I think they were trying to intimate that a large-scale adopted cryptocurrency could replace large swaths of financial infrastructure (this is a sort of pie-in-the-sky ideal, but something like it could happen) - picture a cryptocurrency replacing the federal reserve, VISA, the european central bank, brick-and-mortar bank branches and credit unions (partially), etc. It couldn't replace everything, and new things would become necessary, but I think there is potential (even if small) for it to provide enormous value at least on the order of its energy consumption.