WHO ACTUALLY CAPTURES VALUE IN CRYPTO

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Analysis estimates on-chain protocol revenue at roughly $8 billion in 2025 versus roughly $70 billion (range $60-100B) for off-chain/centralized crypto companies (Coinbase, Tether, Binance, Robinhood's crypto arm, etc.), an 8.5x gap. Applying generous multiples, that implies on-chain's entire addressable market cap is about $168 billion versus roughly $840 billion for centralized players, meaning the whole centralized crypto industry is worth about as much as a single AI lab like OpenAI or Anthropic. On-chain revenue is dominated by L1/L2 chains (~49%). Off-chain is dominated by exchanges/brokers (~66%) and stablecoin issuers (~19%). Centralized players win by sitting closer to end users and abstracting away crypto's complexity.