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In a wide-ranging conversation on TheStreet Roundtable, Jeff Booth, founding partner at Ego Death Capital and author of The Price of Tomorrow, laid out a thesis stating that Bitcoin isn’t just a currency or a technology — it’s the next foundational protocol layer of the global internet.

“People get confused on Bitcoin,” Booth said. “They think it is a technology… But protocols are different. Protocols are like the internet. TCP/IP came in layers. Bitcoin is the same — it’s a base layer that sacrificed scalability for decentralization and security.”

According to Booth, Bitcoin’s architecture mirrors the early internet. The base layer — Bitcoin itself — is intentionally limited in functionality to ensure security. But second-layer technologies like the Lightning Network are scaling it rapidly, now reaching “650 million people today,” Booth noted, adding, “It’s growing faster than the internet was in the ‘90s.”

For Booth, Bitcoin is not about building a “better tech.” He argues that other cryptocurrencies tried to do just that — and failed because they centralized in the process. “They’re faster, but they centralize,” he said. “Breakthroughs happen on the second layer… You don’t need another coin.”

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Bitcoins market cap today is over $300 billion at the

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Booth explained that his venture firm Ego Death Capital is investing in companies building on Bitcoin’s second and third layers — technologies that will allow payments, identity, contracts, and even entire financial systems to run on top of Bitcoin’s secure base.

He noted the idea that Bitcoin enables a “parallel internet” — a new, global system based on energy rather than manipulated fiat currencies. “It is the protocol that forces the free market globally,” he said. “This is an order of magnitude bigger than the internet… It can’t be cheated.”

Booth believes the best entrepreneurs are already building in the space because it aligns incentives and protects their time and work from devaluation.

“If you go back in any four-year cycle, prices are falling forever in Bitcoin,” he added. “They’re falling all the time — people are just measuring it in dollars.”

Booth’s core message? Stop thinking of Bitcoin as a tech product. “It’s much bigger,” he said. “It’s the foundation of something we haven’t fully seen yet.”