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

Nurturing a bustling yet vibrant marketplace—the third path beyond the cathedral and the casino
Today, while out and about, I happened to read the article “Don’t Let the Casino Devour the Cathedral.” Teacher Jocy wrote it exceptionally well; it is the most relevant article I’ve read in 2026.
When I read the part mentioning, “Many Chinese teams only raised five to seven million dollars around 2023… such a runway barely supports just over two years, and now, they either lose reputation in the crypto industry or turn away,”
I felt a deep resonance within.
I don’t know much about the specific situations of other teams, but the two rounds of financing completed by UniSat in 2024 were indeed roughly in this range. Both the valuation and total financing have consistently been kept at a relatively conservative level. Compared to many Western projects, which often have valuations in the tens of billions and financing in the tens of millions, there’s almost no comparability.
Yet 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 “tightening our belts and using small arms,” focusing long-term on high-quality and high-efficiency delivery, continuously addressing team shortcomings in practice. From the very beginning, we have never considered “turning away” as an option.
As Teacher Jocy pointed out, across the ocean, the sustained development of the Crypto industry is largely attributed to generations of industry pioneers’ long-term, systematic, and layered investments—this is a truly “cathedral-like” construction path.
In contrast, the reality around us is often the opposite: talent struggles to stay, long-term visions are lacking, and the industry gradually degenerates into a stock game; short-term profit-seeking intensifies, ultimately forming an irreversible vicious cycle. These phenomena are not isolated cases but a true reflection of the current structural problems in the industry.
As stated in the article: “When Web3 is simplified into a grand casino, and the mainstream narrative of the industry degenerates from ‘changing the world’ into a pure wealth game, the best talents will vote with their feet.”
Even the most optimistic builders must admit: building a true “cathedral” has never been an overnight endeavor.
But the question is—if the cathedral is out of reach, must we accept the path of the “grand casino”?
I don’t think so.
Between these two extremes, there actually exists a long-neglected third path.
Between “relying on large-scale, continuous investment” and “constantly withdrawing and over-exploiting,” we can completely choose: to gradually build a low-power, bustling yet vibrant—marketplace at a relatively low cost.
Those who have read “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” may have a knowing smile. Yes, as long as the path is right, constructing a lively, self-growing 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 (allow me to mention it shamelessly) essentially follow a similar logic.
Besides “using money to build a cathedral,” we can also choose: to rely on and promote further openness in the industry, allowing millions of independent developers to push their little carts together to drive a thriving marketplace forward.
Diversity is precisely the source of prosperity.
An open-source marketplace built brick by brick, driven by real demand, and continuously repaired and evolved in practice, may not be inferior in competitiveness and system robustness to a grand but fragile centralized cathedral.
Furthermore, Vibe coding is significantly lowering the barriers for developers to customize and adapt based on existing open-source code. In my view, the resurgence of this open-source movement in the AI era is no longer just an idealistic declaration of “not indulging in earthly matters,” but is evolving into a true form of “code equity”—
Everyone has the opportunity to translate 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 ventures.
Let’s encourage each other.