Chris Burniske – Blockchains and “programmable value”

Blockchains collapse the cost of digital asset creation, custody & transfer, enabling *programmable value* of all kinds. Money, while an important application of blockchains, is a subset of the broader programmable value universe. Money like Bitcoin is likely to be the greatest *single instance* of value capture within the programmable value universe, which is why many of the top cryptoassets today are battling for this position. But being the greatest single instance of value capture, doesn’t mean capturing all the world’s value, or even the majority of the world’s value.

Take global asset values:

– Gold: $7.7T
– Stock Markets: $73T
– Broad-Money: $90T
– Debt: $215T
– Real Estate: $217T
– Derivatives (low-end): $544T

Placing the world over $1 quadrillion in value, where monies most broadly defined represent < 10% of that value. Blockchains have already created a new asset class in crypto w/ BTC leading the charge, will reform markets around existing asset classes, and will spawn hybrids that solve principal-agent problems that have plagued social organization for centuries. So while I do agree a crypto-money is likely to be the largest single instance of value capture, saying it will be the *only value capture* ignores what we empirically see in the traditional world today, and the blooming crypto world of tomorrow.

Last thought: due to the expanding world of programmable value within cryptoland, while BTC will continue to grow in value, the Bitcoin dominance index will continue to fall through each successive cycle. You can’t ignore the data, it’s been > 5 yrs of this trend already.