Hey Tezos community - this post is written directly to you - artists, bakers, DeFi folks, organizers and fans - all the great folks that I've had the honor and privilege of having worked and interacted with over the last few years. We've been through a lot haven't we?
As you probably already are aware, the markets are going through a rough time right now and there's been a lot of changes going on that has been affecting the ecosystem as a whole. It's not just Tezos, but Web3 ecosystems and tech as a whole isn't in a good place at the moment - and you can see that reflected in the massive layoffs that are going on, seemingly every week.
People who know my story know that since 2018 or so, I've been living off of my crypto investments since and poured much of that into my startup, teia.cafe. We were initially looking to raise funds in order to build much-needed infrastructure related to NFTs on Tezos (an "open source" startup - pretty rare now but it is something that used to happen more often in earlier years of crypto), but since we weren't able to convince anyone of its worth this cycle, I've been basically paying out of pocket to keep the development work going all this time.
I treated my participation here as my job - I checked the charts every day, attended as many events as I could (both online and off), listened to what the community was looking for (not just artists, but on the tech side as well), and tried to build features and products that reflected what the ecosystem really stood for - transparency, distributed systems, checks and balances of power - all of which are the most clearly reflected in TEIA right now, even beyond just the art.
I sold off all my coin holdings on other chains, went all in on Tezos. I even sold off my original cryptopunk (8973) to generate some cash, but the reality is that given the markets right now, that time is running very short. To keep this going, I would need any one of these things to happen over the next few months:
- Price of Tezos goes back up
- Costs of living in the US goes down (everyone's feeling the "squeeze" here)
- Someone funds us to keep this work going (we've been working way below market-rate up until now, btw)
- Signs that the Web3 world is starting to revert back to its open-source roots
- Signs that artists are "ready" to take their career paths into their own hands (blockchain comes with autonomy, but with more freedom, more responsibility)
- AI collapses, liquidity flows back into decentralized systems as a reaction to the centralization of AI
- I'll have to get a job
So far none of those things have happened so the last option is what it's going to be in a few months unless something changes significantly in the ecosystem itself. It's getting into crunch time, at least for us.
This is a neither goodbye or a threat of my exit (I can't stand people who do that, honestly), btw - I still have significant amounts invested in the ecosystem and the main reason I'm thinking of transitioning is because I don't want to have to touch my nest egg, whom I still see as very valuable. It's just that it might take longer than I originally thought, and underestimated how vulnerable the tech industry would be to the powers-that-be trying to freeze time into place. The problem with tech right now isn't that it's moving too fast, but that it's moving too slow - for my taste, anyway.
But in the meantime, I gotta figure out a way to eat. The Japanese have a saying "背に腹は代えられぬ", which translates into "your back cannot replace your belly", which I think is pretty apt for what's going on in the Web3 world right now. Pride? Social status? Ego? Those things haven't been a thing for a while - in crypto, anyway.
So the next few months we are pushing some features into TEIA that would hopefully lead to the groundwork for great things to come:
- Blockchain-based messaging (done)
- Multisig controlled admin/moderation systems (including this blog)
- Blockchain-based calendars and events systems
- Blockchain-based stats and transaction tracking
This takes care of all of the basics - Who, What, When Where - and at some point, we might get to the Whys, which the industry still struggles to give a clear answer for, even at the highest of levels. But I think this gives TEIA a good foundation to start from, on which great things can be built. This kind of thing is only possible here on TEIA - here on Tezos - because it's one of the few crypto projects left that haven't completely abandoned the original values that the blockchain stood for.
I'm going to be focused on making Tezcon Seattle 2026 (7/11) the best it can be, but I'm also keeping my expectations realistic: one event isn't going to change things in the long run - it has to be a whole movement, a new direction of sorts - that grows on its own. It could happen very quickly with the right circumstance - or it might take as long as one generation to reach its full potential - it's hard to tell right now, especially with all of the chaos around the world itself. We'll see.
I have no regrets about any of what went down so far, just to be clear. There were a lot of good times (and a lot more to come) and real successes over the last few years - not to say that mistakes weren't made, but that is something that just comes with the territory so I don't see it as a big deal. Remember: Life Isn't Personal. A lot of drama could be avoided if most people just took that idea to heart, imo.
Anyway, as a last thought, I have an action item: If you want to see TEIA become the next big thing to happen in tech, there is one thing you can do: just use it. Now that the prices are down the features on here should be very cheap to use. But we are keeping track of the metrics now (only on-chain metrics...Zir0h is very adamant about not doing any tracking on users) and every transaction on-site gives us a stronger argument as to why this community is important and needs to be sustained.
This helps artists, the TEIA team, the collectors, the developers, the bakers, the DeFi folks, Tezos itself, and...me, too. (As me and Joe are now the resident TEIA dev experts at this point.) Honestly, we should had this done years ago when the resources and engagement was there, but hindsight is 20/20 and it is what it is. But better late than never, right? Other places are never going to get to the promised land because that was never their destination to begin with.