Jeff Park said that crypto is entering a phase similar to the era before Nvidia’s AI, when the technological revolution was visible to the early believers but not seen in the mass market. In X post defending the roots of the crypto concept Sunday, Park made today’s companies to be in the “middle game” before the big onchain markets become obvious.
Park’s estimate was based on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Elon Musk are making their first public appearance together at GTC 2015, a moment that they described as happening within a narrow window before AI becomes a major consumer or a priority for organizations. At that time, Huang had spent many years supporting the same art and supported CUDA since 2006, when Musk had what Park called “Hassabis moment” in 2012. OpenAI, he said, had not yet been established.
“This is a narrow window in which the change is visible to some but not to others,” Park wrote, “where all these experts had ideas to realize the potential of AI’s spread, but many people were not yet informed. It may take another 10 years to achieve common tasks.”
Why Crypto Looks Like Nvidia
Park said he sees crypto in the same situation today. Before GPUs were at the center of the AI boom, the technology was championed by gamers, hobbyists and researchers who pushed its power without realizing that it was helping to drive a massive revolution in computing. In its image, the original DeFi played a similar role to crypto in supporting the development process brand of organizations.
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“Gamers contributed to the development of AI, just as DeFi contributed to the advancement of tokenization,” he wrote.
The main point of Park’s argument is that the most difficult part of crypto is neither the first part of the concept nor the last part. It is the transition point between them. He borrowed Elon Musk‘Words about driving at GTC 2015, where Musk said that the easiest parts were low-speed driving, where the car can stop, and driving, where the rules are made more. The hardest part, in Park’s words, is the 10-to-50 mph zone: urban areas with bikes, kids, cones, holes and curbs that require precision and speed.
Park applied this system to crypto assets. The “0-10 mph” part was a license fee, a use case that he said people could understand how to use. The “50 mph +” segment, in his opinion, will be the largest onchain market to be recognized for its autonomy, financial management, speed of investment and financial optimization. The hard part is sitting in the middle.
“But it’s a 10-50 problem, where pre-internet financial transactions are hitting AML/KYC, offshore business processes, banking risk models, and less regulation create the need for accuracy and speed that is needed to develop today,” Park wrote. “It is possible to end, but this is the most difficult part of realizing the dream of large onchain markets.”
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Park also highlighted the differences between Bitcoin and the mainstream crypto sector, while rejecting the idea that one support should exclude the other. He said that Bitcoin and crypto are not trying to solve the same problems, even though they both come from the same idea of open access.
“I love bitcoin. But contrary to some opinions, I believe it is also possible to love crypto, because bitcoin is a financial experiment that is supported by the evolution of technology, while most cryptos are the opposite: a technological experiment that is supported by the evolution of money,” he wrote. “They are solving different problems, although they are focused on one thing: to help as many people as possible.”
Park’s larger view is that the ideas behind crypto aren’t dying but are changing shape. He also described the “successful mentality” as “technological economy,” a type of hyperfinancialization with products that export independent capital, business railroads and self-governance as private goods.
The implementation is important because many of the industry’s arguments focus on whether the implementation of crypto undermines its original purpose. Park’s answer is that the layer of thinking remains important, but to explain the practical thinking that is now moving in the financial infrastructure, tokenized markets and systems that must be compatible with existing compliance with the banks and governments.
“This ‘middle game’ period will be remembered as the most difficult time in the industry,” Park said, adding that the future belongs to “those who realize that they are always emotional.”
At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $2.55 trillion.
Graphic design by DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
