We need traders but we also need builders, and right now we are really balanced Speculation is an important form of capitalism, and it's really cool that retail gets to participate in capital formation now. This wasn't possible a decade ago But man, I want the culture of decentralized networks to be more balanced toward real meaningful stuff I want the future of Vitalik's blogposts, of Satoshi's whitepaper, a future where things are fair and free I am frustrated with the culture of crypto because the things people are speculating on just don't have a lot of substance But I know a lot of good people who trade because there is no job that could pay them more There is so much that is beautiful about crypto I have met so many devs who are free to just build after getting a good bag on the last hype cycle Many people call these devs extractors, and say they aren't doing enough to make number go up-- but they are doing what they promised they'd do, building things they'd love and think are valuable, filling the world with more cool shit, opening people's eyes to possibility We need balance between speculation and innovation If you want to bring the world on chain you actually have to bring the world on chain, not just a narrow slice of it that adheres to a certain subset of internet culture That means apps, games, reasons to come and stay and make friends and never leave I am a degen, too. I trade, I buy to support my friends and things I believe in It's hypocritical for me to shit on anyone trying to eat. I think I've come off that way after some frustration with how people have treated me and given me a hard time, but tbh if I had to hang with anyone, some lower class vibecoding AI crypto devs are almost certainly my people more than anyone else My dream is that those people can just do what they love and Claude jockey the next generation of apps into existence And those apps will be bigger and more ambitious The next Minecraft could be built here. The next Runescape. The next X. Capitalism works because you have people creating value and people consuming it, and you also have people taking risk and funding ventures to scale to deliver more value to consumers faster to compete But it stops working when you don't have a driver of value creation. The money pot has no engine to grow, so you just move the money back and forth. The winners are not the professional gamblers, but the card counters. Most of the money goes to bots in this scenario A better scenario is one where the things we buy actually generate value. The bots get a bit, but its a tiny amount compared to the value a single hit app will bring for everyone The reality is the production timelines to meet speculative needs was just not fast enough before, and projects would drag on for years without delivery But now you can build an app that makes decent MRR in a few weeks The meta wants to exist so so badly. I mean, this was the ai16z thesis. This was the ICM thesis. This is a baby that wants to be born. The launchpads are getting closer but it needs more. A collective belief that we CAN make these really big, valuable things that are built on our ideals of decentralization and are also just better products even for the web2 normies. This is now an achievable goal. In a world of slop the only thing left that is worth building is something real. In a world of memetics, invest in the memes that could become the next PayPal or Amazon. There won't be a lot, but there will be a few. Let's find balance. Let's find the builders. Let's build a culture that isn't shitting on everyone and calling everyone a scammer every time we lose a few bucks, but is investing long term in people who stick around and show you everything they are made of. I'll put my money where my mouth is. If I make any money on any creator fees or trades or anything, I'll put it right back into other builders and projects. Like Hyperscape. And Babylon. And soon a few others. I'm not here to extract. I fucking love building. When I ask if this person is going to scam me, I look at their portfolio, their Github history, etc. If they ship every day, I know they'd do it if they were rich or poor and I know it's a good investment. And that's how we make this whole thing real. That's how we bring the whole world on-chain. Good investments.(Shaw)