Nurturing a bustling yet vibrant marketplace—the third way beyond cathedrals and casinos

Nurturing a lively yet vibrant marketplace—A third path beyond cathedrals and casinos Today, I went out and happened to read an article titled “Don’t Let Casinos Consume the Cathedrals.” Teacher Jocy wrote it very well, and it is one of the most practically meaningful articles I have read in 2026. When I read the part mentioning “Many Chinese teams raised only five to seven million USD around 2023… such a runway just supports a little over two years. Now, either they have lost reputation in the crypto industry or they are leaving,” I felt a strong resonance inside. I don’t know much about the specific situations of other teams, but the two funding rounds UniSat completed in 2024 were indeed roughly within this range. Whether in valuation or total funding, we have always kept a relatively conservative level. Compared to many Western projects with valuations in the tens of billions and tens of millions of dollars in funding, there is almost no comparison. But our choice has always been clear: regardless of whether the market environment is cold or hot, we adhere to a low-power combat approach of “saving every penny, Xiaomi plus rifle,” focusing long-term on high-quality, efficient delivery, and continuously improving team weaknesses through practice. From the very beginning, we never considered “withdrawing” as an option. As Teacher Jocy pointed out, the reason why the crypto industry on the other side of the ocean can continue to develop is largely due to generations of industry pioneers investing long-term, systematically, and in layers—this is a true “cathedral-style” construction path. In contrast, the reality around us often shows the opposite: talent is hard to retain, long-term vision is lacking, and the industry gradually degenerates into a stock game; short-term greed intensifies, ultimately forming an irreversible vicious cycle. These phenomena are not isolated cases but a true reflection of the current structural issues in the industry. As the article states: “When Web3 is reduced to a big casino, when the mainstream narrative of the industry devolves from ‘changing the world’ to a pure wealth game, the most talented people will vote with their feet.” Even the most optimistic builders have to admit: building a true “cathedral” has never been a one-day effort. But the question is—if the cathedral is out of reach, do we have to accept the path of the “big casino”? I don’t think so. Between these two, there is actually a long-overlooked third way. Between “relying on large-scale continuous investment” and “constantly withdrawing and fishing in dried-up ponds,” we can choose: to gradually build a low-power, lively, yet vibrant—marketplace at a relatively low cost. Those who have read “The Cathedral and the Market” might smile knowingly. Yes, as long as the path is right, constructing a bustling, self-growing open-source marketplace does not necessarily require the high costs of building a magnificent cathedral. The development paths of open-source Linux, the evolution of open-source AI models like DeepSeek, and the open-source Bitcoin wallets and infrastructure UniSat (please forgive me for mentioning this shamelessly) all follow similar logic in essence. Besides “spending money to build a cathedral,” we can also choose to rely on and promote further open-sourcing in the industry, allowing millions of independent developers to push their small carts and jointly foster a thriving marketplace. Diversity and variety are precisely the sources of prosperity. A well-constructed open-source marketplace, driven by real needs and continuously patched and evolved through practice, may not be inferior in competitiveness and system robustness to the grand yet fragile centralized cathedrals. Furthermore, Vibe coding is significantly lowering the barriers for developers to customize and modify existing open-source code. In my view, the resurgence of open-source in the AI era is no longer just an idealistic declaration of “out of touch with the world,” but evolving into a true “code equality”—where everyone has the opportunity to turn their real needs into runnable, usable code. And this is the best catalyst for nurturing a prosperous marketplace. Small but continuous progress far surpasses ambitious but disastrous ventures. Let’s work together.