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While most of the crypto industry is busy trying to make traditional finance faster and cheaper, one of the sector’s longest-tenured investors is making the case that the real money lies somewhere else entirely.
Spencer Bogart, General Partner at Blockchain Capital, has laid out a contrarian investment thesis centered on a deceptively simple idea: the next decade’s biggest winners will be “net-new” products and infrastructure that only exist because programmable assets exist. Not better versions of what Wall Street already has. Entirely new things.
The great repricing
Bogart co-authored a research post on February 19, 2026, titled “The Great Repricing,” which serves as the intellectual foundation for his broader thesis. The core argument is that crypto has spent years excelling at value creation, building novel technology, shipping protocols, expanding what’s possible on-chain. But value capture, the part where tokens and their holders actually benefit from all that innovation, has lagged behind.
In a May 2026 update, he stated that a decade from now, the most significant opportunities will involve products that could only exist after the development of programmable assets.
Stablecoins, privacy, and token economics
The June 2026 podcast episode, titled “Blockchain Capital’s Contrarian Bet on Crypto’s Next Decade,” digs into several specific areas where Bogart sees the thesis playing out.
Stablecoins are a major focus. They’ve been the sector’s clearest product-market fit story, but the question of who captures value from stablecoin adoption remains deeply contested. Issuers, the chains they run on, the applications built around them, all have a claim. Bogart’s framework suggests that the answer will depend heavily on token value accrual mechanisms, a fancy way of asking: does holding this token actually entitle you to anything as usage grows?
Privacy versus regulatory compliance is another tension he explores. Programmable assets make sophisticated privacy features technically possible. The investment thesis here isn’t about picking a side. It’s about recognizing that the resolution of this tension will create entirely new market categories.
Then there’s the public versus private blockchain distinction. Bogart’s thesis suggests the answer matters more now than it did during the initial debate, because the stakes are higher and the technology is more mature.
The common thread across all three areas: token economics. The firm’s view is that the market hasn’t finished sorting out which tokens actually deserve to accrue value and which are just along for the ride. That sorting process, what Bogart calls “The Great Repricing,” is the investment opportunity.
Why contrarian, and why now
Blockchain Capital was established in 2013, making it one of the oldest dedicated crypto venture firms in existence. It was an early investor in companies including Coinbase and BitGo.
Bogart himself has been a General Partner at the firm since February 2017. Before that, he gained recognition for authoring Wall Street’s first blockchain-focused industry report while at Needham & Company.
The firm emphasizes that the best returns will stem from non-consensus investment strategies, particularly as the market shifts focus toward artificial intelligence and other sectors. Blockchain Capital is explicitly arguing that the best crypto returns will come from non-consensus strategies, the investments that other funds overlook because they’re too busy trying to find the next AI-crypto crossover play.
The pressure on token economics adds another layer of complexity. Simply holding tokens in projects with growing usage isn’t enough if the token itself doesn’t have a clear mechanism for capturing that value. Investors who ignore the value accrual question may find themselves owning tokens in successful protocols that somehow fail to reward holders, a pattern that has repeated throughout crypto’s history.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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