Why crypto need to refocus on capability, over blind emphasis on decentralization or verifiability.

All technological progress are defined by the capabilities unlocked.

For crypto:

- Censorship-resistant money (and store of value) was the first capability unlock.

- Permissionless asset creation and finance was the second capability unlock.

Notice the theme: censorship resistance and permissionless-ness, which are security features enabled by decentralization, were critical to these first two unlocks--

- Bitcoin would not be what it is if not for its self-custodial property and censorship resistance.

- Ethereum would not have been what it is without ICO and defi summer, which were enabled by permissionless smart contracts.

Over the last few years, crypto got sidetracked and started to value decentralization, security, and verifiability without specific capability unlocks. Examples: decentralization theater (early forms of onchain AI), adding verifiability without specific purpose ("zk-everything").

I believe our the industry is finally exiting this sidetrack.

Example: If an app requires real-time censorship resistance, then decentralize. No need for real-time censorship resistance? Let's use a centralized sequencer but offer self-custodial guarantee via validity proofs.

Refocus on capability; make crypto great again.

(Image credit ChatGPT 4o)