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The prediction specifies a timeframe of “in like ten years” from the podcast date of September 14, 2021, which points to around 2031. As of November 30, 2025, that date has not yet arrived, so we cannot determine whether:

• Most traditional news outlets will have disappeared, or
• The Economist will be one of the few remaining fact-focused publications, or
• Media consumption will be dominated by partisan / mob-rule-style environments in metaverse-like platforms.

Because the forecast horizon (circa 2031) is still in the future relative to today (2025), the correctness of this prediction cannot yet be evaluated.

As of November 30, 2025, Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ SPARC tokamak is still under construction and has not yet produced net fusion energy.

Current public timelines from CFS and partners state that:

• SPARC is targeted to achieve first plasma in 2026, with net fusion energy (Q>1) expected in 2027.(en.wikipedia.org)
• CFS reiterates that SPARC will produce its first plasma in 2026 and "net fusion energy shortly after", i.e., also pointing to the later 2020s rather than 2025.(cfs.energy)
• Their own SPARC overview describes the machine aiming to become the first commercially relevant device to produce more fusion energy than it consumes in 2027, not that this has already occurred.(cfs.energy)

The normalized prediction was that CFS would demonstrate a working tokamak-based fusion system producing net energy within roughly 4–5 years of September 2021 (i.e., by around 2025–2026). We are only a bit over 4 years past that date (September 2021 → November 2025), so the full 5‑year window (through roughly September 2026) has not yet elapsed.

Because:

• Net-energy operation has not yet been demonstrated, but
• The upper bound of the stated 4–5 year window lies in the future,

it is too early to definitively label the prediction as right or wrong. Therefore the outcome is inconclusive (too early to tell).

Based on information up to November 30, 2025, this prediction cannot yet be decisively evaluated.

Chamath’s normalized claim has two key parts:

1. Timing: “Large-scale adoption or revival of advanced nuclear power … will likely not occur for multiple decades.”
2. Trigger: It will “probably only happen after a major, clearly cataclysmic climate-change-related event” that forces governments to adopt it as a last resort.

What has actually happened so far (2021–2025):

• There has not been a single, globally-recognized, discrete “cataclysmic” climate event that clearly and directly triggered a worldwide, emergency-driven pivot to advanced nuclear. There have been severe climate-related disasters (wildfires, heatwaves, floods, etc.), but no specific event that is widely understood as the tipping point that suddenly made governments adopt nuclear as a last resort on a global scale.
• There is no large-scale deployment of advanced nuclear (fusion or new fission designs) in commercial operation yet. Fusion has seen major experimental milestones (e.g., ignition at the U.S. National Ignition Facility in 2022), but this is research, not grid-scale deployment. Advanced fission (e.g., SMRs, Gen III+/IV designs) has a mix of:
  • Projects under construction or in planning (e.g., in China, UK, France, and others) and
  • Notable setbacks (such as cancellations or delays of some SMR projects in the U.S. and elsewhere). None of this amounts to a clear, global large-scale adoption of advanced nuclear as of late 2025.

Given that his timeline was “decades” (plural) and we are only about 4 years past the 2021 prediction, it’s far too early to judge whether advanced nuclear adoption will indeed take “multiple decades” and be driven only by a cataclysmic event. The world could still:

• Rapidly accelerate advanced nuclear deployment well before multiple decades have passed (which would make him wrong), or
• Drift along with slow progress and then, in the 2030s–2040s, experience a major climate catastrophe that finally unlocks a large, last-resort nuclear buildout (which would make him broadly right).

Because neither of those long-term futures has had time to play out by 2025, and no current facts clearly contradict his multi-decade, post-catastrophe framing, the correct status is “inconclusive (too early)” rather than right or wrong.

