The Sovereign Stack

big release today, which, among other things: ❐ adds media and file sharing to messages, including video attachments, voice message playback with transcriptions, and arbitrary file uploads (along with a storage capacity indicator during uploads) ❐ adds new admin controls for revoking unclaimed invites, pinning messages to channel headers, and managing settings through a new Channel Info screen.

More playing to the base. This kind of cypherpunk vagueposting is precisely why people were so incensed at the EF in 2025 and what led to the EF leadership shakeup. Sorry, but of COURSE Ethereum needs to compete. Of COURSE it needs to attract institutions. Of COURSE it needs to attract entrepreneurs. Of COURSE it needs to attract buyers. There is no glory in virtuously becoming irrelevant. You either meet users where they're at, or you eventually become Urbit. This is classic motte and bailey nonsense. To be clear: there's nothing wrong with the content of the Mandate. It's stuff the EF has said before many times, and nobody disagrees with the values of neutrality and free exit and so on. But the question is the same as it is with all marketing: why are you saying this now? Right as Tomasz exited the EF, as the drumbeat of the last year has been toward more focus on pragmatism and shipping and supporting builders, suddenly this 40 page screed that embraces "going slower"? Obviously in the last year there's been great progress! We've all lauded that. But it's always at risk of backsliding, because this tension doesn't just exist in the public conversation, it also exists within the EF. And the voices pushing back against it in public are also essential to the conversation happening internally. The fact that people are reacting this way to this document should tell you something. And it's not "fuck the greedy capitalists, they have nothing to say to us virtuous decentralization warriors." If you value decentralization, you should value your critics too.

The fatigue and frustration is very real…

> you open a website > it says: "click all the traffic lights" > it takes you 10 seconds > 200 million people do this every day > you weren't passing a security check > you were labeling training data for a self-driving car > google acquires recaptcha in 2009 > deploys it on every bank, store, and government site on earth > turns the entire internet into an unpaid AI annotation factory > waymo is now worth $45 billion > you didn't pass the test. you built it.

Sharia Law is not compatible with Western civilization.