Decentralization is not absolute, it is absolutely not decentralization.

Recently, I saw discussions in the teaching chain that with the opening of the encryption-friendly door by the new president of the United States, more and more blockchain project parties that previously used foundations or DAOs as a half-hearted cover are increasingly inclined to adopt a corporate governance structure. Correspondingly, they are fully embracing compliance and are taking the path of compliant financing and compliant listing.

In fact, back in the day, during the bull market of 2017-2018 when the wave of issuing coins surged, why did blockchain projects choose to run to a small country overseas to set up some kind of foundation to issue coins? The answer is very simple and straightforward: the path of company-based financing is not feasible and there is no time, so some clever people came up with this 'curved rescue' approach, euphemistically called 'Compliance'.

However, this "compliance" does not stand up to scrutiny. Look at this compliance; it aligns with the regulations of some distant small country, but it collects the money from the leeks of some large country. What kind of compliance is that? In the Netherlands and Canada, cannabis is still legal, but try smoking it in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen!

However, this digital currency is not as strictly regulated as drugs. If the project goes offshore, and if the domestic speculators are stubbornly trying to climb over the wall, even going so far as to create a fake identity to buy someone else's coins, it's just a case of one party willing to fight and the other willing to endure.

Later, the regulators had no choice but to warn these retail investors that their participation in digital currency activities is illegal. If something goes wrong, they have to bear the consequences themselves and should not seek the regulators to uphold their so-called justice. No ideology can endlessly tolerate a giant baby. Pay attention to the word "illegal"; it does not mean "against the law," but simply "not legal," which means not protected by law. Not being protected by law means that if you fall into a trap and lose money, you have to bear it yourself. If your fate is unfortunate, do not blame the government.

In fact, the originators of establishing foundations may be traced back to Ethereum. This predates the wave of issuing tokens; it was during the bull market of 2013 when Ethereum emerged and pioneered the ICO model of issuing tokens.

Ethereum's token issuance is different from BTC, which has no pre-mining and a fair launch. Ethereum pre-mined a large batch of ETH at zero cost and sold a portion to early investors (essentially a form of financing), while reserving a portion for ongoing development expenses.

This funding cannot be left in the hands of an individual, for example, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, so it is necessary to establish an entity to represent the project to manage and use this funding.

To reflect the non-profit nature of this entity, the foundation is a natural choice.

In the overseas open source software field, establishing a foundation to raise funds to support the research and development of a certain open source software is a very mature practice.

Since the foundation is a legal entity, it is centralized.

Unlike the fundraising of the open-source software foundation, which is closer to charitable donations, the token fundraising of blockchain projects has a strong profit motive, or more bluntly, a motive for getting rich.

The money you give to the open-source software foundation is a donation, almost like charity, and there is hardly any direct financial return that will come to you. The only thing you might gain is honor.

If you "donate" to a blockchain project, you will receive a certain number of project tokens in exchange. No matter how much it's denied, most people will strongly expect these project tokens to soar significantly after the project succeeds, yielding substantial profits.

Of course, you can argue that buying coins to participate is just a donation, with no one promising or expecting a return. However, regulatory enforcement penetrates the rhetoric and looks only at the essence. You expect the project party to work hard to build the project and turn it into a success that brings you substantial returns.

This is called the "Howey Test" in the United States. If the project tokens are tested and found to be an investment contract, that is, a security, then the issuance of the tokens becomes the illegal act of issuing securities.

Perhaps this explains why Ethereum established a foundation instead of a company.

Legally, a foundation is a company, but it is non-profit.

Why is it that the centralized entity, which seems non-profit in the traditional sense, is being pursued at all costs?

Because there is a point in the Howey test that states you expect to make a profit from the invested enterprise.

So, if this is a foundation, a non-profit organization with no profit, does it then not violate the Howey test standards?

In fact, this kind of play has long been an old routine for publicly listed companies on the internet. Have you not seen certain overseas listed internet giants, clearly very profitable, yet deliberately making their financial statements show losses, and calling it strategic losses? They aim to exchange business losses for excessive reinvestment, use excessive reinvestment for super high-speed growth, and achieve super high-speed growth to drive excessive increases in stock prices. Ultimately, they convert losses from domestic markets into soaring stock prices in overseas markets, thereby achieving the final goal of reducing domestic taxes and increasing overseas profits.

