ThePrimediaDAO initiator Jerry
One
In the mindset of “using the barbarians’ own skills against them”, as a representative of the post-80s financial media, for a long time, our cultural system and cognitive thinking have had a strong sense of the superiority of the “American spirit”: democracy, freedom, and human rights. In the reporting of major news events, we have intentionally compared the superiority of the separation of powers in the American system: legislation, administration, and judiciary, with each branch of national power being held by different agencies, exercising independent and mutual restraint.
But with the advent of Bitcoin and the “spirit of encryption”, we gradually realized that there will be better governance mechanisms and social order in the process of human advancement towards digitization. Especially when the US government, controlled by “capital”, tore off the “American civilization” fig leaf in the large-scale repression of protests by college students, and declared the failure of the “American spirit”, it is necessary for us to re-examine the risks of the “Ethereum POS” path and the significance of the geek spirit in the encrypted world.
Two
In recent days, demonstrations have erupted on campuses of several well-known universities in the United States, demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US military aid to Israel. The demands of the students are not radical; they mainly focus on urging the university to draw a clear line with Israel, prohibit university funds from investing in companies related to Israel, and completely divest from Israeli companies and those that support the invasion of Israel. In addition, the students hope that the university will pressure the US government to contribute to the ceasefire in Gaza.
In the early hours of April 17th local time, many students set up tents on the lawn in front of the Butler Library at Columbia University in New York City, establishing a “Gaza Solidarity Camp”. After hundreds of students were arrested by the New York City police, a large-scale solidarity movement was initiated at universities across the United States, including Harvard, Yale, MIT, New York University, University of Southern California, and University of Texas at Austin.
Like any “justice” in the process of human historical development, intellectuals have paid a painful price in the pursuit of justice. Regarding the protests and demonstrations by American university students, the attitudes of the US and Israeli authorities are basically consistent. Biden stated that this blatant “anti-Semitism” should be condemned, while US House Speaker Johnson denounced them as “anti-Semitic thugs”, and Trump called it shameful, all blaming Biden. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated in a declaration that the events on American university campuses are terrible, and the “anti-Semitic thugs” have occupied first-class universities.
On the morning of the 25th local time, more schools joined the protest activities, including the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Cornell University, University of California, Los Angeles, and Princeton University. Despite some US politicians labeling the demonstrators as “anti-Semitic” and exercising strong repression, the protest movement continues to intensify.
Three
Since 2020, with the progress of the encrypted ecosystem brought about by the DeFi bull market, including the basic functions of NFT, the governance mechanism of DAO, the efficiency improvement of Layer2… people have begun to imagine the arrival of the era of blockchain applications and the order of the metaverse digital civilization.
In the wave of a new revolution that AI is bringing to human social productivity, we are also integrating AI elements into the narrative of “AI and Web3 in the metaverse gathering” – the best interaction with AI is the narrative of “AI and Web3 in the metaverse gathering”: AI provides computing power and forms intelligent network application scenarios, while blockchain/Web3 establishes order for AI (intelligent network). Without this narrative, the ultimate destination for humans and AI will be a showdown between carbon-based life and silicon-based life.
In this narrative, we also look forward to the advancement of human digitization. We gather the power of technology and industry to construct the metaverse space. If the metaverse space is only a highly immersive digital space, is all this worth it? Using blockchain/Web3 to decentralize, token incentive mechanisms, and DAO organizational governance to restructure digital society, giving humanity a better social system and governance structure, is the only worthy goal for humans to gather the power of technology and industry to construct a digital space and look forward to the metaverse world. Therefore, this metaverse scene will be even more magnificent than V God’s decentralized society (DeSoc).
But the failure of the United States has alerted us – human governance is far more complex and dangerous than intelligent networks. Even the separation of powers, even democracy and the rule of law, can be wiped out by a government controlled by capital.
The encrypted world is also facing the same danger. At the beginning of Ethereum’s transition to POS, ThePrimedia once wrote an article, “Sticking to the Logic of PoW: Analysis of the Legitimacy and Feasibility of Ethereum Merge Hard Fork”, warning that if we do not stop it, after more than a decade of Bitcoin’s existence, the impossible triangle of the blockchain world will be “solved” – at the cost of abandoning decentralization, it will completely degenerate into a commonplace financial game no different from Wall Street. Since Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto has “opened a window and shed a beam of light” for the world’s imagination, and it will also dissipate.
Instead of focusing on the gains and losses of the transition to POS, it is better to think carefully about what happened – why are there cheers for the trend of centralization? Signs of the urgency and importance of the need to emphasize the concept of decentralization have been constantly emerging.
Four
In our joint research and creation based on the mechanism of DAO and the incubation of Web3 media protocols, we have also participated in community governance of blockchain projects. These practical experiences and reflections will give us a better perspective to peer into the risks of the “Ethereum path” in the wake of the “failure of America”.
While we celebrate the capital brought about by the Bitcoin ETF, the encrypted world itself is paving the way for “capital control”. This is extremely dangerous. Fortunately, the efforts of the second layer of Bitcoin and the practice of cross-chain interoperability are providing the encrypted world with better choices beyond the “Ethereum path”.
Of course, there are still doubts in the market: Bitcoin faces obstacles in expanding its use cases and scalability, and some EVMs are pseudo Bitcoin second layers. It is necessary and urgent to improve Bitcoin’s scalability, security, and cross-chain capabilities, promote the issuance of secure assets across heterogeneous blockchains, especially in ensuring the scalability of Bitcoin without changing its consensus rules, and promote rapid and secure development and interoperability of the second layer of Bitcoin.
Today, whether in the physical world or the encrypted world, we are in an era of rapid change and development. In the physical world, the spirit and system of the beautiful country are showing signs of decline, and terms such as open source, geek, encryption, DAO, decentralization, AI, quantum, interstellar migration, metaverse, and decentralization continue to emerge and iterate human cognition and behavioral patterns.
In the narrative of “AI and Web3 in the metaverse gathering”, a group of new era preachers, leaders, and promoters will be born.
