why i am so bullish on crypto, in "defense of the ideological"- i recently watched the video of the first public appearance for jensen and elon together, which was at GTC 2015 more than ten years ago. by this time, jensen had already made his iconoclastic bet on parallel graphics processing for over twenty years, and on CUDA since 2006. musk had his hassabis moment in 2012. yet openAI was not yet founded (would be ~9 months later), and GDX-1 would be announced at GTC the following year too this is that narrow window where a revolution is visible to some but not others, in which both of these geniuses had early inklings of recognizing AIs pervasive potential, but the broad public was not yet made aware. it would take another 10 years for it reach mainstream applications of course i broadly think of the crypto industry being the same place today. just as there were brilliant minds who understood the revolution that would come from the GPU paradigm, there was simply no large scale consumer demand that required its objective superiority for decades to come. instead, it was picked up by hobbyists (ie gamers) who enjoyed a sense of self-determination by pushing the boundaries of their passion, tinkering, sharing, and researching. in a rather strange way, gamers subsidized AI's development, just like early defi subsidized the institutional tokenization development. during the GTC 2015 interview, elon tells jensen something interesting: the 0-10 mph autonomous driving is very easy to solve because the car can be stopped. the 50 mph zone is also easy to solve because there are rules of engagements at that speed that dont have as many randomness. the hardest part to solve is actually the 10-50mph, what i call the "the middle game" where a car in an urban setting with bikes, children, cones, manholes, create all kinds of need for precision and speed that sensors today need to develop further. it's fundamentally solvable, but this is the most challenging portion of fulfilling the dreams of autonomous driving this is where crypto is today. the 0-10mph was easy because people can understand why permissionless money is useful from a practical sense to start developing. the 50mph will also be really easy because by that point, onchain capital markets is going to be so obvious that you could never go back with all the benefits of self custody, capital efficiency, money velocity/rest optimizations. but its the 10-50 thats hard, where money in a pre-internet financial infrastructure is hitting AML/KYC, offshore capital conduits, discretionary bank risk models, lagging reporting regimes create all kinds of need of need for precision and speed that institutional infrastructure today needs to develop further. its fundamentally solvable, but this is the most challenging portion of fulfilling the dreams of onchain capital markets i love bitcoin. but contrary to some opinion, i believe its possible to love crypto too, because bitcoin is a monetary experiment enabled by the evolution of technology, while most of crypto is the inverse: a technology experiment enabled by the evolution of money. they are fundamentally solving different problems, though rooted in one ideal: to make its access as much of a public good as possible this is why crypto is going to be such an important force for the future during this "narrow window" for those can can see it. and while most early pioneers got into the game because of the ideology behind decentralization, it's time to admit that the winning ideology is technological financialization: it is hyperfinancialization with elements of decentralization that exports sovereign finance as a public good, decentralizes agentic rails for humanity as a public good, promote self-determination as a public good. this is worth fighting for, and im excited to recommit my focus to these ideals that began my crypto journey. this "middle game" period will be remembered as the most critical juncture for the industry and for anyone who is doubting the industry at this time, i hope reading this helps you reanchor your beliefs for what you are actually fighting for, and more importantly, know that you can play a meaningful part in the revolution too the future belongs to those who recognized it was always ideological