Ethereum's Spirit - The Daily Gwei #181
You can't break a spirit forged in fire.
Ethereum has had a lot of “competition” over the years from many different types of platforms. So far, Ethereum has been able to comfortably knock all of them back and I think this is in large part due to what I like to call the “Ethereum spirit”.
As banteg notes above, Ethereum is incredibly alluring to builders because of its credible neutrality - that is, you can build whatever you want, whenever you want and plug into an extremely healthy and vibrant ecosystem. On top of this, of course, you get to plug into the “Ethereum spirit”. The way I would describe this spirit is that the Ethereum community is extremely aligned on the values that it holds dear - that is, not sacrificing decentralization, building applications that actually enrich people’s lives, fostering an inclusive culture for anyone & everyone and generally working towards a better future for the world.
As I’ve argued before, community is the moat when it comes to blockchains and Ethereum has the strongest community by far. The critical thing to remember about communities is that they cannot be bought and must emerge organically over time. Sure, during times of market mania, a “community” will form around certain platforms because the token price is going up but real and lasting communities are forged in bear markets - not bull markets. You can just go back and look at all of the 2017-era Ethereum competitors that had a loud following during the mania but completely disappeared during the bear market.
I believe this spirit is also what attracts the best and brightest builders into Ethereum. These builders come from all over but the best ones want to build something that has a big impact and actually has a chance of changing the world. The ones that come from the web2 ecosystem don’t want to settle for building on some centralized chain with no users - they want to build for and be part of a vibrant community of like-minded individuals - this is exactly what Ethereum offers them.
If you’ve been around in the Ethereum community for a while you would’ve seen its spirit many times yourself but I think during these crazy and noisy times it’s always worth reiterating what makes Ethereum special. As much as some people like to ignore it, the “layer 0” of all of these systems will always be people and those people imprint their values on the systems that they build.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.