We believe blockchain technology will change the world by bringing financial freedom, equitable ownership, and revolutionary business models to every human being. It is an idea whose time has come.
The catalysts are hiding in plain sight.
Unsustainable debt growth and deteriorating demographics in the West, two secular trends which cannot be unbraided from one another, have been perennially ignored.
GDP growth can no longer offset our public and private debt, especially in a rising rate environment. Longer-life expectancies and the upcoming disaster of baby boomer retirements will break the entitlement system. This isn’t sensationalism. It’s mathematics.
Fiscal solutions and austerity are not countenanced by political actors. Those in control of reserve currencies have thus taken the easy road of expedience, monetizing debt to fuel grand strategies in the world, steadily debasing the very instrument underpinning their economic superiority. Like the frog unaware of the water heating around him, these forces have created a yawning wealth divide by artificially increasing asset prices while reducing the real value of wages.
It is no exaggeration to say that income inequality is as severe today as it was in Medieval times. And without real asset growth to offset currency devaluation, the overwhelming majority of younger people who do not own assets, alongside disadvantaged retirees, will remain poor, angry, and trapped.
Dynamics similar to these have precipitated inflationary and deflationary debt crises throughout history that ended in civil strife, the loss of reserve currency status, and the decline of the prevailing hegemonic power. Rarely have we ever seen such abiding tension between money and state, as we do today.
Exponentially growing technologies are the best and arguably the only avenue available to us to compound capital fast enough to offset the devaluation of currencies. And blockchain technology is being adopted at the fastest pace of any technology in human history.
Crypto users increased from ~5 million in 2016 to 400 million this year, a 110% CAGR, with 1 billion expected by 2030. Even during the bear market of 2022, wallet growth increased by 40%. By early 2023, 70% of Fortune 100 companies launched blockchain initiatives publicly. Groundbreaking crypto regulation has also been adopted during this period throughout Europe, Asia, and The Middle East, and major corporate partnerships with protocols, alongside Blackrock’s spot Bitcoin ETF application, suggest that wide-scale institutional adoption is well under way.
Billions of people in the developing world who find themselves unable to access traditional financial tools or unable to protect their purchasing power due to compromised home currencies or geopolitical instability will have access to financial freedom through digital assets. For those in developed countries left behind because they do not own assets, fractional ownership models at the heart of blockchain technology unlock opportunity for the many millions on the margins of the innovation economy to take control of their financial lives and participate in equitable value creation.
Put simply, digital assets enable the forms of ownership, community, wealth creation, and social mobility that function as the best life raft to escape the samsara of secular debt and demographics.
As fundamental investors, macro thinkers, and human beings at EXPAAM, we are dedicating the best part of our careers to be at the center of this new world and to use our capital to help push these ideas into the world. We believe there is immense alpha to be had in investing in a technology as life-changing as the internet was. And we are building a firm that will play a Promethean role in catalyzing crypto adoption, financial inclusion, thoughtful regulation, and best-in-class return on invested capital.
How will you spend your one true life?
Come join us and watch the sun rise on a better world.