Which blockchain would you say could handle the speed needed to make all of this work in an effective and efficient way. Which blockchain has demonstrated the ability to handle the throughput needed at a reasonable cost to address the fragmentation possibility. Solana? Ethereum? Other?
Gemini 3 Pro's Answer:
Based on the specific requirements of the "$16 Trillion Unlock" (speed, cost, and solving fragmentation) and recent institutional moves in late 2025, the answer is nuanced between two primary contenders: Solana (for raw speed/AI) and Base (for institutional adoption/settlement).
Here is the breakdown of which blockchain is best positioned to handle this shift:
1. The "Institutional" Choice: Base (Ethereum Layer 2)
If you are following the money—specifically the $16 trillion of "trapped capital" mentioned in the article—Base (Coinbase's Layer 2) has emerged as the frontrunner for addressing the "fragmentation" issue.
Why it works: It solves the "walled garden" problem by bridging private bank ledgers with public blockchains.
Proof of Adoption: In late 2025, JPMorgan’s Kinexys (formerly Onyx) explicitly chose Base as the first public blockchain to host its JPM Coin (JPMD) for institutional clients. This is a critical signal that major banks are betting on Ethereum Layer 2s rather than alternative L1s for settlement.
Performance: Base offers sub-second, sub-cent transactions, which meets the "instant settlement" requirement at a fraction of Ethereum Mainnet's cost.
2. The "AI Agent" Choice: Solana
If the focus is strictly on the AI Agents mentioned in the article (autonomous executors making thousands of micro-decisions/trades per second), Solana is currently the superior technical fit.
Why it works: AI agents require massive throughput (TPS) and low latency to execute arbitrage or collateral management in milliseconds. Solana’s "monolithic" architecture allows for 2,000–3,000+ real TPS (theoretical 65k) without the complexity of bridging between different Layer 2s.
The "Fragmentation" Advantage: Solana avoids the "fractured liquidity" problem seen on Ethereum (where assets are split between Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base). All assets live on one global state, making it easier for an AI agent to see and touch everything instantly.
Adoption: Projects like Cainam Ventures and GRIFFAIN are building AI agent economies specifically on Solana because high-frequency agentic activity is too expensive on Ethereum Mainnet and too complex across multiple L2s.
3. The "Interoperability" Solution (The Glue)
The article warns that "fragmentation" is the biggest threat. No single blockchain will likely win 100% of the market. Instead, the "winner" may be the interoperability standard that connects them.
DBS & JPMorgan are currently co-developing an interoperability framework to allow tokenized deposits to flow seamlessly between private bank chains and public chains like Base.
Chainlink (CCIP) and LayerZero are the critical infrastructure plays here. They act as the "TCP/IP" of money, allowing a tokenized Treasury on a private bank ledger to be used as collateral in a DeFi protocol on Solana or Base.
Summary Recommendation
For pure speed and AI Agent efficiency: Solana is the current leader. It handles the "velocity" part of the equation best.
For the actual "$16 Trillion" of institutional assets: Base (Ethereum L2) is the leader. It has won the trust of the banking giants (JPMorgan, BlackRock) who control the capital you want to "unlock."
The likely outcome: A hybrid future where Base handles the heavy institutional settlement (the "Unlock") while Solana powers the high-frequency execution layer for the AI agents managing that capital.
I was always waiting for Cardano to become a player here. I'm sad to see that ship seems to sailed. It is so robust - coded more like a a health or a aerospace where mistakes have super high consequences. Their accounting model (eUTXO) and scaling solutions and staking solutions and now privacy solution (Midnight), all developed with peer reviewed research (coming from the defense industry) is super important in high stakes environments where provable code is paramount. I know it takes more time, but when you are in a decentralized environment where the protocol is owned by the ADA holders and community - you don't have a central authority to fix things and take responsibility - hacks happen and they often aren't paid back causing huge risk opportunities.
I have some ADA that I am too stubborn to sell, but intellectually I'm pivoting to Ethereum and Solana, which is why I really enjoyed your post. THANKS!
