Publicly traded companies holding digital assets like Ethereum (FGNX) or Bitcoin (MicroStrategy) serve a specific purpose: they offer a bridge for hedge funds, asset managers, and family offices whose mandates prohibit direct crypto ownership but permit holding equities.

Blockchain's disruption will not impact all of finance equally. Trading firms are safe because market making is a fundamental need. However, intermediaries like banks, exchanges, and custodians face an existential threat as their core function—managing ledgers and access—is directly replaced by blockchain's "private key and a ledger" infrastructure.

As AI agents become sophisticated, they'll need to pay for services. Traditional banking is too slow and fragmented for them. Crypto, as the internet's native money, provides the instant, global, low-fee rails for AI agents to transact with each other and with web services, creating a major new use case.

Widespread adoption of blockchain, particularly stablecoins, has been hindered by a "semi-illegal" regulatory environment in the U.S. (e.g., Operation Chokepoint). Now that this barrier is removed, major financial players are racing to integrate the technology, likely making it common within a year.

Traditional value metrics don't apply to crypto. However, an "intangible value" factor can be constructed by analyzing fundamental on-chain data—such as developer commits on GitHub, daily active wallets, and transaction volume—to identify undervalued projects.

Unlike assets like commodities or private markets where institutions pioneer adoption, cryptocurrencies saw retail investors lead the charge. Institutions are only now slowly beginning to explore allocations, reversing the historical trend of top-down financial innovation.

While stablecoins gain attention, tokenized deposits offer similar benefits—like on-chain transactions—but operate within the existing, trusted regulatory banking framework. As they are simply bank liabilities on a blockchain, they may become a more palatable alternative for corporates seeking efficiency without regulatory uncertainty.

Multicoin's central thesis is that crypto's ultimate purpose is creating "Internet Capital Markets"—the ability to trade any asset, from anywhere, 24/7, via any software. This broad vision of permissionless, programmable finance is seen as the most significant long-term impact of blockchain, destined to supersede more niche consumer applications or "Web3" concepts.