Jeremy Firster

Digital Transformation and Real World Applications | Personal views, Professional opinions
Advisor: TABEI Partnerships @Cardano_CF

[Lorenzo Valente @LorenzoARK]

Who is actually accruing the value created in crypto?

This started as a conversation on the @Blockworks TG group with @santiagoroel and a few others.

Venture in crypto has shrunk a lot! and imo the main reason is that on-chain revenue pools have been far smaller than anticipated.

From Blockworks data, total on-chain revenue was roughly $8B in 2025, so I wanted to see how much off-chain/Centralized companies are capturing from this industry by comparison.

So consider the off-chain pool: public companies like coinbase, Gemini, BitGo, Bullish, plus crypto revenue from Robinhood, Galaxy etc and private players like Binance, Tether, FalconX, Anchorage, etc.

The result surprised me: off-chain companies generate ~$70B roughly, consider roughly a range between 60B to 100B, 8.5x more than on-chain protocols and L1s.

To put that $8B in perspective: even if you give on-chain protocols generous 70% EBITDA margins and a 30x multiple, the entire addressable market cap today is ~$168B ($8B × 70% = $5.6B EBITDA × 30x). That's the whole on-chain pie, less than a single mega-cap tech company.

Do the same for centralized companies at a more realistic 40% EBITDA margin: $70B × 40% = $28B EBITDA × 30x = ~$840B of justified market cap. Even with lower margins, that's 5x the entire on-chain ecosystem. And to put even that in perspective: the entire centralized crypto industry, all of it combined, is basically worth one OpenAI or Anthropic.

The breakdowns are telling too. On-chain, L1/L2 chains take almost half the pool (~49%), with launchpads/trading apps and DEXs/perps splitting most of the rest. Off-chain, it's exchanges and brokers dominating at ~66%, with stablecoin issuers second at ~19%, everything else (market making, payments, infra, asset mgmt) is single digits. Both worlds are extremely concentrated at the top of the same funnel: trading and the rails to do it.

From a venture perspective, you were often better off investing early in L1s and traditional exchanges than in most tokens. It was a bit simpler than we thought.

To me the common denominator: off-chain companies sit much closer to the end user than protocols and L1s. They own that relationship and monetize it well. They abstract away crypto's complexity: trade, stake, store, manage without ever touching a coldcard or metamask app and people pay up BIG for that.

On-chain is clearly in a bear market, but the lesson for protocols, L1s, and on-chain primitives is to build and verticalize more. Get closer to the end user.

One caveat: this is an approximation, done with Claude's help. Many of these companies don't have public earnings, so the private side (Binance, Tether, and especially "other private") is mostly an educated guess. Directionally though, the gap is hard to argue with.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

While at RareEvo I met with a company working on this very solution. In an increasing digital world, physical commodities are now the scarce resource. Digital twins provide the authenticity. Blockchains, transparency. And yes, we geeked out on all the new applications this brings

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

NEW: Pokémon cards have outperformed both the S&P 500 and $BTC year-to-date, and a new class of blockchain platforms is betting tokenization can modernize a $13 - 15B collectibles market.

[Lorenzo Valente @LorenzoARK]

CT missed the most important earnings call of the week. It wasn't a crypto company. It was @Cloudflare

Everyone caught the wallet announcement. The real alpha was in the call itself.

Today Cloudflare monetizes the internet through subscriptions: security services, AI platform spend, pools of funds. A mix of SaaS and IaaS economics. The CEO was explicit that AI agents are about to break that model.
Cloudflare sits in front of roughly 20% of internet traffic. Here's what that traffic looks like from the call:

- AI agent requests up 1,700% YoY
- Agents crossed 50% of total network traffic this quarter. First time in history non-human traffic is the majority. Management admitted it happened faster than their own models
- Their projection: if trends hold, non-human traffic outnumbers human traffic 1000x within 5 years

The monetization shift is the key part. The ad-supported internet doesn't work when the visitor is an agent. Cloudflare's CEO answer: block malicious bots for free, charge good agents a tiny fee per request. Fractions of a penny. They want to be the ones defining that layer.

Now the throughput math here:

- Cloudflare handles ~500M requests per second
- They estimate 1 to 10% is monetizable via micro/nanotransactions
- That means 10M TPS on day one, scaling to 100M TPS
Visa peaks at ~20k TPS

The CEO's framing: "we're building this while others compete with Visa." Three to four orders of magnitude beyond card rails. No existing payment network can settle this. It has to be something new.

Two conclusions I keep coming back to:

- Being short L1 throughput is being short agentic workflows. If agent traffic gets monetized per request, the settlement layer needs to scale orders of magnitude beyond anything live today.

- The fee math for L1s flips. Base fees have collapsed across ETH, SOL, everywhere. MEV is getting internalized by apps. Hard to build a base fee revenue case at human scale. But at 10M TPS and $0.001 per transaction, you're looking at ~$315B a year in base fees alone. At 100M TPS the number gets silly.

Stablecoins and crypto are the end-game here for Agentic finance @jerallaire @circle

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@NaVi_GaT0R Flat out this is crossing the line. Anything internal should be focused on helping the responsible party (Iagon in this case) deliver.

If Wurth ever had any issues, I highly doubt their answer would be to “stay in Cardano and reset the relationship with a new unknown vendor.”

