PANews reported on February 7th that Chris Dixon, a partner at a16z, published an article titled "The Long-Term Prospects of Cryptocurrency," responding to recent negative narratives such as "non-financial use cases for cryptocurrency are dead" and "the Read Write Own vision has failed." He argues that the current financial boom is merely building the necessary underlying networks and trust mechanisms for future non-financial applications such as media, gaming, and AI. Now is the infrastructure-building phase.

Dixon argues that people misunderstand the stages of blockchain development. Finance is a "pioneer" of blockchain, not the whole picture. The core tenet of blockchain is "the ability to coordinate people and capital at the internet scale," and finance is the most natural and fundamental testing ground for proving this ability.

History has shown that infrastructure and distribution channels always precede applications. The internet had protocols and connectivity before social media. Similarly, cryptocurrencies need to get hundreds of millions of people on-chain through payments, stablecoins, and DeFi before meaningful adoption can be seen in media, gaming, AI, or other potentially more distant areas.