Who can make money in Ages

Author:Jonah Burian

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Many speculate that the next billion users of the block chain will be Agents。But very few people are asking a further question: who can make money in that world

In the past, each set of value capture theories in the encryption field assumed that the user was human. The Fat Products theory suggests that protocols are the best at effecting human users。

And I'm here with my colleaguesHow to capture valueandBig re-evaluationThe Fat App theory discussed in the paper argues that the application layer can do better. But Agents changed the identity of the user, and the existing theory would also lapse。

The fat deal theory

in 2016, @jmonegro presented the fat deal. for almost a decade, it has been the dominant value capture theory in encryption。

The core view is that in the traditional Internet, values converge to the application layer (@Google, @facebook), while the bottom-up protocol (TCP/IP, HTTP) captures almost no value. The encrypted world will reverse this situation. The chain of blocks is publicly shared, and thus the application is progressively commodified。

And since the use of the network has to consume the protocol token, the token will capture the resulting speculative value as usage increases. The success of each application drives the demand for tokens. The bottom-up agreement will grow faster than any application built on it。

For many years, this seems to be true. Bitcoin and Etherport are worth far more than any company built on them。

THE MODEL IS FULLY APPLICABLE WHEN THE AGREEMENT ITSELF IS SCARCE, COSTLY TO CONSTRUCT AND DIFFICULT TO REPLACE. BITCOIN AND ETHERA WERE INDEED SCARCE IN 2017, WHEN DOZENS OF COMMON L1 (ONE LAYER OF NETWORK) WERE FIGHTING FOR THE SAME LOAD。

Area space is limited enough to hold a bottom asset and feels like holding part of every application that requires it。

TODAY, RELIABLE ALTERNATIVES EXIST AT EACH LEVEL OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY WAREHOUSE: MULTIPLE HIGH THROUGHPUT L1, DOZENS OF L2S, AS WELL AS A PRICE-INTENSIVE MODULAR SETTLEMENT LAYER AND DATA AVAILABILITY (DA) LAYER. AREA SPACE HAS CHANGED FROM RESTRICTED TO WIDESPREAD。

As cross-chain bridges and polymers make the bottom chain almost invisible to users, the cost of conversion for users collapses. Infrastructure has become interchangeable and interchangeable goods have to be priced. As a result, the agreement ' s pricing rights disappear as scarcity disappears。

Fat applied theory

By 2026, entities that capture most of their economic interests are applications, not protocols: for example @phantom, @coinbase, @Polymarket, @Pumpfun, etc。

In my view, the reason is that the most valuable asset in the encrypted world is user relations。

if you control the user interface and the flow of transactions, you control the distribution channels and thus benefit from almost any chain of products that the user contacts: swap, borrowing, pledge, foundry, and french currency channels. this may be the reason why the fund is so obsessed with neobank。

Application also pushes infrastructure into a pure price war, which forces it to reduce profitability to marginal costs. I have documented this strategy in How to Capture Value. Similar developments are taking place in the area of stabilization currency, which I have discussed in other articles。

Asset prices are reflecting this theory. Spencer and I call this shift "a big revaluation": In this cycle, values begin to converge to the level of mastery of users。

Why would Agents break that logic

The applied theory of obesity assumes that users value UX, brand and convenient human beings. But Agents doesn't care about that. They call API directly, without any brand loyalty, and switch between platforms at zero cost。

When users become software, mastery of user relationships ceases to be an indestructible moat. The whole obese application of the front-end moat, on which the theory is based, is failing。

So who can capture value in Ages

Apply to "headless"

In a future scenario, the winners of the application layer will continue to be winners by stripping the front-end interface (i.e. "headless")。

The wallet and polymer have completed the most difficult construction: Integration with dozens of agreements, route logic, identification and French-currency corridor infrastructure。

The logical next step is to open this technology vault as an API for Agents and let Agents use it to route -- just like today's human route through @phantom or @JupiterExchange。

In this world, fat theory is still alive. It just lost the front end. The companies that have won in human times will be transformed into pure back-end infrastructure for Ages. We've seen traditional SaaS businesses like Salesforce in this direction。

The Re-emergence of Agreements

In another scenario, Agents completely skips the middle。

If integration becomes simple enough (documentary API, standardized RPC, predictable execution syntax), there is no real reason why Agents should pay the polymer to do what he can do. The advantage of polymers in the human age is UX and the complexity of the route。

But Agents don't need UX, and route is a problem that can be solved by engineering, and Agents is getting better at dealing with it。

If the world moves in this direction, the fat agreement theory will be in its second spring。

The price-fixing power of the entire technology vault collapsed

Maybe Agents would put commercialized pressure in every corner. They are absolutely rational, and each time they pass by the cheapest trading platform without any loyalty。

THE APPLICATION LOST ITS ABILITY TO COLLECT UX PREMIUMS FROM HUMANS. SYNTHETICS AND INFRASTRUCTURE HAVE ALSO LOST PRICING POWER, AS THERE IS NO LONGER HUMAN INERTIA INHERENT IN PROTECTING THEM FROM PRICE WARS。

In this situation, neither party in the technology warehouse has taken much profit. The profitability of the entire supply chain has been reduced to marginal costs, with residual value attributed to the owner of Agents, or to the target users served by Agents。

Encryption has become a public utility, and in the area of utilities it is difficult to earn a lot of money。

Agents creates unprecedented activity

The simple understanding of this is that Agents are doing everything human beings do, just faster and more. Even if the profit margin were compressed, the whole cake was still growing。

I think there's another more interesting version。

Agents have made it feasible for a type of otherwise unworkable activity: for example, to continuously rebalance the investment portfolio at less than a cent of the implementation cost, machine-to-machine commercial behaviour between Agents, and entirely new markets that exist because pricing and trading speeds are far beyond what humans can follow。

These are not reflected in the current chain of activity data, because we acquiesce that human participation is inevitable。

If this is the change that Agents has brought, then the question goes from "how to distribute the existing cakes" to "how much new economic activity will flow in the chain and what levels are ready to serve them."。

An unnamed business model

In each cycle, we try to speculate on the flow of value and tend to believe that the existing business model will continue into the future. This assumption usually leads us to miss new models that have not yet emerged。

When the Internet was first established, no one anticipated the birth of a focused economy. At that time, the idea of auctioning a user's attention slice to the Advertising Chamber became the dominant business model from which a single company could take an important share of the global advertising expenditures. This is inevitable only after the fact。

Artificial intelligence seems to be one of the biggest technological upheavals in recent decades. In the world dominated by Agents, some value capture may flow to business models that are not mentioned today. The groups that capture these values may not be the ones that the market is currently looking at。

Focus of concern

The most likely outcome is not the complete replacement of one system. For a long time, humans and Agents will coexist as users of the encrypted world, and their values will be very different。

As long as humans interact with the chain, the theory of the application of obesity remains valid: consumers who are willing to pay for UX, brand and convenience will continue to pay a premium for the application of ownership. The dimensions of the Agents deal, however, will be governed by a different set of independent theories, regardless of which idea becomes a reality。

For builders, I think it's worth repeating at the end of Agents: what makes an Agent go back to choosing you instead of going straight to the next cheapest alternative? UX may not be the answer. Liquidity, delay, security of settlement, etc., may be true。