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

I’m looking forward to attending RareEvo for the 4th year in a row. The team always puts on a stellar. this is hands down one of the best annual industry conferences in the U.S.

Major kudos to the team for once again raising the bar, and executing in this dynamic market!

[Rare Evo: A Blockchain Event @RareEvo]

Blockchain is converging on Las Vegas.

80+ Speakers.
60+ Exhibitors.
1000's of Attendees.

1 Unforgettable Event.

It's all about the numbers. Rare Evo 2026 is 2 WEEKS AWAY!

[Rare Evo: A Blockchain Event @RareEvo]

Blockchain is converging on Las Vegas.

80+ Speakers.
60+ Exhibitors.
1000's of Attendees.

1 Unforgettable Event.

It's all about the numbers. Rare Evo 2026 is 2 WEEKS AWAY!

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@a16zcrypto The hard pill to swallow is that TradFi rightfully gets to choose the structure of their blockchains, requirements for integrations, and control on governance frameworks.

Web3 and decentralization has never been a one-size-fits-all approach.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@blockjock2017 @TheOCcryptobro @emurgo_io @Cardano_CF Well said, James.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@BSCNews @CantonNetwork @YuvalRooz “Real usage” is divided between the private chain activity and public chain records.

You can also argue “real usage” by regulated entities selling CC to cover their infrastructure costs. That in itself can be a win for how companies can support ongoing investments into Canton.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

Treasury proposals need to add a social credit score for the teams doing the work.
Cash and the @AnvilDevAgency team is a rare 11/10 for commitment, loyalty, and perseverance.

Adoption based proposals are risky, Cardano needs people like this for its best chance at success.

[$cash @CashAnvil]

Well, our proposal with Sellout is officially live, direct to the treasury!

First and foremost, thank you to the immense amount of support we have had over the past week. Your positive messages and continued support of our proposal made this a clear path forward.

I want to second to directly thank @santicarmuega and the entire @txpipe_tools team for sponsoring our treasury withdrawal.

And to the other two parties who offered to help @wolf31o2 and @dankarda, I just want to thank you both for the gesture.

Shoutout to @Ryun1_ and Intersect for supporting us through this process.

This, to me, is what makes Cardano so special. There is no doubt this community, when united, boasts some of the best people on earth.

Secondly,

We have the ability to answer and address all feedback related to the proposal. This proposal is structured as a LOAN, with a permanent revenue share.

Thanks to feedback proposed during the intersect process, we made this adjustment to the proposal, adding a clear definition of the revenue share %.

Additionally, we decreased our peg to .22 ADA from .25. We are still committed to completing the entire contents of the proposal regardless of price movement.

Third and finally,

This means everything to our team. We have grinded hard to get here and sacrificed a lot, as many of you already know. We have worked hard to build a reputation and name for ourselves in this space. We value how the Cardano community sees us and our commitments in our proposal.

We know this opportunity is immensely valuable for Cardano. Hopefully the DReps who were on the fence see the value, and the commitment to do what is right by the community.

Please push your DRep to vote YES on this proposal.

https://t.co/x5IFXgkLTe

It's time to go all-in.

Let's make Cardano the ticketing chain of the world!!!

[Sheldon Hunt 🛡️ @_MrHunt_]

I genuinely believe Cardano NEEDS this.

Deep collaboration, innovative tech, transparent on-chain Bitcoin infrastructure + liquidity.

Let's change the game! 🔵🤝🟠

Encourage your Drep to vote YES for Alchemy and to build the growth infrastructure Bitcoin needs here on Cardano

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@shaggyrax @planetmaaz Yoram has never been given special treatment. If anything he hasn’t received enough. He’s a real one for sure

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@RodrigoPacini Agree.

If this would be better then everyone would already be using it, or the Cardano forum. It’s VERY DIFFICULT for authorities to dictate where and how users provide engagement. Discrediting platforms when you don’t like what is received is not a healthy response.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@SundialProtocol @CharmsDev Awesome! The name sounds strangely familiar tho

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

Even oil can go to zero, but not for long. The current panic and market capitulation = a great buying opportunity.

[Coin Bureau @coinbureau]

📉LATEST: Cardano $ADA drops to $0.15, a level not seen since 2020.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@NaVi_GaT0R @jrv97_velazquez The amount of energy, temperament, and dedication you have does not go unnoticed. It is incredibly difficult for an individual to maintain course when at ends with central figures in the same ecosystem.

The web3 BAU environment is hard enough, Cardano is lucky to have you. 🫡

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@adamKDean @yutazzz While this is true, the market norm for understanding a healthy blockchain is TVL. Everything else is seen as “nice to have.”

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@dori_coin @ADAFrog_Pool A VC makes 10 investments hoping that 1 will become valuable enough to cover them all. Diversifying from 1-2 funds is smart, especially if it means a greater % of treasury is tied to commercial activities vs pure tech development or funding sth that doesn’t have a clear need.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@ESCOweb3 @vechainofficial @Cardano_CF A separate issue is market timing and when strategic directions meet large market demand.

(I.e. RWA, which is also supported by both CF and ecosystem participants). Supply chain is definitely a longterm view, but it’s not the only view.

[Jeremy Firster @JeremyFirster]

@ESCOweb3 @vechainofficial @Cardano_CF CF has never only supported one vertical, nor in isolation. You can see a growing list of third parties that are deploying enterprise solutions and it’s beyond supply chain.