Ethereum Is Retracing the Path of the Internet and Linux: No One Yields, and the Neutral Party Ultimately Prevails
This article argues that Ethereum is following the historical path of open, neutral systems like the Internet and Linux, which eventually triumphed over proprietary, centrally-controlled alternatives. Major financial institutions like JPMorgan, Stripe, and Circle are building their own proprietary blockchains or networks (e.g., Tempo, Arc), but will never agree to build on a competitor's controlled infrastructure. This creates the perfect opportunity for Ethereum as the only neutral, credibly neutral settlement layer that no single entity controls.
The piece draws parallels to the 1990s, when experts like Bill Gates predicted proprietary networks (from Microsoft, Oracle) would win over the open Internet, and when Sun Microsystems' Unix lost to the open-source "bazaar" development model of Linux. This model, described in Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," thrives on permissionless innovation where countless contributors improve the system, outpacing any centralized competitor.
Ethereum embodies this through its decentralized development, broad validator distribution, and credible neutrality—rules that are transparent, equally applied, hard to change, and open to all. This has attracted over a million developers and major institutions like Coinbase, BlackRock, and JPMorgan, who choose Ethereum for its security, ecosystem, and sovereignty (the inability of any single party to change the rules). While proprietary chains offer initial speed and control, they inherit the downsides of both centralization and decentralization without the long-term innovation benefits. The article concludes that, just as open systems historically win, Ethereum is poised to become the foundational, neutral settlement layer for global finance.
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