The victory of the grassroots. Web3 is the biggest platform for the masses.

The Triumph of the People Web3 as the Ultimate Platform for the Masses

Author: Xiao Yan

Recently, whether it’s on WeChat Moments, Weibo, or Twitter, there’s always this saying that perpetuates the “truth”:
This world is made up of grassroots organizations.

“It wasn’t until I started working that I realized we’re all just grassroots. The government is grassroots, businesses are grassroots, and even I am grassroots. We all struggle to make a living. An organization may look like a luxury car speeding down the highway, but inside, it’s just a few people pedaling a bicycle with a fancy shell on top. All the cars on the road are like this, and nobody wants to burst that bubble.”

These words, transcribed in my notebook years ago, are truly intangible cultural heritage. I recommend everyone memorize the entire passage.

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When did you realize the truth about the “grassroots” nature of this world?

We’ve had Li Guoqing snatching official seals from his ex-wife, wearing them everywhere like they’re his own organs.

Then there was the notorious internal power struggle in a blockchain company, with both sides fighting over the business license.

Oh, and there was a trio of two women and one man who forged the official seal of a chili sauce company, successfully deceiving Tencent into providing them with free advertising for a year. All they wanted was a redemption code for QQ Speed.

In the constantly magical world of crypto, this year we’ve gained a more direct understanding of the “grassroots” nature of things, as humorously tweeted by 321 DAO at X:

I’ve been watching FTX’s hearing for a while now, and I’ve come to fully appreciate the fact that, despite their grand image, they’re just a bunch of grassroots folks in reality.

• They loaned themselves billions of dollars and cashed out;
• They randomly set insurance premiums using generated numbers;
• They casually embezzle client funds as if it’s the norm;
• They buy and sell recklessly, acting on whims.

In 2021, many believed that Wall Street would take over the crypto sphere, and FTX and DCG were once mythologized. But the myth shattered, revealing their true nature. FTX and DCG are grassroots organizations, and so are Terra and 3AC. Who in the crypto world isn’t a grassroots?

However, in my opinion, “grassroots” is not entirely derogatory. It’s a kind of disillusionment. The world is not as refined as it seems, and so-called big organizations are not as “grand” as perceived. In reality, it’s all about “one person carrying the beam, a group of people constructing the scaffold.”

Recently, after reading the biography of Musk, my biggest realization is that TESLA and SLianGuaiCEX are also grassroots organizations, with Musk as the head of the grassroots.

If there’s a problem with SLianGuaiCEX, Musk fires the executives and takes charge himself. If he thinks traditional aerospace materials like carbon fiber are too expensive, he boldly suggests, “How about trying stainless steel?” And it turns out to be pretty effective.

During the final check the day before a rocket launch, the SLianGuaiceX team discovered two small cracks on the skirt edge of the second stage engine.

Everyone at NASA thought the launch would be delayed by a few weeks, as in general, the entire engine would be replaced in this kind of situation.

Musk came up with another crazy idea, “What if we just cut off the cracked skirt edge?” The rocket successfully completed its launch mission the next day as planned.

In terms of management, Musk also follows the principle of “doing things unconventionally.” Whenever Tesla encounters problems, Musk brings in people from SLianGuaiceX, and immediately after acquiring Twitter, he laid off 80% of the staff, directly bringing in dozens of people from SLianGuaiceX and Tesla to work at Twitter.

As a $44 billion global company, even Twitter is like this, let alone others. “Looks shiny, but mediocre on the inside” may be the norm.

As for the cryptocurrency market, it is the biggest stage for grassroot players. Most of the well-known figures in the crypto community now were once people who had experienced setbacks.

The founder of OKEX, Xu Mingxing, had his first entrepreneurial endeavor with a group-buying website called “WanTuanWang,” which ended in failure. His second attempt was co-founding DouDing.com with a friend, but the performance declined significantly, and Xu Mingxing left the company. He even tried running a food delivery business, but after several months of consecutive losses, the venture failed again.

It wasn’t until Xu Mingxing watched the American TV series “The Good Wife” in its third season that he came across a word he had never seen before in the line “bitcoin is the future, real is gonna change”: Bitcoin.

Li Lin had a rough time in the social network industry. His creation “Friendship Website” ended hastily, and he later explored O2O and Internet finance fields before going all in with Huobi.

Prior to founding Binance, CZ was merely a small player in the Shanghai capital circle. During the early stages of Binance, fundraising was not going smoothly, and in the end, CZ slapped many investment giants in the face.

In 2009, while the aftermath of the financial crisis was still lingering, Wu Jihan, who graduated from Peking University, did not go to large investment banks or commercial banks like his classmates. Instead, he joined a small investment firm to do venture capital until he encountered bitcoin in 2011.

Beijing once also had a gathering place for the crypto community, hidden at the end of Zhongguancun Entrepreneurial Street, known as Garage Cafe.

Zhao Dong, as a co-founder of Moji Weather, left Moji Weather after internal conflicts among the founders and came to Garage Cafe to work as a CTO. It was here that he met Wu Gang and other early Chinese players who had the first contact with bitcoin. They gathered in a community called “Peace Hotel”.

At Garage Cafe, you can occasionally see an “English teacher” preaching about Bitcoin. This is none other than the famous Li Xiaolai. Many OGs in the crypto circle bought Bitcoin at a few hundred yuan per coin because of Li Xiaolai’s teachings. He truly lives up to the name of a teacher.

In 2013, Bao Er, who used to sell beef in Shanxi, encountered a bottleneck in his business. He came to Garage Cafe to seek advice on how to better sell beef and unexpectedly learned about Bitcoin. Later, he built the world’s largest mining farm in Inner Mongolia.

The Chinese community is like this, and the Western community is no exception.

In 2013, Arthur Hayes was laid off by Citigroup. He then shuttled between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, engaging in arbitrage, and after making his first big fortune, he founded BitMEX, the once-largest crypto derivative platform.

In 2017, Hayden Adams, still a mechanical engineer, was laid off by Siemens. Without programming experience, Hayden self-taught the Solidity programming language and, inspired by Vitalik’s blog, created Uniswap, which kicked off the DeFi Summer with an Automated Market Maker (AMM).

Once we asked an investor who invested in multiple crypto unicorns about his secret. He bluntly said, “No one else wanted to invest, so it had to be me.”

Bitcoin gradually entered the public eye thanks to the arrogance of the elites and the efforts of the disheartened. “Invisible,” “disdain,” “incomprehensible,” and “too late” are all truths.

There’s a commonly used saying by Romain Rolland: “There is only one kind of heroism in the world, to love life after understanding its true nature.”

To understand the true nature of the world’s backstage rulers is not for self-consolation, tranquility, or mediocrity. It is to suddenly awaken, be full of fighting spirit, and realize that since we are all “backstage rulers,” no one is nobler than anyone else, and we all have opportunities.

The world is a massive backstage, and we can all dance on the stage.

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