Protocol Town Hall with Yancey Strickler | When the Means Justify the Ends
Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter, recounts Metalabel's two-year journey building crypto-based infrastructure for creative 'culture labels' inspired by punk record labels and the Royal Society, and how repeated crises (the Gitcoin/Vitalik NFT frenzy, Pepe coin gas spikes, and a wallet drain) led the team to go on a 'crypto diet' and ultimately launch Metalabel with zero blockchains underneath, borrowing crypto's values (decentralized identifiers, open data, shared financial outcomes) while prioritizing end-user experience over ideological means. He argues crypto culture often lets 'the means justify the ends,' making it a poor 'major' but potentially a good 'minor' within a broader post-platform, protocol-literate design space, a point Venkatesh Rao extends with his 'brains, trains, and vibes-mobiles' metaphor.
Yancey Strickler