Canton Network was built to address the interoperability issue among financial institutions as a 'network of networks'. Canton is tokenizing US Treasuries for DTCC. Another needed approach is an all-in vertical settlement stack like Ripple has which will likely be used to tokenize cash and foreign payments for Dort. (Ripple and Canton would bridge via Chainlink which is the TCP/IP layer Jordi noted).
Over the last 6 Months, Jordi’s macroeconomic view and specific companies (Micron) has been spot on. While, CNBC’s constant ‘AI Bubble’ fear mongering attracts viewers, but they’re screwing investors by ignoring the inevitable Industrial Revolution.
Jordi, the Caitlin Long framing is the key insight here: we built velocity through debt because we couldn't build it through technology. Now we can. The triple convergence you're describing isn't just a fintech upgrade, it's the unwinding of two centuries of friction-based financial architecture.
I enjoy your podcasts too, and today I quoted you and linked to this piece in my column today: "Elon Musk Is Building a Monopoly for AI—and No One's Paying Attention"
Jordi, you're right on target... however, as we turbo-charge our financial rails we'll need to better protect strategic assets like, housing, hospitals, and insurance. We will need a digital Glass-Steagall Act.
Jordi - I love your insights and perspectives, I’ve watched everything you’ve posted on YouTube… the question I’m trying to answer is what finally drives the real change. As with most things that have the potential to be solved in the world of abundance… there are strong players who stand to be significantly disrupted. The ones who can enable the what you’re describing are also the ones who enjoy benefit on the float while the funds are “trapped”.
Great insight and I love the optimism but the bottleneck for real estate development probably has more to do with regulatory burdens. Zoning laws, permitting process, environmental reviews, physical inspection, etc. Trump’s first book art of the deal described an interesting catch 22 in Atlantic City where approval couldn’t happen until he had shown progress and the loan wouldn’t be signed off on until he had approval. So he created an imaginary spectacle of basically machines digging holes and filling holes to pretend construction was underway. I imagine bottlenecks like that are created on purpose by industry that has succeeded in regulatory capture to prevent or reduce competition. Nevertheelsss it illustrates a common problem that has almost nothing to do with settlement.
while perhaps more than zero of this delay is because someone is waiting for a check to clear before they can proceed, the bulk of it isn’t due to settlement.
I’m hopeful robotic progress can improve the physical labor and AI can help aid other process logistics, but the last barrier to the unlock seems to me to be more regulatory.
So what unlocks that ? Is there a way for some town or city to create an “autonomous zone” where they take an uber strategy of basically ignoring the government and building so fast that they can become too rich and powerful that they can just change the law, or operate in a part of the world where the government can’t slow them down?
I think that last hard mile might be unlocked by tech getting into real estate itself since the tech industry is the one area where disruption rather than protection is the operating world view. If Elon or Zuckerberg or Cook or Boston Dynamics partners with Google to work towards robot constructed housing and they see what a mess the regulatory navigation is, they’ll find a way somewhere that they can disrupt the laws and eliminate the friction in local areas. And once they’ve proven the concept other cities will see the progress and feel pressure to enable this type of growth. I don’t necessarily see this happening in 2026, so I expect a lot of friction to continue in heavy regulated industries and those tied to real estate.
If the Fed drops helicopter money on the masses but they simply vacuum it up and stash it under the mattress, there's no inflation. The money exists but doesn't circulate - velocity goes to zero. No matter how much money is created, it won't generate inflation unless it actually moves through the economy.
This is a critical weakness in Friedman's famous dictum. The monetary equation MV = PQ makes this explicit - money supply (M) times velocity (V) equals price level (P) times real output (Q). Friedman's statement implicitly assumes V is constant or predictable, which is demonstrably false.
We saw this dynamic play out during the GFC and COVID - massive monetary expansion, yet inflation didn't materialize immediately because velocity collapsed. People hoarded cash, paid down debt, built savings buffers. The money sat idle. Inflation only emerged later when velocity recovered and that accumulated liquidity hit supply-constrained markets.
