Jonathan Keim 🛡️

Seeing more and more pessimism around crypto and the societal value, or lack-thereof, that it brings to the world. I think this perception is misguided. Of course, there's speculation and degeneracy. The crypto casino is real, large, and many people lose at the tables. But there's a ton of positive societal value that just gets overlooked. Bitcoin has become a global, non-sovereign asset that anyone in the world can own with an internet connection. It gives an veto/opt out mechanism to the global population that pushes economic control away from nation states and into the hands of the individual. Stablecoins provide better financial security to people around the world, improve people's lives with faster money, higher yield, and cheaper transactions. Banks literally don't provide yield on your assets. That's changing because of stablecoins. Remittance companies take large % of flows that doesn't go to end users. That's changing because of stablecoins. A 2.9% fee for any ecommerce transaction will seem criminal in 5 years. These are all massive benefits to society enabled by crypto because of stablecoins. Lending platforms like Aave and Morpho provide the ability for anyone in the world to obtain an over-collateralized loan. Undercollateralized lending markets will further unlock a massive benefit to society reducing the cost of capital and creating huge positive externalities. Blockchains will give global access to financial products (e.g. stocks, bonds, insurance, credit) where it has historically been limited. Permissionless capital formation allows any idea to get funded based on it's merits. Creating better markets is EV positive for society, especially when those markets remove adversarial middlemen or reduces costs for end users. Most impactful technologies have positive and negative use cases. - Social media is widely empowering, but hijack our attention and perception of things. - Smart phones give humans super powers, but also act as an anchor. - New entertainment mediums – radio, TV, streaming – provide greater sharing of information, but reduced physical interaction and increased sedentary lifestyles. - AI improves productivity, but provides slop that now makes use question what's real. - Crypto provides a new financial system, but also entices speculative behavior and degeneracy. Crypto is building a new financial system that lets people build what they want. Some people will build casinos, others new payment mechanisms. Some will build perps platforms, others will build ways to enable broader access to consumer credit. The new financial system won't be perfect, but it will be vastly better than the status quo. If you only see crypto for the casino, it's probably worth stepping back from the table and zooming out to see all the benefits that crypto has and will bring to society.