Why incumbents are hard to dislodge

Welcome to The Chopping Block — where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This episode starts with Farcaster’s pivot and Tarun’s claim that “Web3 is dead,” at least the A16z-style ownership economy. With Web3 social struggling, the crew digs into why spam, airdrops, and weak network effects keep sinking these apps — and why prediction markets may be crypto’s accidental social network.

We then jump to the L1 valuation fight. Haseeb recaps his debate with Santiago over whether chains are wildly overpriced or simply early, sparking a broader discussion on PE ratios, L1 “premiums,” and how many chains the world can realistically sustain.

Next up: Ken Chan’s viral “I wasted 8 years in crypto.” The team unpacks burnout, sugar-water loops, and why nihilism tends to hit founders right as the market turns. And finally, Tarun walks through his ADL research and how October 10’s cascading liquidations exposed major flaws in current systems.

Markets evolving, narratives collapsing — let’s get into it.

Show highlights

🔹 Farcaster pivots; Tarun calls A16z-style “ownership economy” Web3 (NFTs, own-your-posts) officially dead.

🔹 Web3 social stalls — Twitter clones drowned in spam, airdrop farming, and weak network effects; prediction markets emerge as the real crypto social layer.

🔹 Users’ revealed prefs — People claim to want decentralization/privacy but consistently choose convenience and incumbents.

🔹 RIP “Web3” — Term traced from Gavin Wood to A16z marketing; panel agrees it no longer reflects where crypto is actually succeeding.

🔹 L1 valuation battle — Santi’s PE-ratio critique vs Haseeb’s long-horizon “onchain finance will be huge” thesis; debate centers on how to value chains post-ICO/NFT era.

🔹 How many L1s survive? — Tarun expects activity to concentrate in a small set due to issuance, liquidity, and coordination costs; L1 “premium” still props up dino chains.

🔹 Burnout + disillusionment — Ken Chan’s “I wasted 8 years” resonates but feels mistimed amid strong fundamentals; panel contrasts sugar-water casino loops with real infra building.

🔹 ADL failures exposed — Tarun’s research shows October 10’s cascading liquidations revealed outdated ADL assumptions; better algorithms could’ve saved hundreds of millions.

⭐️Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly

⭐️Robert Leshner, CEO & Co-founder of Superstate

⭐️Tarun Chitra, Managing Partner at Robot Ventures

⭐️Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly 

Ken Chan’s “I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto”

🔗 https://x.com/kenchangh/status/1994854381267947640 

Tarun Chitra’s Autodeleveraging: $653 million lost to a greedy heuristic?

🔗 https://x.com/kenchangh/status/1994854381267947640 

Disclosures

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