As of November 30, 2025, there has been no full-scale Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. The situation instead features sustained Chinese military pressure, including frequent PLA air and naval activity, large-scale exercises such as Joint Sword-2024 and 2025’s Channel/Strait Thunder drills, and encirclement-style maneuvers, but none of these have crossed the threshold into an outright invasion or attempt at forcible occupation of Taiwan. (csis.org)

Similarly, there has been no U.S. combat deployment to fight in defense of Taiwan. The U.S. has deepened security ties, authorized arms sales, sailed warships through the Taiwan Strait, and reportedly placed a small number of permanent military trainers or special forces in Taiwan, but this is qualitatively different from deploying large-scale U.S. troops for wartime defense of the island’s semiconductor facilities. (armyrecognition.com)

However, Chamath’s prediction was framed in open-ended terms—“they will invade Taiwan … we will have no choice except to deploy troops into Taiwan”—without specifying any time horizon (e.g., by a specific year). Since such events could still occur in the future and there is no defined deadline by which to judge success or failure, the claim cannot yet be labeled definitively right or wrong.

Because:

• The core predicted events (PRC invasion + U.S. defensive troop deployment) have not happened by late 2025; but
• The prediction did not include a time limit and concerns an eventual future contingency;

the appropriate assessment today is “inconclusive (too early)” rather than “wrong.”

As of 2025, the deadline for this prediction ("over this century" / before 2100) is still far in the future—around 75 years remain. The claim is that one or more extremely large technological breakthroughs (on the order of 100x–10,000x improvements) will occur and will resolve many of humanity’s major challenges on Earth (energy, climate, health, resources).

While there have been major advances since 2021—e.g., rapid progress in renewable energy and falling solar and battery costs, mRNA vaccine platforms, and ongoing work in nuclear fusion and AI—none of these has yet clearly achieved a 100x–10,000x step-change that resolves most of the cited global challenges in a widely accepted way. Climate change remains a major concern, global health burdens are still substantial, and resource constraints are not considered solved by mainstream expert assessments.

Because:

1. The prediction’s time horizon is up to 2100, and
2. The specific condition (dramatic breakthroughs that resolve most major challenges) has not clearly been met yet, and
3. There is still ample time for it to become true or remain false,

it is too early to judge the prediction as right or wrong.

Therefore the correct status is: it cannot yet be determined whether this prediction will come true.

China did impose a comprehensive ban on cryptocurrency trading and mining by 2021, prohibiting most crypto-related activity in the country. 【0search2】 However, this approach did not become the dominant model among major economies.

By late 2025:

• European Union: The EU adopted the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation in 2023, fully applicable from December 2024. MiCA explicitly creates a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto-asset markets to support adoption and protect investors, rather than banning them. 【1search19】【1search2】
• United States: On 10 January 2024 the SEC approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs, allowing mainstream brokerage access to bitcoin and signaling regulatory integration of crypto into the financial system, not a "no more crypto" stance. 【0news17】【0search7】
• Japan: Japan has long recognized bitcoin as a legal payment method and, by 2025, is described as having one of the most comprehensive and proactive crypto regulatory frameworks. Authorities are moving to treat crypto as regulated financial products and have also implemented a stablecoin regulatory regime, again focusing on oversight and integration rather than prohibition. 【1search4】【1search21】【1news13】
• United Kingdom: UK policy documents emphasize a goal of being a global "crypto hub," with new legislation and FCA plans to bring crypto firms into the regulatory perimeter (while tailoring rules for the sector) instead of banning them outright. 【1search3】【1news15】
• India and others: India has not embraced crypto as fully as the U.S./EU/Japan, but recent government documents highlight reluctance to both fully integrate and outright ban crypto, acknowledging that bans would not stop decentralized or peer-to-peer activity; instead, activity is constrained under taxation and registration regimes. 【1news16】

Global overviews show that only a relatively small set of countries (mostly not the largest advanced economies) fully ban or heavily criminalize bitcoin/crypto, while the majority either allow it under regulation or maintain partial restrictions. 【0search2】【0search0】

Because four years after the prediction most major economies (U.S., EU, UK, Japan, etc.) have not adopted China-style bans or blanket "no more crypto" policies and instead are building regulatory and market infrastructure around crypto, Friedberg’s claim that governments would "all" end up saying that is incorrect as of November 30, 2025.

The prediction’s horizon is 20 years from September 14, 2021 (i.e., until 2041), so we are only a bit over four years into it—far too early to judge the long‑term claim.

