The New Economics of Crypto Tokens | Austin Barack

About this episode

What if the most interesting crypto investments of the next cycle aren’t new blockchains at all? Relayer Capital founder Austin Barack joins David to explain why his attention has shifted toward a small group of applications with real users, rapidly growing revenue, and increasingly explicit token value capture. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔓NEAR | TRADE CONFIDENTIALLY, GET 20% BACK https://bankless.cc/near2026 🔑BITKEY | GET 10% OFF USE CODE: BANKLESS | #bitkeypartner https://bankless.cc/bitkey 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 👑BANKLESS CONTENT MCP https://www.bankless.com/premium --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Finding Growth and Value in Crypto 4:17 Why Liquid Tokens Are Winning His Attention 7:00 How Austin Values Venice and VVV 15:34 The Biggest Bet in the Venice Model 24:53 Can Venice Balance Growth and Token Value? 32:53 Venice Growth and the OpenRouter Signal 37:31 Can Fundamental Tokens Outperform the Crypto Cycle? 43:50 Pump, Hyperliquid and EtherFi 48:57 EtherFi’s Shift Into a Neo Brokerage 58:24 Why the Market Discounts Pump 1:02:42 The Next Era of Crypto --- RESOURCES Austin Barack https://x.com/AustinBarack --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures