Longtermism
Context: How This Topic Came to Mind
I was recently listening to an audiobook on investing (How To Invest), which is essentially an aggregate of interviews with some of the most influential investors in history. From Larry Fink to Sam Zell to Stan Druckenmiller, it covers the greats. While I was listening, one recurring theme stood out to me—long-term thinking. The best investors weren’t focused on what was happening in the markets today or next month. They were thinking years, even decades ahead.
It didn’t matter what asset class—real estate, stocks, crypto—the theme was the same.
What really resonated with me was Larry Fink’s concept of Longtermism—the idea that true value is created by looking far into the future rather than reacting to short-term noise.
This stuck with me because Larry Fink, a financial leader with billions under management, was once skeptical of crypto. Now, he’s one of its biggest institutional advocates, pushing for its integration into global finance. What changed? A shift in perspective. He stopped viewing crypto as a speculative asset and started seeing it as a fundamental pillar of the future financial system.
That got me thinking: What else follows this pattern? If you study history, you’ll notice every major technological shift follows a similar trajectory—the internet, mobile, AI, and now, blockchain.
At the same time, we live in an era where information is instantaneous, markets are hyper-efficient, and every 1% move in price becomes breaking news. It’s exhausting. This constant flood of data forces people to react rather than think, leading to short-termism that clouds judgment and distorts long-term opportunity.
But what if this information overload has an unexpected upside? If you can tune out the noise, challenge your own thesis, and stay patient while others panic, it can actually strengthen conviction. It’s why the best investors always come back to the same lesson: be greedy when others are fearful.
This article explores the concept of longtermism in investing, the historical patterns of technology adoption, and how these frameworks apply to blockchain’s trajectory over the next decade.
Longtermism in Investing: Why Time Horizon Matters
The best investors understand that markets move in cycles, but true value is created over decades. Larry Fink’s shift toward crypto and blockchain infrastructure mirrors how other visionary investors have identified megatrends before they became mainstream.
Warren Buffett has held businesses for decades, focusing on economic moats and long-term value rather than short-term noise.
Stanley Druckenmiller has repeatedly emphasized that secular trends—not short-term price movements—create asymmetric opportunities.
Howard Marks (Oaktree Capital) focuses on second-order thinking, understanding that what’s contrarian today is often consensus tomorrow.
Larry Fink’s embrace of blockchain aligns with this mindset. Despite skepticism in its early years, blockchain technology has proven resilient, attracting institutions that now recognize its long-term potential.
The Importance of Thinking in Decades
One of the biggest shifts in my own investment perspective came when I started thinking in decades instead of days. Early in my career, I would enticed into chasing trends, reacting to headlines and short-term narratives. But the real turning point came when I started analyzing structural shifts—the kind of transformations that play out over years. Seeing Larry Fink, a traditional finance titan, make a full pivot to Bitcoin and blockchain validated that long-term conviction is key.
The Technology Adoption Curve: A Historical Parallel
Blockchain adoption follows a well-documented pattern seen in other technological revolutions. The key insight? Adoption is slow at first, then suddenly accelerates.
The Technology Adoption Lifecycle, popularized by Everett Rogers, outlines how new technologies move through different user segments:
Innovators (2.5%) – Tech enthusiasts and early experimenters.
Early Adopters (13.5%) – Visionary users who see the long-term potential.
Early Majority (34%) – The first large wave of mainstream users.
Late Majority (34%) – Skeptics who only adopt when the technology is proven.
Laggards (16%) – The final holdouts who adopt only when necessary.
Blockchain’s Current Adoption Stage: How Early Are We?
To understand where blockchain stands today, let’s look at key adoption metrics:
Global Cryptocurrency Ownership: As of 2024, approximately 6.8% of the world's population—over 560 million individuals—owned some form of cryptocurrency.
Coinbase User Base: Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, reported 115 million registered users in 2023, with 8 million active monthly transacting users.
U.S. Cryptocurrency Adoption: In the United States, cryptocurrency ownership surged from 4.3% of households in 2022 to an estimated 70% of adults (approximately 183 million individuals) by 2025.
Global Projections: The number of cryptocurrency users worldwide is expected to reach 861 million in 2025, indicating a significant upward trend in adoption.
These statistics suggest that while blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption have grown substantially, they still represent a fraction of the global population. This positions blockchain in the Early Adopters phase of the Technology Adoption Lifecycle, with the potential to transition into the Early Majority phase as awareness and infrastructure continue to develop.
Crossing the Chasm: Blockchain’s Key Inflection Point
A crucial moment in any technology’s growth is “crossing the chasm”—the leap from early adopters to the early majority. This is where many technologies fail, as they struggle to appeal to a mainstream audience.
Blockchain appears to be in this transition:
Institutional finance (BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan) is bridging the gap between retail speculation and mainstream use cases.
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is providing clear value propositions for enterprises.
Layer 2 solutions and Ethereum scaling are making blockchain usable at scale.
If blockchain successfully crosses this chasm, its trajectory could mirror the internet’s explosion post-2005—where mass adoption led to trillion-dollar industries.
The Impact of Short-Term Thinking: Diminishing Attention Spans and Investment Horizons
In today’s fast-paced world, short-term news cycles dominate, captivating our attention and influencing behaviors. This shift has profound implications for both our cognitive functions and investment strategies.
Decline in Attention Spans
Research indicates a significant decrease in human attention spans over the past two decades. A study by Microsoft found that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to just 8 seconds in 2023, shorter than that of a goldfish. The rise of social media, algorithm-driven content feeds, and instant notifications has conditioned people to seek constant stimulation and quick rewards, making long-term thinking increasingly rare.
This has a direct impact on investing behavior. Many retail investors are glued to daily stock price movements, reacting emotionally to short-term news rather than focusing on fundamental value and long-term trends. The rise of meme stocks, day trading, and high-frequency speculation is evidence of this shift. Investors are more focused on the next 24 hours than the next 10 years, leading to suboptimal decision-making.
Behavior as the Last True Edge in Investing
Traditionally, investors have had three primary sources of advantage:
Information Advantage – Having access to insights others don’t.
Analytical Advantage – Processing data better than others.
Behavioral Advantage – Controlling emotions and making rational decisions under pressure.
However, with the rise of the internet and AI, asymmetric information and advanced analytics have been democratized. Retail investors can now access the same financial reports, blockchain analytics, and AI-driven forecasts as institutions. Hedge funds that once thrived on quantitative models now compete with AI-driven trading algorithms.
Yet, one factor remains uniquely human: behavior. The ability to remain patient, ignore short-term noise, and make disciplined investment decisions is the last sustainable edge in investing. Markets, at their core, are a reflection of human psychology—greed, fear, euphoria, and panic still drive asset prices, no matter how much technology evolves.
Final Thoughts: Why Longtermism Wins
Larry Fink’s embrace of blockchain is not about short-term price movements—it’s about recognizing where the world is headed in the next 5-10 years.
For investors, the lesson is clear: the biggest opportunities come from thinking in decades, not months. Just as the internet, mobile, and AI reshaped the world, blockchain is following a similar trajectory.
The question isn’t whether blockchain will succeed—it’s how long it will take before it’s impossible to ignore.