customizable consensus engine. rApps can prove what happened, when it happened, and who executed it, then feed those verified results back into L1s, L2s, or subnets. It turns fragmented execution into a coordinated system where trust is programmable and value can finally compound at the protocol layer rather than leak outward.
We are building a meta-ledger that unifies verification across chains. rApps are the modules that run on top of it, small, customizable consensus engines that let developers define how transactions are ordered, how computation is verified, and how state is proven. Instead of relying on one global set of rules, each rApp can tailor consensus to its use case.
get rekt soyboi bitch
Great comment Santiago, but do believe that if Eth will become the most trusted chain the internet of value will operate on, then there is a value to this. Ofcourse the Dapps will be more profitable but without EVM none of them will be anywhere. Just like the Telecom operators and MVNOs.
Regarding the topic of the article, the 'priced in' point is spot on. Do you think any altcois will ever truly decouple? Such a smart take.
This is a good idea 👍 good stuff guys, thank you 👍
They should accure the token shareholders and send them an update email.
Great explanation. Another thing to note: these aren't stocks. A project may have 10 million MAU and $100M in annualized revenue but its token is tanking.
Why? Because it doesnt accrue value to token holders. Tokenomics and fundamentals go hand in hand.