A bustling yet vibrant marketplace— the third way beyond cathedrals and casinos.

Nurturing a noisy yet vibrant marketplace – the third path outside the cathedral and the casino
Today, while out, I happened to read “Don’t Let the Casino Devour the Cathedral.” Teacher Jocy wrote it exceptionally well; it’s the most relevant article I’ve read in 2026.
When I read the line mentioning, “Many Chinese teams only raised between five million to seven million dollars around 2023… such a runway barely supports two years, and now, they either lose reputation in the crypto industry or turn away,”
I felt a deep resonance inside.
I don’t know much about the specifics of other teams, but UniSat’s two rounds of financing completed in 2024 indeed fell roughly within this range; both in valuation and total financing, we have always remained restrained at a relatively conservative level. Compared to many Western projects that have valuations in the tens of billions and financing in the tens of millions, there’s hardly any comparability.
But our choice has always been clear: regardless of whether the market environment is cold or hot, we adhere to the low-power combat approach of “saving and enduring, with millet and rifles,” focusing long-term on high-quality, high-efficiency delivery, continuously addressing the team’s shortcomings in practice. From the very beginning, we never considered “turning away” as an option.
As Teacher Jocy pointed out, across the ocean, the reason the Crypto industry can continue to develop is largely due to the long-term, systematic, and tiered investments from generation to generation of industry pioneers – that is a truly “cathedral-like” construction path.
Conversely, the reality around us is often quite the opposite: talent is hard to retain, long-term visions are lacking, and the industry gradually degenerates into a game of existing resources; short-term profit-seeking intensifies, ultimately forming an irreversible vicious cycle. These phenomena are not isolated cases but are a true reflection of the current structural problems in the industry.
As the article states, “When Web3 is simplified into a giant casino, and the mainstream narrative of the industry degenerates from ‘changing the world’ into a pure wealth game, the best talent will vote with their feet.”
Even the most optimistic builders must admit: building a true “cathedral” has never been a matter of a day or two.
But the question is – if the cathedral is out of reach, should we only accept the path of the “big casino”?
I do not think so.
Between these two, there is actually a long-ignored third path.
Between “relying on massive continuous investment” and “constantly withdrawing and draining the swamp,” we can completely choose: to gradually build a low-power, noisy, yet vibrant – marketplace at a relatively low cost.
Those who have read “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” might smile knowingly. Yes, as long as the path is right, constructing a bustling, self-sustaining open-source marketplace does not necessarily require the exorbitant costs of building a magnificent cathedral.
The development path of open-source Linux, the evolution of the open-source AI model DeepSeek, and the open-source Bitcoin wallet and infrastructure UniSat (please allow me to shamelessly mention) all fundamentally follow similar logic.
Aside from “throwing money at building a cathedral,” we can also choose: to rely on and promote further open-source in the industry, allowing millions of independent developers to push their own small carts together to advance a thriving marketplace.
Diversity is precisely the source of prosperity.
A brick and a tile, driven by real demand, continuously patched and evolved in practice, an open-source marketplace may not be inferior in competitiveness and systemic robustness to a grand yet fragile centralized cathedral.
Furthermore, Vibe coding is significantly lowering the barriers for developers to customize and adapt existing open-source code. In my view, this resurgence of the open-source movement in the AI era is no longer merely an idealistic declaration of “not being part of the mundane,” but is evolving into a true “code equity” –
Everyone has the opportunity to transform their real needs into runnable, usable code.
And this is the best catalyst for nurturing a prosperous marketplace.
Small but continuous progress far outweighs ambitious yet disastrous forays.
Let’s encourage each other.