Crypto's Value Capture Problem & Why Robinhood Built Its Own Blockchain

Summary

Santiago Santos shares Inversion Capital's strategy shift from buying businesses to implement crypto to focusing on quality businesses enhanced by AI and other technologies. The hosts discuss crypto's value capture problem, where open-source networks push value to consumers, making it hard for companies to accrue value. They analyze Robinhood's new onchain strategy, its early success with massive trading volume, and the competitive landscape among exchanges moving onchain. The episode also covers the token vs equity debate, AI's productivity revolution, and the emerging pricing war among AI model providers.

• Inversion Capital pivots from crypto-first business acquisitions to buying quality businesses improved by AI and technology broadly.
• Santiago argues large platforms like Stripe and Robinhood are better positioned to capture crypto adoption value than small businesses.
• Robinhood Chain launches and quickly achieves high onchain volume, surpassing all other chains except Ethereum mainnet on Uniswap.
• Jason sees Robinhood equity benefiting from the chain's success, and believes Coinbase and BNB will be among the largest chains.
• Santiago highlights the value capture issue: open-source crypto networks tend to push value to consumers rather than companies.
• The dual token-equity structure is seen as inferior; pure tokens like ETH, SOL, and HYPE are the best bets for ecosystem exposure.
• AI adoption is accelerating with tools like Claude, Fable, and Cursor; a pricing war is brewing, driving costs down and adoption up.