
matze | growthepie 🥧
2.7K posts

matze | growthepie 🥧
@web3_data
Data-driven takes on the Ethereum Ecosystem | Co-Founder @growthepie_eth & @open_labels | Building dashboards, calisthenics, and walking our dog 🐶








For any person in the world, the goods & services accessible by them are determined by the extent of their trade network. A larger trade network increases capacity for specialization, resulting in new goods & services and making existing goods & services better and cheaper. The size of a person's trade network depends on the total friction of their individual circumstances. Economists refer to this friction as "aggregate transaction costs". They use a much wider definition of "transaction cost" than, for example, a gas fee. Any kind of added friction cost whatsoever reduces the size of a person's trade network, and that reduces the quality, affordability, and variety of their available goods & services. Costs of all kinds play a role in determining the extent of a person's trade network: Does the person live in a city or on a farm? Is their city separated from neighboring cities by a mountain range or a flat highway? What regulations or taxes exist to restrict or enable commerce? Are there any wars, famine, natural disasters, or other circumstances? Does their country have good physical infrastructure? All types of costs and friction play a role. How does a person's trade network move information? Do they rely on wagon loads of clay tablets hauled by oxen to move information, as was done in some ancient civilizations? Do they use morse code telegraph lines? Or, do they have digital information transfer, ie. the internet? Is the same information transfer technology available everywhere in their trade network? How does their trade network move goods? Do they haul wagons of wheat on dirt-packed roads? Or, do they have a modern network of vehicles and highways, of ships and shipping lanes? What loss of goods occurs during transit? To disasters? To theft? Perishable? What technologies and systems work to prevent these losses? Political systems? Security cameras and national ID databases? Is the level of risk similar throughout the trade network, or are some parts safer than others? How does a person's trade network move money? Do they pass around IOUs by messengers on horseback? Do they pass around digital IOUs in a rigid banking federation based on privilege and relationships (web2 finance)? Or, do they have a global internet financial system that's an open access level playing field and lets you "hand cash" to anyone in the world (web3)? Jason asks, "How does web3 improve economic output?" The answer is that economic output depends on the quality, affordability, and variety of goods & services available to each person, and this depends on that person's unique vantage point into the global trade network, and that depends on each person's trade network's aggregate transaction costs, and these transactions costs are greatly reduced by web3. Web3 - reduces information transfer transaction costs (secure open data for prices, markets, etc) - reduces money transfer transaction costs (bearer ownership, instant settlement, etc) - decentralization reduces risk which further reduces transaction costs. Example: erc20 transfer on BSC vs Eth L1, both are the same token transfer, but the one on Eth has much lower risk because BSC is centralized. That lower risk is a type of transaction cost reduction. - public chains are global and open-access, so these beneficial reductions in transaction costs can apply to everyone in the world's unique vantage point into the global trade network. Web3 helps everyone, not just people in wealthy countries. Every major benefit of web3 tends to reduce transaction costs: ERC standards, public composability, trustless bridging among L2s, censorship resistance, strong property rights, open innovation, etc. In short, web3 increases economic output by reducing friction costs that limit the extent of the global trade network and therefore growing the quality, affordability, and variety of goods & services available to everyone in the world.

We may disagree on whether it is sensible to offer Ethereum security at cost, as a growth lever vs a revenue play. But we should not disagree that the value of blockspace should increase, to make the network as a whole, with ETH at its centre, more valuable. As long as scale is sufficiently addressed, this both supercharges growth and raises the revenue floor. For L1: Faster slots. For L2s: Faster finality. For L1 & L2s: Better interop.



The Robinhood Chain is the cleanest case study of what happened to ETH's economics over time. Since inception, @RobinhoodApp Chain has grossed ~$816K in revenue. @Arbitrum, the middleware provider, takes 10%: ~$80K. Arbitrum then pays Ethereum for settlement: $1,538. The margin profile roughly: Robinhood: 89% Arbitrum: 10% Ethereum: 0.15% If your thesis is "ETH is money," Robinhood building here is ultra bullish. More activity, more ETH collateral, more lindyness. If your thesis is "ETH is a revenue generating asset," this is the ultra-bear case. And here's the uncomfortable truth: Robinhood was never going to build on Solana, Sui or any monolithic L1. They want the stack customization. They want to be landlords, not renters. Ethereum won this deal on merit. It's just not pricing it right. A healthy split to me looks more like: Robinhood: 75% Arbitrum: 10% Ethereum: 15% Ethereum sells the most valuable settlement layer in crypto at marginal cost. Things need to change. @ethlabs_org




You've underrepresented Robinhood's rent paid to Ethereum by a factor of 4x because you used Arbitrum's rent paid. 0.6% of revenue is the correct figure for Robinhood Chain. With the current low price of blobs, 98.5% of that goes to L1 settlement... You may still want this to be higher, but at least you can now reference the correct figures. See for yourself: growthepie.com/economics


You've underrepresented Robinhood's rent paid to Ethereum by a factor of 4x because you used Arbitrum's rent paid. 0.6% of revenue is the correct figure for Robinhood Chain. With the current low price of blobs, 98.5% of that goes to L1 settlement... You may still want this to be higher, but at least you can now reference the correct figures. See for yourself: growthepie.com/economics





The Robinhood Chain is the cleanest case study of what happened to ETH's economics over time. Since inception, @RobinhoodApp Chain has grossed ~$816K in revenue. @Arbitrum, the middleware provider, takes 10%: ~$80K. Arbitrum then pays Ethereum for settlement: $1,538. The margin profile roughly: Robinhood: 89% Arbitrum: 10% Ethereum: 0.15% If your thesis is "ETH is money," Robinhood building here is ultra bullish. More activity, more ETH collateral, more lindyness. If your thesis is "ETH is a revenue generating asset," this is the ultra-bear case. And here's the uncomfortable truth: Robinhood was never going to build on Solana, Sui or any monolithic L1. They want the stack customization. They want to be landlords, not renters. Ethereum won this deal on merit. It's just not pricing it right. A healthy split to me looks more like: Robinhood: 75% Arbitrum: 10% Ethereum: 15% Ethereum sells the most valuable settlement layer in crypto at marginal cost. Things need to change. @ethlabs_org




A list of the current (high-level) tasks: - house + driveway accessible ✅️ - removal of dead trees next to building ❕️ - junk removal - new roof - fixing well + testing water quality - understanding current sewage system - gutting the house completely + 100 other things that I'll figure once we get to them





Next up, making sure the house itself is also accessible, without branches hitting me in my face wherever I step. Same angle, same stairs - they clean up nice :)












