Yes that is a key insight to understand about macroeconomics and the reason why growth in financial equity and other instruments is not counted in GDP, only pro

Yes that is a key insight to understand about macroeconomics and the reason why growth in financial equity and other instruments is not counted in GDP, only production of real things, creation of factories and accumulation of inventories. One party's debt is another party's saving (the party that the debt is owed to) so debt nets to zero in the aggregate economy. It is also why cryptocurrencies are potentially dangerous to the economy if they become too popular. The situation could become similar to how gold hoarding caused the great depression (though I don't think it will be that catastrophic unless governments start tying their currencies to crypto tokens like they had done with gold.