Once, the gods kept fire for themselves. It was power and control. It was a divine privilege. But Prometheus stole that flame and gave it to humans. Not just to keep warm, but to learn to create, to explore, to think. It was the first technological act of disobedience.

And the punishment?

Eternal. Because whoever challenges the monopoly of power always pays the price.

From fire to the printing press and from code to decentralization, history repeats itself in new forms. Gutenberg gave knowledge to the many. Alan Turing paved the way for the thinking machine. Tim Berners-Lee designed the World Wide Web without patents. The list of those who brought the fire goes on. Every time a technology of power becomes accessible, something shifts in the world. The world simply doesn’t realize it right away. Blockchain is the next chapter in this story, because it is a technology that asks for no permission, no intermediaries.

In its deepest form, blockchain is a trust system without supervision. Just as fire liberated humanity from darkness, blockchain seeks to free us from the systemic monologue — the banks, the states, the platforms.

You don’t need to be “approved” to open a wallet. You don’t need to be “verified” to participate. There is no ban button. This is revolutionary but it is also dangerous because just like fire can warm, it can also destroy.

,Not everything is romantic. When the fire of blockchain was lit, the reckless came running. We saw scams, bubbles, exploitation — and we will see them again. People haven’t changed, only the tools have. Sam Bankman-Fried promised a new financial ethic. He built FTX, it collapsed. Do Kwon’s Terra built bridges out of thin air. Then it exploded, taking everything with it. How many more “saviors” have burned by the very fire they brought?

But this does not invalidate blockchain. It burns, it purifies, it redefines. Like every revolution, the first fire is never the final one. The power of blockchain is not in its code. It lies in who gets to write code, to propose, to participate.

• A kid in Indonesia can sell their art as an NFT without opening a bank account. An artist in Colombia can reach a global audience directly, without galleries or middlemen.

• A researcher at a university in India can publish results on-chain, ensuring transparency and access even if the system ignores him.

• A kid in Brazil can play a Web3 game and gain ownership of in-game items they can sell, trade, or use.

• A coffee collective in Honduras can use NFTs to track the origin of their products and sell premium batches without going through supermarket chains.

• A teacher in Kenya can upload educational material to Arweave and ensure it will never be deleted.

• A developer in Thailand can build smart contracts and get paid in stablecoins by a European DAO, without contracts or visas.

• A community in Argentina can store value in stablecoins without needing permission from their government.

• An activist can receive direct funding, without going through the walls of censorship.

These aren’t just use cases. They are proof that this fire gives you the ability to create in conditions that used to only allow survival.

There is not just one Prometheus today. There are many.

• Kevin Owocki, who launched Gitcoin, the leading platform for public funding of open-source Web3 projects.

• Aya Miyaguchi, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, who champions growth through ethics, education, and global reach.

• Julian Assange, who paid the price for informational freedom, and whose liberation is now supported by AssangeDAO.

• Griff Green, who is building communities of digital generosity through Giveth and the Commons Stack.

• Juan Benet, who gave Web3 its infrastructure for decentralized storage and the long-term preservation of information, a quiet but essential mission.

• Kelsey Hightower, a Google engineer who supports open source with actions, not words.

• Olaoluwa Osuntokun (Lightning Labs), bringing Bitcoin access to areas without traditional banking.

• Jutta Steiner (ex-Parity), who prioritized decentralization over PR and personal brand.

All of them and many more, took the risk of bringing fire, not hoarding it.

Today’s questions are not technical. They are cultural. Do we want an internet that simply works? Or one that works against us while pretending to serve us? Do we want a future without intermediaries? Or are we content with a present that offers convenience in exchange for control? The flame of Web3 is here. Not perfect. Not stable. But it is ours.

As the Serbian writer Danilo Kiš once said: “Light that cannot be shared is not light. It is pollution.”

Web3 is still new. Still experimental. Immature, but full of possibility. And if, in the end, the true value of blockchain isn’t money or DAOs but the way it rekindles the idea that people can participate, not just obey?

Then maybe it is worth all the risk. Because fire, when passed from hand to hand, does not go out.

It becomes culture.