In the crucible of Web3’s ever-churning chaos, builders navigate a labyrinth of competing forces: craftsmanship, community, pride, and the relentless tug of the market’s whims. And so the builder endures relentless toil, sleepless (unseen) nights bleeding for a cause greater than themselves.
That the Free Market may one day recognize the sacrifice. An olive branch extended towards disruptive creations & digital forces for good.
However, this idealistic pursuit is harshly tempered by the cold reality of Financial Nihilism. Here, memecoins and gambling are exalted as some pseudo-philosophical culmination of the crypto journey, while the middle finger of celebrated “financial degeneracy” is brazenly thrust at traditional investing and established powers. Price fluctuations become the rhythm of existence — green, red, up, down — amidst the ceaseless noise and the relentless tugs on builders and communities alike.
Amidst the constant stop and go, and the tumulteous forces that pull on the builders and commutities, I believe it is mission critical to examine your heart and ensure you understand what your motivations are.
Here’s the truth in my mind:
The longer I’ve been in the space, the more cyberpunk I’m becoming. If you are at the mercy of the macro and the Free Market then you have to make a choice. Are you going to build for the “Free” Market or are you going to build for what you believe to be right and true? I’m not saying to exit from the world of serving the customer or serving the investors & capital that make the building possible.
What I’m saying is where does your sense of urgency come from? And are you going to allow those with the most short term extractive principles dictate how you view what you’ve built and what you are continuing to build?
I wish you could see what I’ve seen. I wish you could see the nights of contributors bleeding for this. The literal anxiety and nerves of not being able to build everything, incapable of being everything all at the same time. “Suck it up buttercup” says the telegram user who hops between 45 channels carrying the pride of “I have all the answers” on their shoulders.
Look, builders are flawed. They are human. But the good ones have been forcefully lumped into the same categorical suspicions as the bad extractive actors in the space.
And real talk, I’m personally sick of apologizing for the bad actors. I’m sick of having to hold the hand of random investors that are over leveraged and purely profit driven — the ones that need peace of mind that you are sacrificing your soul for this.
Of course we are sacrificing pieces of ourselves for this…
I’m just (personally) done sacrificing it for the wrong audience.
Do you think Satoshi made decisions on the basis of investor complaints? Do you think Vitalik does? Anatoli? Erik Voorhees?
I think they have a vision in their head of what could be, and they also see the reality of where things stand right now. They take the next step. And the next step. And the next step. Whatever gets them closer to the unreachable pure endgame that represents true disruption & an ethical outcome.
If you are building to create something over the course of decades. If you can have that level of patience, then the noise of the present starts to quiet down.
To be cyberpunk is to be in the future, now.
To be cyberpunk is to give the middle finger to monetary incentives.
To be cyberpunk is to build patiently, trusting that others will one day carry the torch.
To be cyberpunk is to ignore the noise.
To be cyberpunk is to prioritize resilliency over all else.
“Carter you sound like you are cracking a bit?”
Yeah, maybe I am.
I’ve been at this since I was 18 years old (I’m 25 now).
Maybe 7 years in this space starts to point to the fact that time is a flat circle. That human greed and the tiresome cycle of it all will never end. The resilient mathematical constant of human greed has the same level of reliability as 1 + 1 = 2.
Sadly, you begin to realize there are (many) people who care more about turning said cyclical reality into a profit more than they care about doing anything tangible and impactful. They are more than happy to leverage the weaknesses and the short term attention span of the world while touting “progress”.
They are silent followers of effective altruism now distorted by the allure of financial nihilism.
These piranhas of Web3 serve two masters at once (…be “principled” but ultimately be fully subservient to riches…)
It disheartens me.
It disgusts me.
I am here for the revolution.
Digital Independence. Digital Sovereignty. Global accessibility.
Privacy.
I think Shade Protocol made the mistake of becoming overly financialized these last two years. We’ve hidden from the reality of our privacy disruptiveness by trying to fit into the mold of Web3 sustainability story telling.
We’ve cared more about the perception of business viability than we have about the morality and ethical goals of our disruptiveness.
Now, I don’t get to speak for all of Shade Protocol nor for any of its individual contributors.
But I do speak for me.
I’m done with the infinite rat race of appeasement to short term thinkers.
Financial Nihilism be damned.
It is time for the cyberpunk movement to be reborn in this small corner of the internet, or at a minimum, in this heart.
Long may she reign.
-Carter L. Woetzel
