Author: brother bing / Bing Xiong, Co-founder of MegaETH
Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews
After experiencing the Middle East conflict and witnessing the shock of missiles flying across the sky, the author gained new insights into the underlying relationship between "technology and civilization." The article starts with the technical details of the war, pointing out that technology is often just an "amplifier" of the direction of civilization, and from this, it reflects on the internal contradictions in the current Crypto field. The author calls on crypto natives to rediscover the original cyberpunk spirit, reject merely catering to the "legitimacy" of traditional finance, and recommit to building infrastructure with true sovereign significance.
Full text as follows:
I wrote and published this article after crossing the border between the UAE and Oman. The entire border process took about an hour and was incredibly smooth.
Over the past 48 hours, I have been utterly shocked by the technology involved in this war. This is the first time in my life I have seen missiles with my own eyes and watched interception systems destroy them mid-air. I also came across some surreal, geeky, and even bizarre details, such as reports that Israel hacked a prayer app to send messages to Iranians.
I have always worked in the tech industry, but this is my first firsthand experience with defense systems, and it gave me a new perspective on the relationship between "technology and civilization." Technology can create an illusion that it can upgrade civilization; but in reality, it only amplifies the predetermined direction of civilization, much like leveraged trading. (Don’t despair just yet!) Allow me to explain.
Technology is an amplifier of civilizational cycles
In healthy upward cycles of civilization, technology acts as a booster for productivity and a tool for coordination. The early internet felt exactly like that. I still remember using various forums 17 years ago in Beijing when applying to American universities: strangers selflessly shared advice, essays, and strategies. Back then, concepts like "closed APIs" were virtually nonexistent.
But in downward cycles, technology becomes something else. It becomes a weapon for争夺注意力 (and sometimes even a lethal weapon!). My 60-year-old parents are more prone to getting addicted to browsing negative videos than I am, and many of my millennial friends are deeply worried about their parents’ state. The same internet that once gave us open knowledge is now nurturing algorithmic addiction.
This framework很好地 explains the sense of wariness many crypto natives feel today. It feels like cryptocurrency was invented precisely for the world we are in now, yet everyone is disappointed.
So, what happened?
Many industry OGs have already discussed how we’ve forgotten the crypto-punk spirit or gotten too close to TradFi, so I won’t elaborate here. I just want to offer two thoughts.
Cryptocurrency was never meant to be just an asset class from the start. As Evgeny wrote in The Golden Path, cryptocurrency was supposed to be a parallel system, a way to重构金融 with fewer boundaries, lower coordination costs, and flexible exit mechanisms.
Then, things shifted. "Legitimacy" was handed to us, and it came almost too easily. Once people got a taste of legitimacy, they wanted more. Technology, as an amplifier, naturally seeks the path of least resistance, which is to integrate with existing power structures to further consolidate this legitimacy.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with bringing institutions into blockchain infrastructure. But at some point in this process, we quietly abandoned many of our original dreams. I find myself thinking back more and more often to those early use cases: small-scale experiments in uncollateralized lending, tontine-like structures, or even better ways to save and exchange across borders.
These use cases are just too boring. They don’t make headlines, let alone drive token hype. In the race to maximize attention and valuation, these niche but structurally significant ideas were marginalized.
Stablecoins perfectly embody this paradox. They realize the vision of "internet money," but often only as a better wrapper for sovereign currency, rather than a structurally independent monetary system. By the way, Mega is also absolutely culpable in this regard. We still have a long way to go.
In my view, many of today’s successful cases should be called "blockchain," not "cryptocurrency." If the goal is merely to be middleware for traditional finance, that’s fine. But we should call it by its honest name. Backend integration does not equal radical innovation.
Price was never the real reason for everyone’s disappointment. The sad reality is that between "what we can build" and "what we choose to build," we chose wrong.
War and the启示 for Crypto Natives
Back to the original topic: what did this war teach me about crypto natives?
If we zoom out, civilizations indeed have cycles. As a Chinese person, I grew up hearing stories about the rise and fall of dynasties. But in all those tales of emperors, generals, and rebels, what ultimately shines through is individual will.
I don’t know how else to say it, but crypto natives will never win by being "likable."
The reason we achieved some success initially was because we constantly identified the flaws in the old system and criticized them publicly. Yet somehow, those anti-establishment voices were suppressed during the development process.
In a downward cycle, it’s easy to let technology amplify financialization, market manipulation, and superficial growth. It’s much harder to use technology to quietly build those seemingly boring infrastructures that expand true sovereignty.
However, builders can still choose which incentives to encode. Founders can still decide which use cases to prioritize. More importantly, the community can still choose which values to defend.
If the social mood drifts toward insecurity and a search for validation, technology will amplify that insecurity. But if enough people deliberately anchor themselves to long-term structures, to coordination tools rather than attention traps, then leverage can still work in our favor.
My decision to cross the border into Oman was not approved by many friends. They told me it was chaotic there, that the border openings were unpredictable, and that I’d better stay put. However, if I hadn’t gone to see for myself, I wouldn’t have known if these claims were true (and Dubai is quite comfortable for most people, including me). It turned out that the border was very quiet, almost empty, and the whole process was very easy.
The world is not偏向 us at the moment, but in the long run, it is likely to be in our favor.
For us crypto natives, it’s never too late to reposition ourselves, to verify things firsthand, to choose to do the right thing, and, in the most cliché terms—to forge a parallel path.
As my favorite YouTuber says: You might have a very sharp knife, but if the person holding it is a coward, nothing will happen. Let’s sharpen the knife even more. Let’s not be cowards.
