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The Whale Who Was Up $100 M: Why I’m Leaving HyperLiquid
Protocol Survived, Users Didn’t I just made a personal—and painful—decision: I will no longer trade on HyperLiquid. I’m not calling for a boycott; I’m simply following the drift of my own values. After clearing $95 M on HL—and crossing nine figures across venues—my P&L is still positive this year. But on 10 October I lost $62 M in a single liquidation cascade. That day showed me the industry has out-grown its “hope and prayer” risk architecture.What Actually Happened on 10·10Binance’s interna...

From Meta to Blockchain Rising Stars: The Rise of Sui and Aptos
In recent years, the cryptocurrency market has experienced explosive growth. The success of mainstream cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has attracted widespread attention from global investors. Emerging projects continue to emerge, offering a variety of investment opportunities. Investors are attracted by their high potential for returns, while also being aware of the market's high volatility and risks. Sui and Aptos are two blockchain projects that have recently garnered significan...

When the “Infinite-Ammo” mNAV Flywheel Reverses: Hidden Sell-Side Risks in the Crypto-Treasury Narra…
Executive Summary Treasury-driven alt-coins have turbo-charged this bull run. Ethereum has risen from US$1 800 to US$4 700 (+160 %) as listed “mini-MSTRs” like SBET and BMNR relentlessly buy ETH. Solana, BNB and HYPE have spawned copy-cat treasuries of their own. But the same flywheel that lifts prices can spin backwards. WINT—once a BNB-treasury poster-child—was delisted by Nasdaq and fell 91 %. Lion Group just trimmed US$500 k of its own HYPE stack. If mNAV (market-to-NAV ratio) drops below...



The Whale Who Was Up $100 M: Why I’m Leaving HyperLiquid
Protocol Survived, Users Didn’t I just made a personal—and painful—decision: I will no longer trade on HyperLiquid. I’m not calling for a boycott; I’m simply following the drift of my own values. After clearing $95 M on HL—and crossing nine figures across venues—my P&L is still positive this year. But on 10 October I lost $62 M in a single liquidation cascade. That day showed me the industry has out-grown its “hope and prayer” risk architecture.What Actually Happened on 10·10Binance’s interna...

From Meta to Blockchain Rising Stars: The Rise of Sui and Aptos
In recent years, the cryptocurrency market has experienced explosive growth. The success of mainstream cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has attracted widespread attention from global investors. Emerging projects continue to emerge, offering a variety of investment opportunities. Investors are attracted by their high potential for returns, while also being aware of the market's high volatility and risks. Sui and Aptos are two blockchain projects that have recently garnered significan...

