Opinion by: Houston Morgan, head of growth and business development in Shapeshift
Crypto should never be this way. The promise is decentralization, self-suvereignty and the end of gatekeepers. Far too many crypto companies still worship personalities and momentum than implementing fair management and structure.
The irony is Stark. A movement developed to eliminate the central points of failure or control is repeated -repeating its own leadership. The same story repeats from the founders of the exchange treated like visionaries to defi builders rigging token vote for personal gain. A person’s influence is allowed to exceed the system. When that person is pulling, everyone collapses.
Outsized control creates a dangerous feedback loop. Investors are pile, not because the system is resilient, but because they believe in the leader. Their world mental model becomes a project.
We have seen the dynamic -new. Traditional finances, politics, even the celebrity cults show the same pattern – once the centralized power, failure is inevitable. Crypto should be different. Instead, many projects have returned to the hierarchies they set to destroy, only with less supervision, weaker guards, and lower efficiency.
A decentralized system that depends on a single person is a contradiction in terms, and it gives the ruling classes an easy way of control. The quiet most should be noted: cut off the head from a snake, and the body will die.
Daos as an antidote
Here Damage Showed a true promise. Properly decentralized autonomous organizations are not just plainti -platal hierarchies; They replaced them with a sigh of relief. They replaced personality cults for contribution cultures.
When the management is distributed and the decision -making is open, communities can change more than a leader. Instead of a figurehead driving a narrative, twelve -two or even roads -the steps of the leadership duties within their own domains are contributing. No bosses. No center. Only builders.
Related: What’s a Dao, and how does it work?
The Dao works because they are treated by those who contribute. After all, they. Everyone who shows and contributes is, in effect, a leader in their way. Yes, it can be messy, vision aligning without top-down boss is difficult. The conclusion takes time. But the reverse is huge: shared ownership, skin skin, and communities that make up because they believe in the mission, not the myth of a founder.
True decentralization does not mean that there are no leaders. This means more to them.
The risk of being
The temptation to raise charismatic figures is understood. People are wired to follow stories more than spreadsheets. A dynamic founder provides media, investors and communities with an easy focal point. That shortcut has consequences.
When the founder’s myth becomes stronger than the protocol’s strength, form of cracks. The projects are waiting for the blessing of a leader. The fracture of the communities when asked the leader. And when they can’t avoid the stage, through scandal, burnout or politics, the project is left hollow.
There is no need for crypto many heroes. It requires systems that are resilient enough to survive without them.
Now or not
This message seems urgent in any context, but 2025 has become existent. The return of US president Donald Trump to the White House has made the Knife-Edge which crypto balances. His administration has signed that the crypto will be regarded as a tool and a target: embrace when political convenient, but crushed when it threatens interests.
That dynamic makes the crypto cult dangerous. The centralized control of centralized targets offers. A subpoena, a scandal, or a well -aimed speech is the need to resolve legitimacy when a project lives and dies of a single personality.
Decentralized management makes a centralized political playbook more difficult to run.
You can’t submit an entire community as you can drag a number of figureheads before Congress. The true DAO can still face the investigation, but their shared responsibility and global nature gives them the stability that the personality cults cannot match. They provide continuity and stability in an industry that is relentlessly exploited for its volatility.
The choice we need to make
This is the point of inflection. Either the industry embraces the decentralization of the substance, not just rhetoric, or it will reabs in the traditional finance bubble and is remembered only as an anarchistic blip in human history.
It cannot have the same way. It cannot continue to arrest cult leaders and simultaneously claim to challenge Wall Street, the International Monetary Fund or Big Tech. Outsized personalities may attract headlines, but they also invite damage.
This is a make-or-break time. The ruling classes know this. They have decades of experience in crushing motion relying on charismatic leaders. And they are watching closely.
Satoshi’s vision only survived if many finally choose to overthrow a few. It’s time to kill the leadership cult, and fast.
Opinion by: Houston Morgan, head of growth and business development in Shapeshift.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be done as legal or investment advice. The views, attitudes, and opinions expressed here are unique and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of the cointelegraph.
