Jason Badeaux

By offering blockchain-based tokens, Helium incentivizes anyone to own a Hotspot and provide wireless coverage—so the network belongs to participants, not a single company. A network can be scaled much faster and more economically than if a single company tried to build out infrastructure.

Tesla may be a car company today, but Tesla won’t be a car company in 15 years. Rather, Tesla will be a full stack, vertically integrated clean energy company. They may still produce cars, but cars will represent a fraction of total profits.

Web 3 introduces a powerful new tool for bootstrapping networks: token incentives.The basic idea is: early on during the bootstrapping phase when network effects haven’t kicked in, provide users with financial utility via token rewards to make up for the lack of native utility.

Each energy transition has enabled massive improvements to existing materials (wrought iron and later steel made using coal), created entirely new materials (polymers from oil-refined petrochemicals) and/or made low-cost manufacturing viable at scale (aluminum using electricity).

Tesla recognized the complex supply chain in the automotive industry and revolutionized it through vertical integration across its factory, including battery and electric motor production. At its recent AI day, Tesla revealed its in-house AI training chip (called the D1 Dojo chip). The chip, based on itself, would be ranked in the top 10 super... See more

Importantly, autonomous transport should save consumers both time and costs. The average car owner in the US spends more than 420 hours per year driving—more than 10 work weeks.

The convergence of artificial intelligence and battery technologies within the mobility space could disrupt transportation completely, radically reducing costs and benefiting consumers.