I’ve been repeatedly thinking about the fundamental question of what the crypto world is really about. To be honest, it’s a bit pessimistic—but maybe it’s precisely because of that pessimism that it’s worth having a serious conversation.

In the past few years at Wintermute, I’ve watched the industry slowly slide from idealism into real-world compromises. On the surface, institutions have come in, and the technology is being used—but that sense of soul has disappeared. It feels like we forgot why we’re here in the first place.

It reminds me of a core viewpoint from *Dune*: for humanity to survive, the only way is diversification. The book has a concept of a “Golden Path”—first, putting humanity in a set of stable restraints, and once those restraints are gone, humanity will come to hate any form of centralization from deep within its bones. The metaphor is so precise. We’re naturally inclined to build empires, but the bigger the empire gets, the more miserable the collapse. History just keeps repeating itself: chaos → self-organization → empire → collapse.

Right now, there are three paths in front of us. First: traditional finance absorbs cryptocurrencies—stablecoins become widespread, enterprise chains get KYC, and Bitcoin turns into “digital gold,” monopolized by governments and institutions. No matter how advanced the technology is, we completely lose. Second: it’s purely a fantasy—governments can’t possibly give up sovereignty, and casinos can’t just open up on Solana whenever they want.

That leaves only the third path: building a system parallel to the existing ones, something completely independent. My thinking at Wintermute over these years has been centered on that direction.

The most painful part is that the regulatory crackdown from 2022 to 2024, along with the collapse of centralized institutions, should have taught us to fight harder for freedom. Instead, we started thinking that as long as we put the right people in the right positions, we could win. That’s far too naive.

We’ve complained for years about poor user experience, Bitcoin being inconvenient, and hacking incidents happening constantly. But what if these inconveniences are exactly the cost that sovereignty demands? We should target that 50% who truly need sovereignty—people in developing countries whose lives are controlled by their governments, and also developed countries that are increasingly becoming like China and Russia, passing anti-privacy laws.

The core isn’t fighting regulation. It’s creating something they fundamentally can’t control. What does that mean? Embracing permissionless protocols, truly DAO governance, not relying on centralized stablecoins, and protecting privacy. Algorithmic stablecoins should be great again—we’re just too obsessed with Ponzi models. The way of thinking behind DAI and UST is correct; the mistake was adding USDC and unsustainable returns.

The ending of *Dune* is “dispersal”—humanity scattering and fleeing into the void. We should also fall apart, and remember the lesson. While it’s impossible to fully escape into a parallel crypto world right now, at least we can start building something, so that people in the future have a place to escape to.

Only the tools that can be used to escape are worth building. Someday, when cryptocurrencies are no longer hot, they should still be able to exist unaffected by outside forces. Wintermute’s mission is to participate in that process—not to help the empire run faster.

Most people will choose to coexist with the empire, and that’s perfectly normal. But a small group of people who truly care about freedom will create an exit—reclaiming what we’ve thrown away.