Chain Street (Part 1) - The Opportunity

Part 1 of a five-part series laying out the bull case for the DeFi protocols of Chain Street. DeFi protocols are software with the same low-marginal-cost economics that made Microsoft, Spotify, and Uber generational businesses, but with one crucial advantage over FinTechs like Revolut and Monzo. FinTechs still carry trust manufacturing costs in the form of KYC, fraud monitoring, compliance, and payment rails, all of which scale linearly with activity. Blockchains industrialise trust through mathematics, cryptography, and consensus, collapsing those costs to near zero and unlocking a $9 to $29 trillion annual opportunity. The infrastructure has matured, gas fees have collapsed, transaction volumes and active loans are hitting new highs, and DeFi protocols now capture 61% of total onchain fees, up from 24% during DeFi summer. With $850T of addressable real-world assets waiting to come onchain, Chain Street is positioned as the largest beneficiary of the stablecoin and RWA mega trend.