So far, parts of the mechanism Friedberg described are visible:

• Regulators have clearly intensified scrutiny of crypto and DeFi. The U.S. SEC brought its first DeFi‑specific enforcement action in 2021 and has treated crypto as a key enforcement priority, bringing numerous cases against exchanges and token offerings. (sec.gov)
• The EU’s MiCA framework creates comprehensive regulation for crypto‑assets and service providers, reflecting that governments now see crypto/DeFi as a mainstream financial‑system concern, though MiCA explicitly leaves DeFi mostly out of scope for now. (eur-lex.europa.eu)
• The Tornado Cash episode shows how DeFi‑related tools can trigger actions that touch open‑internet norms: OFAC’s 2022 sanctions led GitHub to remove the project’s open‑source repositories and suspend developer accounts, prompting free‑speech concerns from groups like EFF about government pressure on code hosting and publication. (github.com)

However, the stronger part of the prediction—that this DeFi‑driven state‑vs‑private conflict will significantly threaten the openness of the internet and become a primary social battleground—is not clearly true as of late 2025:

• Major public fights over the “open internet” remain dominated by content‑moderation, misinformation, hate speech, and platform governance issues (e.g., Meta’s shifts away from fact‑checking and loosening hate‑speech rules), rather than DeFi or financial‑system control. (theverge.com)
• Existing crypto/DeFi regulation efforts, like MiCA or past SEC crackdowns, are largely framed as investor protection, financial stability, and anti‑money‑laundering measures, not as explicit political movements to roll back general internet openness (and courts have in some cases constrained overreach, as with appeals overturning Tornado Cash sanctions). (consilium.europa.eu)

Given (1) the long time remaining until 2041 and (2) that the predicted end state (“primary social battleground” over the open internet) has not clearly materialized yet—despite some suggestive incidents—the correct status today is inconclusive (too early) rather than clearly right or wrong.

The falsifiable part of Chamath’s claim—that DeFi/crypto architectures would destroy a significant amount of existing financial wealth—has clearly occurred, but the broader net positive for the world judgment is subjective and not empirically resolvable.

Evidence that crypto/DeFi destroyed substantial wealth:

• The 2020–2022 crypto bubble and subsequent 2021–2024 crash wiped out large amounts of market value. The Terra/Luna algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem alone lost about $40–45 billion in market capitalization within about a week when TerraUSD depegged and LUNA collapsed from around $119 to near zero. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Terra/Luna’s broader ecosystem had grown to roughly $60 billion at peak value before becoming essentially worthless, illustrating large-scale wealth destruction for investors. (financialfright.com)
• Total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols fell from about $304 billion in December 2021 to roughly $96 billion in September 2022—a decline of ~70%, reflecting a sharp destruction of on-chain financial positions. (finbold.com)
• Centralized platforms tied into the broader crypto/DeFi ecosystem, like Celsius and FTX, also failed. Celsius managed around $25 billion in assets at its peak before freezing withdrawals and entering bankruptcy, with billions in losses tied to its token and yield strategies. (theverge.com) FTX’s collapse led to customer and investor losses estimated in the multi‑billion‑dollar range, with U.S. regulators citing at least an $8 billion customer shortfall during bankruptcy proceedings. (theguardian.com)

These events show that crypto/DeFi architectures and adjacent tokens did indeed destroy a large amount of financial wealth, consistent with the first part of Chamath’s prediction.

However, his normative claim that the overall effect on the world is positive cannot be cleanly tested:

• Assessing “net positive” requires value judgments about innovation, financial inclusion, censorship resistance, fraud, environmental impact, regulatory responses, and long‑term institutional change. Different analysts and stakeholders reach sharply different conclusions, and there is no widely accepted metric that settles this question.
• The time horizon (“over time”) is open‑ended; DeFi/crypto remains in flux, with ongoing regulatory shifts, technological upgrades, and new use cases (and failures). Any definitive evaluation of net global benefit versus harm would be premature and inherently contestable.

Because one part of the prediction (wealth destruction) is clearly borne out, while the other part (net positive for the world) is inherently subjective and not empirically decidable, the overall prediction is best categorized as ambiguous rather than strictly right or wrong.