Editor’s Note: The core insight of this article is straightforward: cash flow itself is a moat. Looking back at business history, many of the most powerful companies did not succeed merely by selling products, but by positioning themselves at the center of value flows—continuously taking a cut from every shipment, payment, transaction, ad conversion, computation request, or order flow. Railroads profited from the movement of goods, Visa charges fees through its payment network, Google and Meta control the gateway where attention is converted into commercial transactions, and AWS sits at the heart of computational power flows. As long as value continues to flow through the network, the network itself grows stronger.

Crypto first natively delivered this model to startups. Blockchain provides an open ledger and programmable settlement, stablecoins enable funds to flow globally at internet speed, and token mechanisms align users, developers, and network growth. For Crypto entrepreneurs, the real opportunity isn’t just building a new application—it’s identifying the most costly, least efficient, and most profit-extracting value channels in legacy systems, compressing and rebuilding them, and stepping into the new flow of capital.

The article emphasizes that the most profit-draining and least efficient segments of traditional financial services—such as payments, custody, lending, foreign exchange, clearing, and market making—will become entry points for crypto entrepreneurs to rebuild: reducing costs, increasing speed, and redistributing value. This “funds flow business” (earning a share of value based on traffic through the channel) will not be limited to finance; in the future, it may extend to emerging markets such as GPU, AI training data, energy, robotics, space, and rare earth elements.

For founders, the most critical question is: Is your product already positioned within the value stream? When network activity scales tenfold, does your revenue scale accordingly? Opportunities often lie where old infrastructure is least efficient but extracts the highest profits. Those who can reduce old costs and enter the new flow have the chance to turn cash flows into their moat.

The following is the original text:

Many of the greatest companies in history were built by positioning themselves within the flow of capital—facilitating the creation and movement of value within networks and capturing a portion of that value. The more value that flows through the network, the larger these companies tend to grow.

Crypto is the first native modern technology built for this purpose. If your startup hasn’t designed its products and business model around these principles, you’re missing out. Especially since the emergence of stablecoins, funds and value can now move at internet speed: global settlement, 24/7 operation, and end-to-end programmability. The underlying infrastructure is open, the unit economics are transparent, and the accessible capital flows cover nearly every dollar moving globally.

This model

Blockchain is inherently a network-based business. Every transaction is settled on a shared ledger; each new participant strengthens the same underlying infrastructure that future users can continue to rely on. As more people use and build on it, the network becomes more valuable to all users.

Most companies spend years artificially building network effects on top of traditional infrastructure, while crypto entrepreneurs inherit these network effects from the start.

Network tokens further amplify this concept. A well-designed token aligns users, developers, suppliers, validators, and the protocol itself toward a single goal: growing the network and distributing rewards according to each participant’s contribution. Protocol revenue goes to those who truly use it. There are no cooperative kickbacks, no private deals—only a positive feedback loop: value flows through the system and circulates back to those who build and drive its growth.

This is not a new model. Crypto has simply made it easier and more scalable for startups to use this model for the first time.

Railroad companies don't make money by selling locomotives; they profit from every ton of grain, coal, and steel that passes along their tracks. Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and AT&T were all companies positioned in the flow of capital. Google and Meta replaced print media and television not because advertising itself became better, but because they positioned themselves at the critical junction where attention is converted into commerce, taking a cut from trillions of dollars in commercial intent. AWS sits at the center of the flow of computing power.

This pattern is always the same: identify where value flows, then position yourself in the middle.

Financial markets make this model even clearer. In fiscal year 2024, Visa processed $15.7 trillion in payments and recorded $35.9 billion in net income. Jane Street’s net trading income last year reached $20.5 billion, surpassing Citigroup and Bank of America. The top five market makers in the U.S. handle 87% of payment for order flow: they are not predicting markets, but rather positioning themselves at the center of every order flow, earning more as trading volume increases.

These companies also share a common trait: network effects. The more card issuers Visa has, the more valuable it becomes to merchants; the more merchants accept Visa, the more valuable it becomes to cardholders. The same applies to order flow: each additional broker lowers spreads, attracting more brokers, which in turn attracts more order flow.

The叠加 of cash flow and network effects is one of the most enduring structures in business history.

Your profit is my opportunity.

Bezos once said: “Your profit is my opportunity.” He was referring to retail at the time, but this statement applies even more to traditional financial services—the world’s largest profit extraction pools. Payments, custody, lending, foreign exchange, securitization, settlement, and market making all follow this pattern. Visa and Mastercard charge 2% to 3% interchange fees on a network designed in the 1960s; cross-border remittance channels charge 6% to 9%; prime brokers and custodians take a cut on every securities trade. Even though the U.S. shifted to T+1 settlement in 2024, capital still sits idle overnight, becoming a structural cost borne by all participants.

These profit margins are all targets. By reducing costs and increasing turnover speed, it’s possible to expand the entire market. Stripe and Square have already demonstrated this in the payments industry.

Crypto entrepreneurs have the opportunity to build the next generation: programmable, instant, global, and natively embedded within the flow of funds.

But this frontier extends far beyond financial services. Every domain—computing power and GPU markets, storage chips, AI training data, energy, robotics, space, and rare earth metals—could see massive global flows of value, yet existing infrastructure was not designed to handle such scale.

In every field, the open market for capital flow businesses can be built from day one on programmable infrastructure—without existing pathways, entrenched intermediaries, or legacy interests to protect.

As the founder, you should ask yourself:

Have you already positioned yourself within the flow of funds today?

2. When the value of activities on your product increases tenfold, will your revenue increase accordingly?

3. If you're building a new product, where in your target market is the highest profit extraction relative to the value created?

The opportunity is there. Compress it, step into the new value stream, and let the network begin compounding from there.