Decentralize, Decentralize, DECENTRALIZE.

A Message To All VCs, Investors, Builders, People Of The Future.

Bitcoin was never intended to be “digital gold”. It was never meant to be an “inflation hedge”. No, it was simply the idea of one man to make a permissionless, trustless electronic means of payment that did not require a third party.

It was meant to be “decentralized”.

ETH was never meant to be “ultrasound money”. ETH was simply a way for developers to pay for and launch “decentralized apps” on a network.

And I’ve been saying this for a while now.

Somewhere, somehow, we’ve lost the plot.

What crypto is meant to solve also killed it - by trying to revolutionize finance, we’ve also made it extremely easy to raise, tokenize, and access liquidity. Want a couple million? Launch “effective altruism” - incubate an L1, and get all the VCs to participate. Running low on funds? Borrow against the useless token of your exchange.

Really, it’s ironic that what killed the industry wasn’t some major hack on a huge smart contract. No, it was the centralized players that got us killed. Celsius, Voyager, FTX.

But I also recognize that they play an important role in helping on-ramp retail users who may not care as much about decentralization. They’re a necessary evil in this space.

Reconciling the two ideas, I believe that crypto should enforce what we do of DeFi protocols to the centralized players in the space. We continually ask for audits of smart contracts - should we not do the same to these centralized players? The ethos rings true - transparency and trustlessness.

And I’m sure there are many ways to do this. Binance has already taken the first step by publishing their reserves for all to see. Risk has to be better mitigated. Reserves have to be continually updated and audited by an objective third party. Communication should be transparent and quick.

The bottom line is: We can’t do without Ce-Fi. Ce-Fi has certain benefits that De-Fi may never have - for one, OTC deals on a large scale. But it goes without saying that we’re in the movement of “changing finance for the better”. We have to expect the same of the centralized players that come into this space.

We have to do better.

But know this - that as we try to fight the good fight, the demons will continue to haunt us. If crypto should continue being a space that grows in the long run, recognize that this WILL happen again.

Humans are good at forgetting things, and given a few years, the pain of this will be gone. Degenerate participants will once again come in to make a quick buck, and the cycle will repeat. Someone else will grow up to be the next SBF / Do Kwon / Su Zhu.

That’s why I’m writing this now - when the pain is still fresh. The ones remaining are the ones that will make crypto antifragile. You, me - the people that are still here, reading this.

The onus is on us to do what’s right - not for money, but for ideology.

If you’re a retail investor: Use decentralized protocols.

If you’re an investor / VC: Vote with your money. Incubate decentralized protocols.

And lastly, if you’re a builder: Build decentralized protocols.