a16z Crypto Operating Partner: Capital flow is the moat, and there are plenty of opportunities for crypto entrepreneurs

a16z Crypto Operating Partner Jason Rosenthal posted on the X platform that cash flow is the moat. The best companies often establish themselves by placing themselves in the "cash flow," and cryptocurrency is the first modern technology born for this purpose. If your startup has not designed its products and business models around these principles, you will miss a great opportunity. Thanks to stablecoins, funds and value can now flow at the speed of the internet—global settlement, 24/7 uninterrupted, with end-to-end programmability.

Railway companies do not make money from locomotives, but from every ton of goods that pass through the tracks; companies like Visa and Jane Street are all part of the cash flow. Cash flow combined with network effects is one of the most enduring business structures in history. There is a lot of profit margin in traditional financial services, and processes such as payments, custody, lending, foreign exchange, settlement, and market making can all be compressed. Crypto entrepreneurs have the opportunity to build the next generation of cash flow businesses that are programmable, instant, and global.

This model can also be extended to computing, GPU markets, AI training data, energy, robotics, space, rare earth metals, and other fields. Founders should ask themselves: Are you in the cash flow? When the value of product activities grows tenfold, does your revenue grow accordingly? In your target market, where are the segments with the highest profit margins relative to the value created?