When the “Infinite-Ammo” mNAV Flywheel Reverses: Hidden Sell-Side Risks in the Crypto-Treasury Narra…
Executive Summary Treasury-driven alt-coins have turbo-charged this bull run. Ethereum has risen from US$1 800 to US$4 700 (+160 %) as listed “mini-MSTRs” like SBET and BMNR relentlessly buy ETH. Solana, BNB and HYPE have spawned copy-cat treasuries of their own. But the same flywheel that lifts prices can spin backwards. WINT—once a BNB-treasury poster-child—was delisted by Nasdaq and fell 91 %. Lion Group just trimmed US$500 k of its own HYPE stack. If mNAV (market-to-NAV ratio) drops below...
The Utopia That Became an Oligarchy
Four years, 68 proposals, 21 791 voters and 57 884 delegations later, Uniswap’s “digital democracy” is a plutocracy:
Gini coefficient = 0.938 (world’s most-unequal country = 0.63)
Top 1 % of addresses command 47.5 % of voting power; in one vote they hit 99.97 %
Top 10 % routinely decide 91 % of outcomes
Median voter casts 1 vote; the 10 most-active voters cast 54 each
“Theatre of Consensus” – Apathy Beats Opposition
92.6 % of proposals pass
Every failed proposal missed quorum, not majority “No”
Mean support rate = 96.8 %
Only 2 proposals ever faced > 20 % opposition
The enemy is not disagreement—it is indifference.
Five-Layer Voter Ecosystem
0.8 % Whales – low frequency, veto power
3.2 % Active Governors – high frequency, high weight
1.5 % Institutions – selective, agenda-driven
4.1 % Tech Experts – code upgrades only
15.8 % Followers – rubber-stamp
74.6 % Silents – never vote, yet hold tokens
Technical proposals (e.g., oracle swap) show Gini = 0.997; governance-reform votes drop to 0.78–0.92. In other words, Uniswap runs four parallel constitutions depending on the question.
The Delegation Paradox
Intent: let lazy holders hand votes to experts → more participation, better decisions.
Reality:
Participation falls 88 % vs. a no-delegation counter-factual
Inequality rises 6.6 % (Gini 0.881 → 0.943)
85 % of new stakes flow to existing mega-delegates, entrenching star-shaped network with 623 weakly-linked “islands”
Delegation concentrates power and signals “someone else will deal with it,” suppressing direct voting.
A Thousand-Year Republic?
Despite inequality, the system is slowly self-correcting:
Gini slid from 0.990 (2022) to 0.913 (2025)
Proposal success rate stayed ≥ 77 % throughout
No hard-fork, no charter change—just learning-by-doing
Venice lasted a millennium as a merchant oligarchy that balanced efficiency, legitimacy and economic alignment. Uniswap may have accidentally rebuilt it on-chain.
Take-aways for the Next DAO
Delegation is not a default—it is a prescription that can poison the patient.
Optimise for direct participation, not prettier delegation dashboards.
Experiment: quadratic voting, liquid democracy, vote-to-earn rebates, lottery-based quorums.
Measure power Gini as religiously as TVL.
Accept that some oligarchy is inevitable; design escape valves (sunset clauses, fork-friendly licensing).
Uniswap’s experiment is not a failure—it is the most transparent political laboratory ever created. The data say pure on-chain democracy is a mirage, but functional democracy—an evolving, elite-correcting system—is alive. The lesson is not to fight human nature; it is to build institutions that route greed toward public goods. The next DAO can either repeat history or read it.
The Utopia That Became an Oligarchy
Four years, 68 proposals, 21 791 voters and 57 884 delegations later, Uniswap’s “digital democracy” is a plutocracy:
Gini coefficient = 0.938 (world’s most-unequal country = 0.63)
Top 1 % of addresses command 47.5 % of voting power; in one vote they hit 99.97 %
Top 10 % routinely decide 91 % of outcomes
Median voter casts 1 vote; the 10 most-active voters cast 54 each
“Theatre of Consensus” – Apathy Beats Opposition
92.6 % of proposals pass
Every failed proposal missed quorum, not majority “No”
Mean support rate = 96.8 %
Only 2 proposals ever faced > 20 % opposition
The enemy is not disagreement—it is indifference.
Five-Layer Voter Ecosystem
0.8 % Whales – low frequency, veto power
3.2 % Active Governors – high frequency, high weight
1.5 % Institutions – selective, agenda-driven
4.1 % Tech Experts – code upgrades only
15.8 % Followers – rubber-stamp
74.6 % Silents – never vote, yet hold tokens
Technical proposals (e.g., oracle swap) show Gini = 0.997; governance-reform votes drop to 0.78–0.92. In other words, Uniswap runs four parallel constitutions depending on the question.
The Delegation Paradox
Intent: let lazy holders hand votes to experts → more participation, better decisions.
Reality:
Participation falls 88 % vs. a no-delegation counter-factual
Inequality rises 6.6 % (Gini 0.881 → 0.943)
85 % of new stakes flow to existing mega-delegates, entrenching star-shaped network with 623 weakly-linked “islands”
Delegation concentrates power and signals “someone else will deal with it,” suppressing direct voting.
A Thousand-Year Republic?
Despite inequality, the system is slowly self-correcting:
Gini slid from 0.990 (2022) to 0.913 (2025)
Proposal success rate stayed ≥ 77 % throughout
No hard-fork, no charter change—just learning-by-doing
Venice lasted a millennium as a merchant oligarchy that balanced efficiency, legitimacy and economic alignment. Uniswap may have accidentally rebuilt it on-chain.
Take-aways for the Next DAO
Delegation is not a default—it is a prescription that can poison the patient.
Optimise for direct participation, not prettier delegation dashboards.
Experiment: quadratic voting, liquid democracy, vote-to-earn rebates, lottery-based quorums.
Measure power Gini as religiously as TVL.
Accept that some oligarchy is inevitable; design escape valves (sunset clauses, fork-friendly licensing).
Uniswap’s experiment is not a failure—it is the most transparent political laboratory ever created. The data say pure on-chain democracy is a mirage, but functional democracy—an evolving, elite-correcting system—is alive. The lesson is not to fight human nature; it is to build institutions that route greed toward public goods. The next DAO can either repeat history or read it.
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