The New Bearer Assets

Cash flow generating, deflationary, bearer assets

Bearer assets have traditionally meant things like cash or gold. You hold them, you own them. There’s no need for a middleman and no dependency on a third party. But they’ve rarely produced income. That’s starting to change.

Crypto introduces bearer assets that also generate cash flow. Layer 1 (L1) tokens (BTC, ETH, SOL, etc) are the bearer assets of there sovereign, blockchain economic zones.

ETH is the most obvious example of a productive bearer asset. If you stake it in a self-custodied wallet, it earns yield. There’s no bank, broker, or permission required. It sits in your wallet and produces value.

Importantly, the yield on ETH in particular is not just supply inflation. Since Ethereum burns part of the transaction fees users pay, ETH burned can actually outweigh new ETH issuance. ETH supply can go down, while stakers can still earn ~3-4%. Now you have an income generating bearer asset.

Higher up the stack the definition gets fuzzier. DeFi tokens can route fees or buybacks to holders, but many still hinge on governance votes or off-chain teams. Until those claims are locked in immutable code they feel more like digital equity than pure bearer money.

The idea of a bearer asset is simple: if you hold it, you control it. No risk of frozen accounts, bankruptcies, or capital controls. A combination of traits likely to become more attractive in an increasingly unstable political and economic world.

Crypto expands what that can mean. These assets can now earn, evolve, and reflect real economic activity without giving up custody. Cash-flow generating bearer assets already challenge old assumptions about capital. Add deflation to the mix, and the design space starts to get very interesting.