Velocity is deeply behavioral and psychological - it reflects confidence, expectations, time preference, spending propensity. During financial crises, velocity craters as people become risk-averse. During hyperinflations, it explodes as people flee the currency. The Fed can't control this directly.
This creates a paradox: the Fed can create infinite base money, but it can't force that money to circulate. Japan's experience is instructive - decades of monetary expansion with minimal inflation because velocity kept declining. The money creation was real, but it didn't translate into aggregate demand.
Compressing settlement to T+0 across all asset classes, globally, 24/7, could result in significant inflationary pressure - potentially quite rapidly.
But much of the liquidity will be used to accelerate the rate of production also which is deflationary. It’s money vs stuff so if there is more money circulating and more stuff also it may not be inflationary. It might just produce economic growth.
Most high inflation periods was supply shock driven.
Agree, but it will be a question of timing and whether the faster circulating money chases productive ends, or assets and consumer goods first. The path of least resistance may be to chase assets first since it takes time to deploy capital to productive projects which take time and have risk. Buying stocks, crypto, real estate, or bonds is instantaneous and liquid. Click a button, you're deployed. Building a chip fab for example takes 3-5 years, billions in committed capital, and massive execution risk.
Tokenization/DLT is our Bretton Woods moment ushering in new financial paradigm with effects and impacts still TBD. The Fed is going to go from managing money supply to managing monetary velocity and needing to react with corrections in real time. Id assume its going to be a wild ride as it gets underway but worth it in terms of the benefits tokenization brings not just to unlock trapped t+1 liquidity but to democratize finance, lower capital costs, reduce counterparty risk, provide greater transparency.
This is one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of why leverage exists at all. Framing fractional reserve banking as a substitute for missing settlement velocity, rather than a preference for risk, flips two centuries of financial logic.
The AI-agent angle is the real inflection point. Once capital allocation is automated, liquidity preference stops being macro psychology and becomes a system parameter. At that point, trapped capital isn’t an equilibrium, it’s a design failure.
This is not a crypto argument. It’s a systems argument.
Thanks Jordi - hope your Christmas was merry! I was missing your Sunday YT but this article scratch the itch. The SECs recent No Action letter to DTCC allowing them to tokenize their $1T in assets which equates to $3.7Q of settlement volume annually is really telling. Those of us who embraced crypto for its utility have been grinning thru clenched teeth with recent price action amidst a flurry of recent news like this which demonstrates real adoption. 2026 is shaping up to be a tremendous year for digital assets and DLT
As you point out at the beginning of your essay, there is a great deal of credit that is related to solving for velocity in a world of friction. I have seen the unlock and the inevitability of it, but I do wonder if the transition will not be difficult not just because of “silo-ing” as you put it, but also because of the credit contraction that would result. How much debt-driven liquidity is in the system just to smooth the friction? How much bank profit comes from it? Which banks are most vulnerable to having one of their most important products / revenue sources rendered obsolete?
My question to Gemini 3 Pro:
Which blockchain would you say could handle the speed needed to make all of this work in an effective and efficient way. Which blockchain has demonstrated the ability to handle the throughput needed at a reasonable cost to address the fragmentation possibility. Solana? Ethereum? Other?
Gemini 3 Pro's Answer:
Based on the specific requirements of the "$16 Trillion Unlock" (speed, cost, and solving fragmentation) and recent institutional moves in late 2025, the answer is nuanced between two primary contenders: Solana (for raw speed/AI) and Base (for institutional adoption/settlement).
Here is the breakdown of which blockchain is best positioned to handle this shift:
1. The "Institutional" Choice: Base (Ethereum Layer 2)
If you are following the money—specifically the $16 trillion of "trapped capital" mentioned in the article—Base (Coinbase's Layer 2) has emerged as the frontrunner for addressing the "fragmentation" issue.
Why it works: It solves the "walled garden" problem by bridging private bank ledgers with public blockchains.
