Solana

Recently the term REV (Real Economic Value) was coined – representing the subset of network activity that directly compensates the protocol for providing security and state maintenance. This includes:

• Base fees collected for transaction inclusion


• MEV tips that pass through to validators or stakers


• Blob/data availability fees in the case of modular

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In a world where the Fed — and other central banks — are driving 5-7% annual debasement of their currencies, investors need to make more like 10-15% annual returns to outpace this loss in future purchasing power.

But there’s a perception now that all the smartest people are over buying smart contract chains. Smart people know the jig is up. If not now, then soon. The only people buying here are suckers—Uber drivers, Tom Lee, and KOLs who say stuff like “trillions.” And maybe the US Treasury. But not the smart money.

This is bullshit.I don’t believe it, and... See more

So far, this post has focused almost exclusively on tokens’ ability to capture value by generating income streams for their holders. They are productive capital assets. This may very well be sufficient to value most tokens in the long-run. Equity-like analysis will do the trick here. Think DCF and DDM.

However, valuing tokens based on cash flows... See more

Let’s look at Solana validator economics here as an example just to get some order of magnitude ideas. Solana is more expensive for validators to run compared to most networks. The resource requirements are higher than average, but it’s certainly not as unattainable as is commonly believed. You can run a Solana validator full node for as low as $35... See more

PoS – Imagine a PoS network with 1mm validators, costing $100mm p.a. to run. Users pay $200mm p.a. in REV, and the chain issues $800mm in tokens p.a. to stakers. Operators take a 10% cut on TEV ($100mm here). The “profit = fees – issuance” proponents will say this is unsustainable: $200mm fees – $800mm issuance = $600mm loss! This doesn’t hold up.

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The sillier conversations have been happening on the PoS side. There are a lot more variables at play to get confused over, and we all want our own bags to be special. But we need to stop looking at silly metrics then drawing incorrect conclusions around sustainability. It’s silly to say that Solana is unprofitable or unsustainable. At most, you... See more

Aside from being productive capital assets, you have likely heard some variation of these two other buckets for assets (neither of which are necessarily mutually exclusive with each other or capital assets):

• Consumable / Transformable Asset – Sometimes also classified as commodity or utility value. Cryptoassets offer infinitely programmable, fast,

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I see three different scenarios playing out:

1. L1s begin to optimize for apps, allowing custom orderflow control with the caveat that a small percentage accrues back to that L1. A similar approach to what Unichain and Sorella Labs is enabling.


2. L1s focus on hyperscaling and subsidize infrastructure in order to attract users. Their moat becomes cheap

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