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by Havoc 30 days ago
Seems like a misread to me.

Tokens don't have inherent value. You can't hoard them and stuff them under a pillow. They're valuable when applied to a problem.

It's like asking a shovel making company why they need gold miners.
2 comments
grumbelbart2 30 days ago
It is like questioning the purpose of shovels, because surely if shovels generate so much wealth for the miners, wouldn‘t shovel companies ask for a percentage of the gold (say 30%) instead of selling shovels at a unit price?
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Havoc 30 days ago
It's not an either or thing. Value chains have an equilibrium like anything else - naturally balances out.

You don't see every step being abandoned because everyone converged on the most profitable link in the real world.

>wouldn‘t shovel companies ask for a percentage of the gold (say 30%)

They could go that route. Nvidia is doing that right now

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/nvidia-plans-to-offer-start-...

But saying just because openai didn't adopt a particular business model therefore tokens must be worthless seems like a stretch. Maybe it was regulatory. Maybe they just don't want to be a conglomerate of that sort. Could be any number of reasons.

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granra 30 days ago
If you invented god that can make you billions, why wouldn't you extract that value yourself instead of leasing it in form of an API access.

No one claims their showels find gold for you.

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