Proof of Adoption: In late 2025, JPMorgan’s Kinexys (formerly Onyx) explicitly chose Base as the first public blockchain to host its JPM Coin (JPMD) for institutional clients. This is a critical signal that major banks are betting on Ethereum Layer 2s rather than alternative L1s for settlement.
Performance: Base offers sub-second, sub-cent transactions, which meets the "instant settlement" requirement at a fraction of Ethereum Mainnet's cost.
2. The "AI Agent" Choice: Solana
If the focus is strictly on the AI Agents mentioned in the article (autonomous executors making thousands of micro-decisions/trades per second), Solana is currently the superior technical fit.
Why it works: AI agents require massive throughput (TPS) and low latency to execute arbitrage or collateral management in milliseconds. Solana’s "monolithic" architecture allows for 2,000–3,000+ real TPS (theoretical 65k) without the complexity of bridging between different Layer 2s.
The "Fragmentation" Advantage: Solana avoids the "fractured liquidity" problem seen on Ethereum (where assets are split between Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base). All assets live on one global state, making it easier for an AI agent to see and touch everything instantly.
Adoption: Projects like Cainam Ventures and GRIFFAIN are building AI agent economies specifically on Solana because high-frequency agentic activity is too expensive on Ethereum Mainnet and too complex across multiple L2s.
3. The "Interoperability" Solution (The Glue)
The article warns that "fragmentation" is the biggest threat. No single blockchain will likely win 100% of the market. Instead, the "winner" may be the interoperability standard that connects them.
DBS & JPMorgan are currently co-developing an interoperability framework to allow tokenized deposits to flow seamlessly between private bank chains and public chains like Base.
Chainlink (CCIP) and LayerZero are the critical infrastructure plays here. They act as the "TCP/IP" of money, allowing a tokenized Treasury on a private bank ledger to be used as collateral in a DeFi protocol on Solana or Base.
Summary Recommendation
For pure speed and AI Agent efficiency: Solana is the current leader. It handles the "velocity" part of the equation best.
For the actual "$16 Trillion" of institutional assets: Base (Ethereum L2) is the leader. It has won the trust of the banking giants (JPMorgan, BlackRock) who control the capital you want to "unlock."
The likely outcome: A hybrid future where Base handles the heavy institutional settlement (the "Unlock") while Solana powers the high-frequency execution layer for the AI agents managing that capital.
This is great! Thanks.
I was always waiting for Cardano to become a player here. I'm sad to see that ship seems to sailed. It is so robust - coded more like a a health or a aerospace where mistakes have super high consequences. Their accounting model (eUTXO) and scaling solutions and staking solutions and now privacy solution (Midnight), all developed with peer reviewed research (coming from the defense industry) is super important in high stakes environments where provable code is paramount. I know it takes more time, but when you are in a decentralized environment where the protocol is owned by the ADA holders and community - you don't have a central authority to fix things and take responsibility - hacks happen and they often aren't paid back causing huge risk opportunities.
I have some ADA that I am too stubborn to sell, but intellectually I'm pivoting to Ethereum and Solana, which is why I really enjoyed your post. THANKS!
Canton Network was built to address the interoperability issue among financial institutions as a 'network of networks'. Canton is tokenizing US Treasuries for DTCC. Another needed approach is an all-in vertical settlement stack like Ripple has which will likely be used to tokenize cash and foreign payments for Dort. (Ripple and Canton would bridge via Chainlink which is the TCP/IP layer Jordi noted).
🐸 GRIBBIT
This post and reply put into ChatGPT 5.2:
Here’s the key issue:
They are assuming the settlement layer and the execution layer must be the same thing.
Jordi’s article is not about:
High-frequency trading
DeFi composability
App ecosystems
It’s about capital movement between sovereign systems.
That’s a fundamentally different problem.
The missing category: neutral settlement rails
Solana and Base are both:
Execution environments
Application platforms
State-heavy ecosystems
That’s fine — but that’s not what solves trapped capital.
