Nurturing a bustling yet vibrant marketplace—the third way beyond cathedrals and casinos

Nurturing a lively yet vibrant marketplace—A third path beyond cathedrals and casinos

Today, I went out and happened to read an article titled “Don’t Let Casinos Consume the Cathedrals.” Teacher Jocy wrote it very well. Among the articles I read in 2026, this one feels the most relevant to reality.

When I read the part mentioning “Many Chinese teams raised only five to seven million dollars around 2023… such a runway just supports a little over two years. Now, either they have lost reputation in the crypto industry or they have turned away,” I felt a strong resonance inside.

I don’t know much about the specific situations of other teams, but UniSat’s two funding rounds in 2024 were indeed roughly within this range. Whether in valuation or total funding, we have always kept a relatively conservative level. Compared to many Western projects valued in the billions of dollars and raising tens of millions, there’s almost no comparison.

But our choice has always been clear: regardless of whether the market environment is cold or hot, we adhere to a frugal, “small steps, rifle” low-power combat approach, focusing on high-quality, efficient delivery over the long term, continuously addressing team shortcomings through practice. From the very beginning, we never considered “pulling out” as an option.

As Teacher Jocy pointed out, the reason why the crypto industry can continue to develop across the ocean is largely due to successive generations of industry pioneers investing long-term, systematically, and in layers—this is a true “cathedral-style” construction path.

In contrast, the reality around us often shows the opposite: talent is hard to retain, long-term vision is lacking, and the industry gradually degenerates into a stock game; short-term greed intensifies, ultimately forming an irreversible vicious cycle. These phenomena are not isolated cases but a true reflection of current industry structural issues.

As the article states: “When Web3 is reduced to a big casino, and the mainstream narrative shifts from ‘changing the world’ to pure wealth gaming, the best talents will vote with their feet.”

Even the most optimistic builders have to admit: building a true “cathedral” has never been a one-day effort.

But the problem is—if the cathedral is out of reach, do we have to accept the path of the “big casino”?

I don’t think so.

Between these two, there is actually a long-overlooked third way.

Between “relying on large-scale continuous investment” and “constantly withdrawing and fishing in dried-up ponds,” we can choose: to gradually build a low-power, lively, yet thriving—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 vibrant, self-growing open-source marketplace doesn’t necessarily require the high costs of building a magnificent cathedral.

The development path of open-source Linux, the evolution of open-source AI models like DeepSeek, and the open-source Bitcoin wallets and infrastructure like UniSat (please forgive me for mentioning it shamelessly) all follow similar logic in essence.

Besides “spending money to build a cathedral,” we can also choose to rely on and promote further open-source efforts in the industry, allowing millions of independent developers to push their small carts together, advancing a flourishing marketplace.

Diversity and variety are precisely the sources of prosperity.

A patchwork of real needs, driven by actual demand, constantly repaired and evolved through practice, an open-source marketplace may not be inferior in competitiveness and system robustness to the grand yet fragile centralized cathedrals.

Furthermore, Vibe coding is significantly lowering the barriers for developers to customize and modify existing open-source code. In my view, the resurgence of open-source in the AI era is no longer just an idealistic declaration of “out of this world,” but evolving into a true “code equality”—everyone has the opportunity to turn their real needs into runnable, usable code.

And this is the best catalyst for nurturing a prosperous marketplace.

Small but continuous progress far surpasses ambitious but disastrous ventures.

Let’s work together.