Yan Liberman, Phil Bonello and David Puell: Tokeneconomics and Valuation

Host Tom Shaughnessy leads a roundtable discussion with Yan Liberman (co-founder of Delphi Digital), Phil Bonello (former Head of Research at Ikigai), and David Puell (Head of Research at Adaptive Capital). They discuss the difficulties of crypto valuation, productive vs. unproductive assets, the differences between some projects, and more.

Key Points

1. It is very difficult to establish any intrinsic valuation of cryptocurrencies.
2. Many strategies for short-term growth do not lead to long-term stability or sustainability.
3. Tracking cryptocurrency growth and valuation has gotten more difficult as more transactions move off-chain.

Episode Highlights

• Yan feels the token economy is the high-level understanding of the token structure, how the token accrues value, and how the token interacts within the ecosystem.
• Phil categorizes assets as either productive or unproductive.
• David thinks about the token economy in a way that includes game theory.
• Exchange tokens need to accrue value while also being a usable asset.
• The industry still relies heavily on operating in relation to the cost of Bitcoin, so it’s almost impossible to establish the fundamental value of anything.
• The “burn model” is not effective to extrapolate an intrinsic value.
• The “velocity problem” is that the more use of a currency there is, the less value it holds in the long term. Bitcoin avoids it by having a scarcity model.
• Maker tokens work as an incentive, but it requires considerable growth to outpace the burn rate.
• Now there is a token that you can use as collateral for synthetic assets, as a way to bootstrap your way to a sustainable value.
• It isn’t possible to make future projections without enough historical data of crypto value.
• Diversification and differentiation are big problems in crypto.
• At Ikigai, Phil didn’t avoid trading assets with low valuation but wanted to approach all trades with a full understanding of the function and model of the assets.
• Most agree that Bitcoin halvening is a bullish move.
• For Yan, it’s easy to say that a number of projects shouldn’t be in the top ten, but harder to say what should be in the top ten that isn’t.

Resources Mentioned

• Chain Reaction Twitter: https://twitter.com/chainpodcast
• Tom Shaughnessy Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shaughnessy119
• Yan Liberman Twitter: https://twitter.com/YanLiberman
• Phil Bonello Twitter: https://twitter.com/philjbonello?lang=en
• Phil Bonello’s blog: https://philjbonello.substack.com/
• Adaptive Capital Website: https://adaptivecapital.co/
• David Puell Twitter: https://twitter.com/kenoshaking?lang=en

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