Beyond Debasement – The World’s Pivot to Autonomy Many of us, myself included, often hear the simple narrative about central banks expanding the money supply, fiat currency losing value, and assets like Bitcoin rallying. It’s a clear story, and it certainly helps explain how some of the capital flows into spaces like crypto are financed. But as I try to make sense of the high-level puzzle and understand the long-term trajectory, I don't think it fully captures the why – the deeper current driving the world right now. I tend to look at the way the world shapes up teleologically – that there seems to be a direction and trajectory to how things are unfolding, often visible through the lens of emerging adjacent possibilities. From this perspective, I see all the incredible technological work happening in crypto, building immensely powerful infrastructure, and I ask: what is it actually for? Sure, Bitcoin offers a hedge against debasement, and stablecoins/RWAs facilitate easier cross-border transactions – these are significant, but they don't feel like the BIG opportunity. The truly massive potential, to me, feels tied to how this crypto infrastructure is actually serving a much larger revolution in autonomous technology. This autonomy trend feels like the only thing that can genuinely absorb the huge supply of blockspace and capabilities coming online. To me, the more compelling narrative is a worldwide pivot towards autonomy. By autonomy, I mean systems that are increasingly capable of producing, powering, and organising themselves with minimal human intervention. This isn't just a tech trend; it feels like a response to some pretty significant, dare I say, tectonic shifts happening globally. I see at least four of these shifts forcing this move towards greater autonomy: 1. Labour Autonomy We're facing an unusual demographic reality. Projections, like those from the UN, suggest the global working-age population will peak pretty soon (around 2032), while the number of older dependents is growing. Fewer workers, higher dependency ratios – it creates a chronic shortage of human labour in many areas. The natural response from businesses? A race to replace manual effort with autonomous tech. Think industrial robots and increasingly sophisticated AI agentic software. You see this clearly in places like automated warehouses in China, which deploy over 5,000 robots across dozens of facilities, where AI-powered systems sort, pack and ship millions of orders daily with minimal human intervention. 2. Energy Autonomy Climate change mandates are one driver, but recent geopolitical instability has really hammered home the insecurity of relying on distant pipelines or massive, centralised power plants. Nations are realising they need more control over their energy supply. The amount of capital pouring into clean energy – billions upon billions now – is a clear signal of this shift. The response here is decentralisation. Rooftop solar, battery storage, local micro-grids. It's about building resilience and domestic independence. Autonomy in this context means power that keeps flowing even if the traditional, often vulnerable, grids are disrupted. 3. Production Autonomy Geopolitical fragmentation and the fragility exposed in just-in-time supply chains during recent global events are pushing companies to rethink where and how they make things. There's a definite trend towards reshoring or "friend-shoring" production. The IMF has even warned about the potential hit to global GDP from severe fragmentation. This makes highly automated, data-rich factories in high-wage regions economically viable again. Places like BMW's 'iFactory' in Munich, with its AI-guided robots and additive manufacturing, show how you can meet demand for mass customisation locally without needing cheap overseas labour. It's production becoming more self-sufficient and less reliant on complex, brittle global logistics. 4. Financial Autonomy Now, here's where my previous thinking about open services and data really connects. These increasingly autonomous physical systems – the robots, the local grids, the automated factories – need equally autonomous digital infrastructure to function. They can't rely on systems that are slow, expensive, or vulnerable to single points of control or shutdown. They need to: * Settle payments instantly and without intermediaries. * Price resources like compute, storage, and bandwidth in real-time, often minute-by-minute. * Be resilient and resistant to being shut down by a single government or entity. This is precisely where public blockchains and Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) come in. They are, in essence, the plumbing for this autonomous future: * Smart Contract Chains: Providing programmable, permissionless payment rails that AI agents and autonomous systems can actually use to pay each other. * Helium: Building crowdsourced IoT networks, a kind of autonomous connectivity layer. * Filecoin & Render: Offering token-priced storage and GPU power that can scale dynamically with the demands of AI and autonomous processes. * Olas: A protocol specifically designed for building swarms of agentic AI that can coordinate and pay for services autonomously. So, while the debasement narrative is easy to grasp, I think crypto's more profound role is rapidly becoming that of the essential infrastructure – the plumbing – for these emerging autonomous machines and markets. This feels like the primary purpose that can truly leverage the scale of the technology being built. How I'm Trying to Make Sense of the World Debasement might be a factor in capital flows, but autonomy feels like the engine driving a significant secular trend over the next decade. To navigate this landscape and understand its trajectory, here are some areas I'm focusing on: 1. Observing Autonomy's Development: I'm paying attention to the sectors and technologies where autonomy is being actively built and deployed – robotics, agentic AI, distributed energy systems, shifts in manufacturing location, and DePIN projects. 2. Understanding Enabling Infrastructure: I'm exploring the role of smart-contract platforms, tokenised resource networks (compute, storage, bandwidth), and protocols connecting real-world assets to digital systems. 3. Recognising Market Dynamics: I'm mindful that even within structural trends, asset prices will likely experience cycles influenced by broader macroeconomic factors. 4. Evaluating Frontier Opportunities: I'm considering the nature of opportunities in this emerging space, acknowledging that it's a frontier with both significant potential and inherent risks. The world feels like it's actively uncoupling from fragile labour pools, distant and insecure power sources, and overstretched, brittle supply chains. Autonomy – not just debasement – is, in my view, the key force steering the route map ahead, and crypto is laying down the tarmac. Thanks to my colleagues o3 and 2.5 Pro for writing this post in my style so I can get on with my other work 🤜🏻.