Monetizing Decentralization
TL;DR
Attempting to apply the disruptive, rapid-growth Silicon Valley playbook to Bitcoin usually fails because Bitcoin enforces decentralization and stability over monopolistic concentration.
The Web2 Paradigm
The internet bubble (Web 2.0) reduced the costs of information distribution. Massive, highly profitable businesses emerged through:
- Monopolistic Concentration: Platforms like Google and Facebook aggregating users and data.
- Surveillance Capitalism: Monetizing user data as the primary product.
- The Novelty Effect: Industry disruption, rapid growth, and the mantra to “move fast and break things.”
The Bitcoin Friction
The Bitcoin revolution moves in the stark opposite direction, which presents the primary “pain” for traditional investors and entrepreneurs looking for outsized fiat returns on software.
- Disintermediation: Bitcoin structurally eliminates the need for rent-seeking middlemen.
- Privacy by Default: Cypherpunk principles actively fight against the surveillance capitalism model.
- Extreme Stability: Because it is global money, Layer 1 demands extreme stability. It should not change features every year.
- Conservation: The ethos is “don’t break anything, especially people’s money,” which contradicts the disruptive tech startup mentality.
Therefore, you monetize in Bitcoin by providing tangible goods (hardware), consulting, routing infrastructure, fiat liquidity intermediation, or holding it on the corporate balance sheet—not by collecting data or launching junk utility tokens.