Jordi’s problem is this:
Capital is trapped because systems don’t trust or talk to each other, not because they can’t process trades fast enough internally.
Speed inside a chain ≠ speed between chains, banks, and jurisdictions.
Why XRP fits the problem Jordi is describing
This is the part Gemini never mentions — and it matters.
XRP was designed as:
A neutral bridge asset
Ledger-agnostic
No smart contract bloat
No app ecosystem gravity
Finality-first, not composability-first
That makes it bad at:
DeFi farming
On-chain apps
AI agent micro-strategies
But excellent at:
Cross-ledger settlement
Nostro/vostro replacement
Bank-to-bank liquidity
Public ↔ private ledger bridging
In Jordi’s own words:
“If a tokenized Treasury on a private bank ledger cannot talk to a stablecoin on a public protocol instantly…”
That is not a Solana problem.
That is not a Base problem.
That is a neutral bridge problem.
T zero
Over the last 6 Months, Jordi’s macroeconomic view and specific companies (Micron) has been spot on. While, CNBC’s constant ‘AI Bubble’ fear mongering attracts viewers, but they’re screwing investors by ignoring the inevitable Industrial Revolution.
Jordi, the Caitlin Long framing is the key insight here: we built velocity through debt because we couldn't build it through technology. Now we can. The triple convergence you're describing isn't just a fintech upgrade, it's the unwinding of two centuries of friction-based financial architecture.
I enjoy your podcasts too, and today I quoted you and linked to this piece in my column today: "Elon Musk Is Building a Monopoly for AI—and No One's Paying Attention"
https://cpgarcia.substack.com/p/elon-musk-is-building-rockefellers
Jordi, you're right on target... however, as we turbo-charge our financial rails we'll need to better protect strategic assets like, housing, hospitals, and insurance. We will need a digital Glass-Steagall Act.
https://x.com/Shulli/status/1999555733554364584
Jordi - I love your insights and perspectives, I’ve watched everything you’ve posted on YouTube… the question I’m trying to answer is what finally drives the real change. As with most things that have the potential to be solved in the world of abundance… there are strong players who stand to be significantly disrupted. The ones who can enable the what you’re describing are also the ones who enjoy benefit on the float while the funds are “trapped”.
Great insight and I love the optimism but the bottleneck for real estate development probably has more to do with regulatory burdens. Zoning laws, permitting process, environmental reviews, physical inspection, etc. Trump’s first book art of the deal described an interesting catch 22 in Atlantic City where approval couldn’t happen until he had shown progress and the loan wouldn’t be signed off on until he had approval. So he created an imaginary spectacle of basically machines digging holes and filling holes to pretend construction was underway. I imagine bottlenecks like that are created on purpose by industry that has succeeded in regulatory capture to prevent or reduce competition. Nevertheelsss it illustrates a common problem that has almost nothing to do with settlement.
while perhaps more than zero of this delay is because someone is waiting for a check to clear before they can proceed, the bulk of it isn’t due to settlement.
I’m hopeful robotic progress can improve the physical labor and AI can help aid other process logistics, but the last barrier to the unlock seems to me to be more regulatory.
So what unlocks that ? Is there a way for some town or city to create an “autonomous zone” where they take an uber strategy of basically ignoring the government and building so fast that they can become too rich and powerful that they can just change the law, or operate in a part of the world where the government can’t slow them down?
I think that last hard mile might be unlocked by tech getting into real estate itself since the tech industry is the one area where disruption rather than protection is the operating world view. If Elon or Zuckerberg or Cook or Boston Dynamics partners with Google to work towards robot constructed housing and they see what a mess the regulatory navigation is, they’ll find a way somewhere that they can disrupt the laws and eliminate the friction in local areas. And once they’ve proven the concept other cities will see the progress and feel pressure to enable this type of growth. I don’t necessarily see this happening in 2026, so I expect a lot of friction to continue in heavy regulated industries and those tied to real estate.
Hi Jordi, this is lovely.