Behind them often stand the financial capital of Wall Street. In this mode of operation, listed companies have become the conduit for the great transfer of wealth, where the domestic demographic dividend and infrastructure dividend are not converted into the country's tax revenue and the people's welfare, but are instead transferred into the pockets of overseas shareholders, the company's founders, veterans, investors, and the financial capital of Wall Street.

It can be seen that the foundation model of web3 in its early years was merely a copy of the strategic loss tactics of web2, and with a non-profit foundation, it directly fixed the framework.

By the time meme coins develop to 2023-2024, the gameplay will have further upgraded.

Doesn't your Hao Wei test state that an investor's profit should come from the efforts of others (usually the project party)? I'll just be frank and say that the project party has no intention of putting in any effort at all!

How to prove that no effort was made? There is no project party.

Without the project party, no one is committed to putting in any effort.

Without effort, there will be no profits created through hard work.

Without profit, it is impossible to gain profit from the profits generated by the project.

Then this definitely does not conform to the definition of securities according to the Howey test.

So what is this thing? It's a speculative product that couldn't be more pure.

After Trump personally posted a Trump meme, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also solemnly issued a statement, saying that meme coins are really not securities!

Regarding this content, on one hand, you can revisit the article "Trump Meme Kicks Off Crazy 2025" from Jiao Lian on January 18, 2025, and on the other hand, you can review the Jiao Lian internal reference from February 28, 2025, titled "SEC Gives Trump a Ticket, Congress Helps Weld the Car Door Shut."

The retail investors are bewildered. Isn't this just exploiting a legal loophole? But they are indeed following the established rules of the game. In fact, the reason retail investors are considered retail investors is that they actually believe the scalpel is competing on the same level as themselves and fantasize about surviving, or even becoming rich, under the sharp harvest of the big scalpel.

The logic of capitalist rule of law is that the law stipulates that A, B, C, D cannot be used to exploit the interests of others, but if one innovates by using neither B nor D to exploit those interests and actually succeeds in doing so, then not only will he not be condemned, but he will also receive applause for his innovative and effective methods of exploitation.

Not a very impressive project, yet it chooses not to establish a foundation and instead lets the community form a so-called DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) to raise their hands in innocence – we really haven't been working hard for the project, project party, it's all voluntary contributions from the community.

Projects like Trump Meme, on the other hand, unreservedly use a company as the operating entity and project party. After all, they hold higher-tier bourgeois legal rights and can even modify legal statutes to pave the way for themselves.

Previously, the project parties who were being secretive and harvesting retail investors while waving the banner of decentralization have gradually begun to taste the flavor of this, as the big brother is about to lead everyone to go all out!

As a result, over the past six months, more and more blockchain project parties have been returning to centralized corporate structures, no longer shying away from the fact that there is a substantial centralized entity behind the project. They are even venturing into the traditional securities market and adopting traditional compliance financing operations.

This round of bull market has an even more high-end and exciting narrative for the retail investors: institutional bull.

Behind the noise, people may have long forgotten, or perhaps never cared, that BTC has never had any foundation, DAO, or company.

BTC has never had so-called governance, so why is there a need for a centralized entity to take on the responsibilities of governance?

It just keeps striving towards a more decentralized approach.

The slippery slope fallacy always occurs. When we accept a little bit of centralization, gradually, the entire project will slide towards centralization.

Perhaps, decentralization is not absolute, it is absolutely not decentralized.

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Wednesday, September 10, 2025, BTC stays around 111k. usdt 7.11, usd/cnh 7.13. The US dollar index continues to consolidate below 98 points. Gold is temporarily consolidating at a high after breaking through the historical high of $3600. ......

9.10 The Chain Reference contains about 2,500 words, main content: BTC remains at a high of $110,000, the US dollar index is flat while gold hits a historical high, expectations for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates are rising; the NPM supply chain attack failed, warning of encryption security risks, miners' selling pressure reappears but indicates a bullish market outlook; DAT treasury company's bubble is emerging, the profit transfer model of altcoins is under scrutiny; no wallet concept; etc.