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

Nurturing a noisy but 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 Swallow the Cathedral.” Teacher Jocy wrote it very well; it’s 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 a little over two years, and now they have either lost their reputation in the crypto industry or turned 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 were indeed roughly within this range; both in terms of valuation and total financing, we have consistently kept it at a relatively conservative level. Compared to many Western projects with valuations in the tens of billions and financing in the tens of millions, there is almost no comparability.
But our choice has always been clear: regardless of whether the market environment is cold or hot, we insist on a low-power combat approach of “tightening our belts and being frugal,” focusing long-term on high-quality, high-efficiency delivery, and continuously addressing team shortcomings through practice. From the very beginning, we have never considered “turning away” as an option.
As Teacher Jocy pointed out, across the ocean, the continued development of the crypto industry largely benefits from the long-term, systematic, and hierarchical investments from generation to generation of industry pioneers—that is a true “cathedral-style” construction path.
In contrast, the reality around us is often quite the opposite: talent is hard to retain, long-term vision is lacking, and the industry is gradually degenerating into a game of existing resources; short-term profit-seeking is intensifying, ultimately forming an irreversible vicious cycle. These phenomena are not isolated cases but rather a true reflection of the current structural problems in the industry.
As stated in the article: “When Web3 is simplified into a giant casino, when the mainstream narrative of the industry degrades from ‘changing the world’ to purely a 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 only accept the path of the “big casino”?
I do not believe so.
Between these two, there is actually a long-ignored third path.
Between “relying on large-scale continuous investment” and “constantly withdrawing and exhausting resources,” 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” may already smile knowingly. Yes, as long as the path is correct, constructing a lively, self-growing open-source marketplace does not necessarily require the high 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 this with a bit of boldness) all essentially follow a similar logic.
Besides “throwing money to build a cathedral,” we can also choose: to rely on and promote further open sourcing in the industry as much as possible, allowing millions of independent developers to push their little carts together to drive a thriving marketplace forward.
Diversity is precisely the source of prosperity.
A brick and a tile, driven by real demand, continuously repaired and evolved in practice, an open-source marketplace may not be inferior in competitiveness and systemic robustness to a grand but 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 open-source movement, which is making a comeback in the AI era, is no longer just an idealistic declaration of “not being part of the mundane world,” 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 rushes.
Let’s encourage each other.