₿itWalker 🏴‍☠️ · Oct 28, 2026 · 1:32 PM UTC

₿itWalker 🏴‍☠️

Pinned Tweet

Oct 28

Back in September 2021, I told Dominic Williams something I still believe today.

ICP had a rough start. There were plenty of problems following the network's launch, most of which have already been discussed countless times. The crypto market was also entering a difficult ICP would have experienced a significant price decline even without all the controversy surrounding FTX and everything else that followed.

At the same time, I seriously doubt ICP would have entered the market at such an absurdly high valuation without everything that happened around its launch.

What followed was predictable. An enormous wave of FUD, accusations, and attacks against DFINITY. ICP's welcome into the crypto industry was certainly not what Dominic had imagined.

Considering the ambition behind the project and the technology they were bringing to the table, I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been to watch thousands of people dismiss years of work with a single word: SCAM.

But here's the thing. Dominic also contributed to some of the hostility directed at him.

Unfortunately, crypto isn't some innocent, fair-minded industry where you launch something innovative and everyone applauds your achievements. It's a place where certain people would happily drown you in a glass of water, especially if they consider you a competitor.

Navigating this industry isn't exactly a walk on rose petals. It's more like walking through thorns while people deliberately place obstacles in your path, accuse you of things you haven't even done, and look for opportunities to take whatever you've created, copy the best parts, and repackage them to fit their own narratives.

For a developer or an inventor, that can be an incredibly stressful experience.

Being a brilliant developer doesn't automatically make you a good psychologist, communicator, or diplomat. Yet in this industry, understanding human behaviour can be almost as important as understanding the technology itself.

And I don't say this to criticize @dominic_w for being frustrated. Quite the opposite.

I understand that frustration more than some might think. I work in a field where people rarely see the enormous amount of effort behind the finished product. They don't see the sacrifices, the countless hours, or everything that went wrong before something finally worked.

But they'll notice every little mistake you make.

The difference is that, for me, X is mostly a place to have fun. I enjoy the conversations, the arguments, the memes, and occasionally making fun of the absurdity of this industry.

I stopped shilling coins a long time ago. These days, most of what I post revolves around applications I genuinely use, particularly within the ICP ecosystem.

And yes, sometimes my language can be pretty rough.

But I'm not the public face of a project. Dominic is.

That's a distinction that matters.

I told him back in 2021 that I understood his frustration with the constant attacks, but that responding in certain ways wasn't helping his project.

Five years later, my opinion hasn't changed.

You can be absolutely right about the technology, genuinely believe in what you're building, and still do enormous damage to its reputation through the way you communicate.

As the public face of a project, you simply cannot afford to lose your temper every time someone provokes you. Especially when your ambition is to attract people who don't yet understand your technology.

By responding with insults, you risk turning yourself into an even bigger target. And unfortunately, that target doesn't just have your name on it. It has ICP written all over it.

This industry is full of degenerates, no question about that. But it's also full of intelligent, thoughtful people who simply have no tolerance for that kind of behaviour.

You cannot realistically expect your public conduct to have no consequences for the reputation of your organization or the perception of the technology behind it.

And before someone misunderstands me, I'm not one of those people who blindly follows everything Dominic says or does.

I'll always give credit where credit is due. I'll defend the technology when I believe criticism is unfair, support developers building useful things, and acknowledge achievements that deserve recognition.

But I'll also speak up when I disagree.

We can laugh about these arguments, turn them into memes, and entertain ourselves with the endless drama on X. I certainly do.

But memes and jokes don't magically repair reputational damage caused by your own actions.

Now, I genuinely mean all of this in good faith.

There are two possibilities I've considered.

Either Dominic really does struggle with the psychological side of dealing with constant attacks and simply lacks the tact to navigate these situations effectively.

Or perhaps he has something much bigger up his sleeve. Maybe one day he'll pull out a move none of us saw coming, look at everyone and say, "Checkmate, gentlemen."

And perhaps all these ridiculous arguments on X are happening inside a tiny crypto echo chamber that has practically no influence on the outside world anyway.

Who knows? Maybe it's a bit of both.

One thing I do know is that building remarkable technology and convincing the world to embrace it are two very different challenges.

And being exceptionally good at the first doesn't automatically make you good at the second.

1,399