Avalanche's Economists on Value Accrual Mechanisms | Layer One EP18

Matias Antonio (Chief Investment Officer, ex-World Bank, ex-IMF) and Eric Liu (Lead Economist, PhD) have built GCP and GCI — blockchain analogues of GDP and GNI — because nobody could say what value actually runs on a chain, only what volume does.

The harder half is capture: on every general-purpose L1, the value the chain makes possible does not flow through its token, and the fat-protocol thesis never explained why it should. Their answer is not taxation but a co-op — an incentive-compatible cut applications accept because protocol value is what secures them.

OUTLINE
00:00 – Cold open
00:51 – Welcome: Avalanche’s economists on the show
01:50 – From the World Bank, the IMF, and a fund that blew up
05:54 – GCP and GCI: measuring what a chain actually produces
08:31 – Capture: why the value never reaches the token
09:24 – Distribute: paying validators without inflation
11:09 – The plain-English version: GDP, GNI and a very low tax rate
12:37 – Output vs income, and what each costs to tax
17:42 – Beyond transaction fees: dormant capital and the gas floor
24:39 – The Ethereum staking-ratio fight, and who pays validators
31:05 – A Laffer curve for a blockchain? Not a state — a co-op
35:26 – Why economists, and why now
46:16 – Twelve months out, and the network of networks

Matias Antonio – Chief Investment Officer, Avalanche Foundation
Eric Liu – Lead Economist, Avalanche Foundation

John Wu – Senior Advisor, Ava Labs

Kelvin Sparks –
The Block –

Layer One is a podcast focused on the intersection of crypto and the real world, brought to you in collaboration with Avalanche. Nothing on this podcast is investment or financial advice. Always do your own research.