Yesterday, I made the case that Ethereum is Space Age money.

Yes, it’s a fun sci-fi take on crypto, and…

I think it’s one of the best frames for those who believe in the power of market forces, human ingenuity, and emergent intelligence to create the greatest mass-prosperity machine the world has ever known.

In fact, it’s the working premise of my upcoming book (January 2025):

An economic system designed for a multi-planetary species is not a space-age fantasy. It’s a vision that provides a blueprint for solving terrestrial economic challenges and, as the critics of multi-planetary expansion suggest, “fixing our planet first.”

(Working title: “The Cosmolocalist Handbook: A Blueprint for (Multi-)Planetary Prosperity”)

In it, I’ll argue that crypto is a great fit for this potential future economic system.

As one nerdy saying goes…

Closed systems can go fast. Open systems can go far.

Especially when we introduce artificial intelligence into the equation.

Do AI Agents Dream of Electric ETH?

Automation.

It unlocks other parts of human intelligence to show up in the world.

It disrupts, dislocates and creates upheaval in our lives, but it also solves a lot of problems.

When people talk about automation, they mostly talk about AI.

But they should also be talking about smart contracts.

Consider…

AI agents -- AI models that can take action -- are all the rage.

Especially since the Rabbit r1 stole the show at CES in Vegas.

In our recent Paradigm Mastermind Group update, PMG members got the BIG takeaways on the Rabbit r1’s unexpected popularity…

And what this could mean for where the puck is headed in the AI industry.

(Not a member of PMG? See if a membership is right for you right here.) 

Of course, the thing that AI agents need is agency.

They have to be able to make decisions. And, presumably, they must be able to transact with one another.

Enter smart contracts.

Nick Szabo, an interdisciplinary legal scholar, is the father of smart contracts. He coined the term. He wrote about them in the mid-’90s.Way before Bitcoin. Way before Ethereum.

(James and I have a running suspicion that he’s Satoshi Nakamoto -- or was involved in Bitcoin’s development somehow.)

I trust his definition:

“A smart contract is a set of promises, specified in digital form, including protocols within which the parties perform on these promises.”

In an interview with Tim Ferriss, Szabo simplifies the idea:

The primordial granddaddy of all smart contracts is the vending machine. So the vending machine in contract law terms, it verifies performance. You put in a quarter and it verifies you put in the quarter through its mechanical [slot]… I’m talking about the old-fashioned ones. It has logic in it that says you put in a quarter, the soda costs a dime, so I’m going to give you a dime and a nickel back and the soda you selected.

Smart contracts are vending machines for AI.

Ethereum is the daddy of all smart contracts in the blockchain industry.

And here’s the thing…

That’s Just the Beginning

For the record…

James was bullish on Ethereum when it was $10. Now, we’re even more bullish.

What’s changed? AI agents are just one potential bullish catalyst.

Here are four more:

1.] Supply is decreasing.

2.] Ethereum is scaling.

3.] Developers are staying.

4.] Ethereum ETF coming?

We’ll run through them real quick…

Supply is decreasing: Ethereum went through a massive upgrade 1.5 years ago that made it a deflationary asset. Since, Ethereum has burnt (taken out of circulation) almost 350,000 ETH. That's almost a billion dollars worth. This trend will continue at the same time more and more users are staking (locking up) their ETH for the long-term.

Ethereum is scaling: There’s another upgrade coming soon -- called the Dencun upgrade -- that will pave the way for Ethereum to scale to 100,000 transactions per second. (Layer 2 protocols can handle the rest.) 

Developers are staying: Developers build apps. Killer apps attract mainstream attention. Mainstream attention attracts mass-adoption. Point? The more developers the better. Electric Capital’s new Developer Report shows that 87% of all crypto developers work on at least 1 Ethereum compatible blockchain. ETH is dominant.

Ethereum ETF: Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world, talking about tokenization and Ethereum ETFs. We have JP Morgan who sees the value of tokenization, which he says won’t happen on Bitcoin. (Though he’s wrong about a lot of crypto stuff, he’s right about this.) 

Those are the catalysts that could make 2024 a banger year for Ethereum.

But even if ETH goes to $10,000… $50,000… $100,000(!)...

There’s more money to be made in early-stage cryptos.

More next week.