This post is from the heart, motivated by Brian Chesky's bullpost last night. We're so close now. It's been 3 years since I wrote the below essay explaining precisely how Ethereum reduces friction to enable bringing the global economy onchain and enhance productivity. It got 540 likes which is pretty good for an account my size. It was my pinned post for years. Last night, Brian Chesky (Airbnb Founder & CEO) became the most famous, successful, and high status trad tech CEO to finally say the quietest part out loud: The most special thing about public chains is friction reduction. In doing so, Brian effectively endorsed Robinhood L2 and Eth's whole L1+2 model. I have been a big fan of the podcast EconTalk for my whole adult life and of its most frequent guest Mike Munger. This gave me early exposure to the theory of friction which economists refer to as "transaction costs"... not to be confused with gas fees. It helped me see the global friction reduction benefits of eth, which I have been writing about since 2019. That being said- During these early years, the world's onchain adoption has had and will have 3 distinct phases. Phase 1: Admitting the tech is pretty great. We saw this gradually ramp up from 2017-2024 in the form of early failed private blockchains, early institutional discussions and uptake of programmability, etc. Phase 1 is about institutions, corps, governments, central banks, and silicon valley recognizing that our onchain tech (almost always EVM) is a 1000x improvement to their offchain systems. Phase 2: Admitting that public chains are special networks. This started approximately with Facebook's Libra and has exploded after GENIUS, with the launch of many new corpo L1s. Phase 2 is characterized by trad folks all agreeing with each other and aping into the fact that public chains embody "come for the tech, stay for the market". The growth of international tbill demand from stablecoins played a key role in this. Brian's post has taken us to the bottom of the 8th inning here today in Phase 2. What happens next is Phase 3. That's where we win. Phase 3: admitting that the additional friction reduction-- above and beyond EVM tech and just any public chain-- from the Ethereum L1's decentralization and the L1 being the hub for defi/L2s is extremely valuable at global scale, and not available anywhere else. Phase 3 is where the world collectively realizes that the Ethereum L1 has a monopoly on being maximally decentralized and on being the global defi/L2 hub with the deepest liquidity, and also realizes that the world desperately needs this, or else the global economy literally can't come onchain. It's too risky and inconvenient to bring trillions in assets/activity onchain without Eth L1+L2. Skipping going onchain is not an option, specifically because the world wants to capture all of the magical apps/UX/markets uniquely enabled by Ethereum. Ethereum is inevitable. Friends... fellow Ethereum and ETH lovers and holders... it has been a long and frankly brutal road. As of today, we have never been closer and more certain to the realization of the incredible outcomes that used to merely exist in our dreams. We are near the end of the beginning. In the coming quarters and years, the world will enter Phase 3 of early adoption and hit the ramp of the global adoption S-curve. The entire world will realize that not only do they need to be onchain, but they need to be onchain on Ethereum L1+L2, where the friction/risk are lowest, protocols are strongest, and liquidity is deepest. Ethereum will achieve its potential to provide a level economic playing field for all of humanity. ETH will achieve its potential as a global treasury-grade SoV. Both will dominate for decades, maybe centuries. From the heart- love all of you that have been on this journey together for so long. And a huge welcome to everyone joining us now. The best is truly yet to come. So close now.❤️🚀