Hyperstructures are the only way to go after multiple events such as Tornado Cash and FTX. The entire industry should aim towards true decentralization with much more support for such projects.

I guess we all overly sensitive now after all the events that happened this year such as Tornado Cash and FTX story in the end. Luckily, thanks to all of this, we will end up in a healthier space with more focus and money going towards projects with strong fundamentals and clear mission and vision. Far too many projects are claiming to be "decentralized", but most of them aren't decentralized at all.

Couple months ago, I came across an amazing Jacob's post (Jacob Energy blog) about "Hyperstructures" which came back to my mind lately. By definition, hyperstructure is a crypto protocol that can run for free and forever, without maintenance, interruption or intermediares. Something can be considered a hyperstructure if it is:

• Unstoppable: the protocol cannot be stopped by anyone. It runs for as long as the underlying blockchain exists.
• Free: there is a 0% protocol wide fee and runs exactly at gas cost.
• Valuable: accrues value which is accessible and exitable by the owners.
• Expansive: there are built-in incentives for participants in the protocol.
• Permissionless: universally accessible and censorship resistant. Builders and users cannot be deplatformed.
• Positive sum: it creates a win-win environment for participants to utilize the same infrastrastructure.
• Credibly neutral: the protocol is user-agnostic.

It's important to note that just because an application is protocol-based does not immediately mean it is a Hyperstructure. For example, the Wyvern protocol that’s (amongst others) used by Opensea cannot operate without offchain orders being maintained in a privately operated database. This means that if Opensea or any other platform built on it goes down, the market goes down with it. This is also true of a platform like Coinbase, it facilitates the exchange of cryptocurrencies, but if it goes down their market goes down with it too. A more nuanced example: if you see a completely onchain protocol with the ability for admins to completely upgrade and change the rules of a protocol, then that is not a Hyperstructure, that is also platform. This isn't to say any of these examples are inherently bad, they're just not Hyperstructures.

Few days ago, Binance published a Crypto Industry Map with Infrastructure projects. I started digging all the projects that Binance published in a research and I was searching for those that are working straight to become a true hyperstructure. Pocket Network (POKT) is one of them, and it's basically just a couple months away from becoming a true hyperstructure by launching V1. Somehow POKT doesn't have much media coverage yet besides a couple Cointelegraph articles mentioning it and Binance mentions in research papers, although Pocket already serves more than a billion daily relays daily for Ethereum, Polygon, Harmony and others. After all the events that happened lately should make us strongly support a truly decentralized project, especially those working to become a hyperstructure that are unstoppable, cannot be manipulated nor shut down by anyone including a government.