Top 10 S&P 500 snapshot

Price the moat honestly. Then imagine what happens when more of the world becomes free.

Free The World is a research-driven registry of major public companies and the products they still monetize as if AI, open source, Bitcoin-native coordination, and distributed manufacturing were optional side quests instead of the main plot.

Track corporate moats with enough honesty to admit that many of them are less eternal than their pricing pages imply.
Map where open source, Bitcoin-native coordination, federated protocols, and distributed manufacturing can release trapped capital.
Keep a visible paper trail so the thesis reads like research instead of a particularly caffeinated vibe.
Explore the registryRead the methodologyInspect or contribute on GitHub
Infographic 1 of 4Shuffles on each visit

Rotating infographic · Capital release atlas

Which moats look strongest right before they start getting weird?

A moat-versus-decentralizability map makes the core thesis visible in one screen: defensibility and open attack surface can coexist for a long time, right up until they stop doing so profitably.

00551010DecentralizabilityMoatMicrosoft: moat 9.1/10, decentralizability 6.4/10, freed-capital potential $523.2BMSFTMeta Platforms: moat 7.9/10, decentralizability 7.4/10, freed-capital potential $446BMETAAlphabet: moat 8.7/10, decentralizability 6.8/10, freed-capital potential $444.3BGOOGLAmazon: moat 8.9/10, decentralizability 5.7/10, freed-capital potential $301.3BAMZNApple: moat 9.3/10, decentralizability 2.8/10, freed-capital potential $234.3BAAPLNVIDIA: moat 9.6/10, decentralizability 2.5/10, freed-capital potential $222.5BNVDATesla: moat 7.4/10, decentralizability 5.9/10, freed-capital potential $190BTSLABroadcom: moat 8.6/10, decentralizability 3.8/10, freed-capital potential $117.8BAVGOWalmart: moat 8.2/10, decentralizability 4.4/10, freed-capital potential $97BWMTJPMorgan Chase: moat 9/10, decentralizability 4/10, freed-capital potential $67.1BJPMCisco Systems: moat 8/10, decentralizability 5/10, freed-capital potential $48.9BCSCOVisa: moat 9/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $46.9BVNetflix: moat 8.7/10, decentralizability 4.2/10, freed-capital potential $46.5BNFLXBerkshire Hathaway: moat 8.8/10, decentralizability 1.9/10, freed-capital potential $43.5BBRK.BCostco: moat 9/10, decentralizability 4/10, freed-capital potential $41.8BCOSTJohnson & Johnson: moat 9/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $41.7BJNJEli Lilly: moat 9/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $40.4BLLYChevron: moat 8/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $34.5BCVXProcter & Gamble: moat 9/10, decentralizability 4/10, freed-capital potential $34BPGOracle: moat 9/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $33.4BORCLAdvanced Micro Devices: moat 8/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $30.1BAMDPalantir Technologies: moat 9/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $27.8BPLTRMerck & Co.: moat 8/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $27.3BMRKAbbVie: moat 8/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $25.5BABBVGE Aerospace: moat 9/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $14.6BGERTX: moat 9/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $12.5BRTXExxon Mobil: moat 8/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $60XOMMastercard: moat 8.9/10, decentralizability 4.2/10, freed-capital potential $50MABank of America: moat 8/10, decentralizability 3/10, freed-capital potential $29BACMicron Technology: moat 9/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $22MUCoca-Cola: moat 9/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $12KOCaterpillar: moat 8.5/10, decentralizability 2/10, freed-capital potential $8CATPhilip Morris International: moat 8.8/10, decentralizability 1.2/10, freed-capital potential $8PMApplied Materials: moat 9/10, decentralizability 1/10, freed-capital potential $3AMAT

MSFT

Microsoft

$523.2B exposed

16% of current cap

META

Meta Platforms

$446B exposed

25% of current cap

GOOGL

Alphabet

$444.3B exposed

19% of current cap

Open the atlas

Motivation

The thesis in one page

Many digital products still charge like scarcity is real. Many physical products still charge like production must remain giant, centralized, and slow. Both assumptions are under pressure.

AI keeps compressing expertise. Open source keeps compressing software margins. Bitcoin and Lightning offer payment and anti-spam primitives that make more permissionless systems viable. Distributed manufacturing keeps moving the minimum useful factory closer to local, automated, and weirdly compact.

The result is not that every incumbent disappears. It is that a growing share of incumbents should expect to defend prices that become less philosophically persuasive and less economically durable.

Operating rules

How the registry thinks

The methodology is explicit so readers can audit the assumptions instead of pretending a clean table appeared from the heavens.

Moat is scored by distribution lock-in, regulation, supply chain depth, ecosystem power, and user switching cost.
Decentralizability is scored by how much of the product can migrate to open protocols, local operation, or permissionless coordination.
Freed-up capital potential is a derived estimate rather than an audited finance model; it is designed to expose directionally vulnerable value capture.
Technology waves are kept explicit so the writing does not forget the compounding impact of AI, local manufacturing, and cheaper automation.

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The newsletter follows the same thesis as the registry: track where incumbents still charge heavily for services that are drifting toward open, automated, and decentralized abundance.

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Professional with a light satirical aftertaste

If a trillion-dollar company is mostly monetizing convenience and inertia, that is still a moat. It is just not necessarily an eternal one.

Go to the company registry →

Free The World

Built as a research surface for tracking how AI, open source, Bitcoin rails, and distributed manufacturing steadily make legacy pricing models look like an elaborate historical accident.

Early-2026 public-source snapshot

Open source on GitHub

Commit f736e65 ·