I've got a news flash for some folks who seem to have their connotations mixed up. Hey people, just because a protocol isn't controlled by the devs who originally created it doesn't automatically mean it's decentralized. Protocols that simply transfer control from a dev team to a small whale group are no benefit to moving forward the idea of decentralized finance.

What we are unfortunately finding is that people who are in control of things tend to act the same way. So I have to back away from all these LBRY libertarians who put out videos decrying the detached ramblings of Klaus Schwab and the insidious plans of Bill Gates. I have no evidence to show that anyone, given that same amount of power, would act differently. I've therefore stopped caring about hating on the names that I see who are supposedly ruining the world. I no longer hate Jerome Powell and Børge Brende. You, Jimbo Joe reading this, would behave the same way in the same position.

Bird Lovers Build Birdhouses

Keep in mind I don't blame Jimbo Joe for his weakness, either. Very few human animals are ascended enough to get past personal problems and behave in a truly humanitarian way. Regardless of the tool set we as a human race receive right now, and crypto is a great tool, we're going to build the same structures if we hold to the same philosophy. Give a bird lover a hammer and some wood, and he'll probably build a birdhouse. Give him a power saw and some steel, he'll probably build a steel birdhouse.

This is a sad state of affairs considering the towering example Satoshi gave to us. Moreover, the whales who benefitted from his creation should be the most adamant defenders of and adherents to the decentralization of finance and rebirth of personal sovereignty. They're not, and I think I know why.

The Rise of $chan

My theory is that most of the folks who got rich off bitcoin in 2017 fit one of two profiles:

1. trust fund yuppies, and
2. hikikomori 4channers.

The yuppies could go in on the speculative crypto industry early because they were playing with daddy's money, and they aren't doing much of anything to move the space forward. We won't talk about them now.

Shut in 4channers received word of bitcoin early and had an edge on the technical side of things, being on the computer without a date all day and night. 4chan became $chan after the 2017 mania, and a whole lot of people with a grudge against the world now have the resources and leverage to exact some revenge. COVID closing the world didn't do much for people who need sunlight, either.

Getting money, virtual or not, also showcases the fact that money doesn't solve anything. A shut in with money probably isn't going to invest that money in reorganizing his psychology and educating his social intellect. He will lash out at anyone who wasn't in his circle before, because now he's the Klaus Schwab of whatever protocol he decides to move into. Not only that, but he can use his technical edge to take advantage of bugs and completely turn the tables on a world that was unfair to him, performing unethical actions to take people's money when bugs present themselves.

What a position to be in, and I honestly don't blame them for taking revenge rather than imitating Satoshi. (Why do you think we only have 12% of Beacon Chain's ether in place? No one is looking out for the community.) But what this means is that decentralization now is just putting control into the hands of another central entity — one with a grudge against the rest of us.

Humanity Hasn't Changed Its Stripes

As a direct result of who's got the money, and the fact that projects haven't figured out how to have truly fair distributions, we're going to have the same kind of inequality in crypto as we have in traditional finance (tradfi). It'll just be $channers implementing the oppression rather than a cabal of elites. And then the elites will hit the killswitch on the projects and take all of the power back, and we're back to square one. If we are going to create a new financial structure and not just make a few people rich, humanity has to fundamentally change its stripes.

We must become less selfish, and this change must start with the whales. It has to — no one else has the leverage. So this is my appeal to those weekend libertarians who have become rich off of the completely unselfish and honestly socialist philosophy of Satoshi:

• Invest your newfound riches in improving your social life. Hire a dating coach and use your spare time to get involved in a charity or a church. Once you begin to interact with people more successfully, your wealth will become a resource to live a better life rather than make other people's lives miserable. Now that you can afford help, get it. See a shrink. Experiment with a life coach.
• Don't take a significant amount of governance in a project that you really don't care about. Each successful truly decentralized project makes the entire crypto ecosystem stronger. You're helping the world become more unselfish and fair.
• Call out selfish whales who are behaving like tradfi oligarchs. If we create a culture of caring for our neighbors and protecting true decentralization, there's very little that enemy governments can do to destroy crypto.

That's just my two satoshis. We'll see if humanity can actually shift its focus or if we're just going to give our humanitarian gains right back to the system that crypto was made to challenge.