CRYPTO IS PRICED FOR NETWORK EFFECTS IT DOESN'T HAVE

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Crypto is valued at $2,500-$23,000 per user versus Meta's $400-$500 per user, despite lacking comparable retention, monetization, or network effects, with most crypto "network effects" being negative congestion effects where more users increase fees and slow transactions. L1s capture 90% of total market cap but only 12% of fees, down from 60%, while DeFi generates 73% of fees but represents under 10% of valuation, contradicting the fat protocol thesis as value migrates to app and user aggregation layers. Metcalfe's Law analysis reveals crypto's k coefficient is 10-1,000x higher than Facebook's, meaning each user is priced vastly more valuable despite lower stickiness as liquidity remains mercenary, developers churn through forkable codebases, and retention fails to compound across cycles. Crypto might grow into powerful network effects if it becomes an internet settlement fabric, but it is currently far overvalued.