How would you predict what is that universal ledger? A bank collective, or ETH?
If the Fed drops helicopter money on the masses but they simply vacuum it up and stash it under the mattress, there's no inflation. The money exists but doesn't circulate - velocity goes to zero. No matter how much money is created, it won't generate inflation unless it actually moves through the economy.
This is a critical weakness in Friedman's famous dictum. The monetary equation MV = PQ makes this explicit - money supply (M) times velocity (V) equals price level (P) times real output (Q). Friedman's statement implicitly assumes V is constant or predictable, which is demonstrably false.
We saw this dynamic play out during the GFC and COVID - massive monetary expansion, yet inflation didn't materialize immediately because velocity collapsed. People hoarded cash, paid down debt, built savings buffers. The money sat idle. Inflation only emerged later when velocity recovered and that accumulated liquidity hit supply-constrained markets.
Velocity is deeply behavioral and psychological - it reflects confidence, expectations, time preference, spending propensity. During financial crises, velocity craters as people become risk-averse. During hyperinflations, it explodes as people flee the currency. The Fed can't control this directly.
This creates a paradox: the Fed can create infinite base money, but it can't force that money to circulate. Japan's experience is instructive - decades of monetary expansion with minimal inflation because velocity kept declining. The money creation was real, but it didn't translate into aggregate demand.
Compressing settlement to T+0 across all asset classes, globally, 24/7, could result in significant inflationary pressure - potentially quite rapidly.
But much of the liquidity will be used to accelerate the rate of production also which is deflationary. It’s money vs stuff so if there is more money circulating and more stuff also it may not be inflationary. It might just produce economic growth.
Most high inflation periods was supply shock driven.
Agree, but it will be a question of timing and whether the faster circulating money chases productive ends, or assets and consumer goods first. The path of least resistance may be to chase assets first since it takes time to deploy capital to productive projects which take time and have risk. Buying stocks, crypto, real estate, or bonds is instantaneous and liquid. Click a button, you're deployed. Building a chip fab for example takes 3-5 years, billions in committed capital, and massive execution risk.
Tokenization/DLT is our Bretton Woods moment ushering in new financial paradigm with effects and impacts still TBD. The Fed is going to go from managing money supply to managing monetary velocity and needing to react with corrections in real time. Id assume its going to be a wild ride as it gets underway but worth it in terms of the benefits tokenization brings not just to unlock trapped t+1 liquidity but to democratize finance, lower capital costs, reduce counterparty risk, provide greater transparency.
The $16 Trillion Unlock - agreed. Your thoughts regarding "positioning."
Chainlink
This is one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of why leverage exists at all. Framing fractional reserve banking as a substitute for missing settlement velocity, rather than a preference for risk, flips two centuries of financial logic.
The AI-agent angle is the real inflection point. Once capital allocation is automated, liquidity preference stops being macro psychology and becomes a system parameter. At that point, trapped capital isn’t an equilibrium, it’s a design failure.
This is not a crypto argument. It’s a systems argument.
I think quant network have the patent architecture which potentially solve the interoperability issue
You are the man Jordi 🙌🏼
Thanks Jordi - hope your Christmas was merry! I was missing your Sunday YT but this article scratch the itch. The SECs recent No Action letter to DTCC allowing them to tokenize their $1T in assets which equates to $3.7Q of settlement volume annually is really telling. Those of us who embraced crypto for its utility have been grinning thru clenched teeth with recent price action amidst a flurry of recent news like this which demonstrates real adoption. 2026 is shaping up to be a tremendous year for digital assets and DLT
As you point out at the beginning of your essay, there is a great deal of credit that is related to solving for velocity in a world of friction. I have seen the unlock and the inevitability of it, but I do wonder if the transition will not be difficult not just because of “silo-ing” as you put it, but also because of the credit contraction that would result. How much debt-driven liquidity is in the system just to smooth the friction? How much bank profit comes from it? Which banks are most vulnerable to having one of their most important products / revenue sources rendered obsolete?
Are we too early though?