Stop Using 20th Century Words for 21st Century Tech, Says Gitcoin Founder Kevin Owocki – Decrypt

A tongue-in-cheek post from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin—“Make Communism Great Again”—sparked a deeper debate on social media: What political ideology, if any, should guide Web3?

For Gitcoin and Allo.Capital co-founder Kevin Owocki, the answer is simple—none of them.

A community note on X pointed to a post from April 1, 2024, in which Buterin said, “Degen communism: the only correct political ideology,” linking to a blog post.

Even though it was written on April Fool’s Day, despite the timing, Buterin’s post sparked real conversation about which political ideologies fit the blockchain space.

“We should stop using 20th-century words to talk about 21st-century technology,” Owocki told Decrypt at ETH Denver in February.

Owocki emphasized that the emergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence has created a new design space for governance, one far more dynamic than the ideological frameworks of the past.

“In the past, it was, ‘Is this socialism, communism, or capitalism?’” he said. “In the future, there’s going to be infinitely more design space because of crypto and AI than ever before.”

To illustrate the scale of what’s possible, Owocki turned to video games.

“I’ve been playing a lot of Zelda recently, and there’s this moment where you get the map, where it goes from seeing just a little to seeing the whole world,” he said. “That’s what AI and crypto are doing for our governance structures. So, let’s not fight over this little patch of 20th-century land. Let’s explore the great frontiers of DAO design. We just found the map. We just have to follow it.”

Owocki’s point goes beyond semantics. For him, leaving behind 20th-century language also means leaving behind 20th-century governance models.

A case for DAOs

That’s where DAOs—decentralized autonomous organizations—come in. Instead of fitting crypto into old political ideologies, he sees DAOs as a blank canvas for entirely new systems of coordination, decision-making, and power-sharing.

But even as DAOs promise a fresh start, they’re not immune to the same old power dynamics. Owocki warns that without thoughtful design, decentralized systems can still fall victim to cabals—tight-knit groups that coordinate to take control, much like the political cliques Web3 aims to leave behind.

To counter this, Owocki pointed to a mechanism called “cluster matching” that discourages coordinated voting blocs by algorithmically detecting and dampening their influence.

“If Rena and I always vote together, the algorithm flags us as a cabal and dampens our votes,” he said. “If two people who usually vote differently back the same proposal, the system gives it more weight, because it sees cooperation across social distance.”

For Owocki, innovations like this represent more than technical tweaks—they’re early signs of a new democratic infrastructure emerging from within crypto.

“Let’s not fade the DAO space because of past problems,” he said. “Let’s lean into what’s possible now.”

Wishful thinking

Still, not everyone shares the idealistic vision often attached to decentralized governance.

Allo.Capital co-founder and Gitcoin Executive Director Rena O’Brien took aim at what she sees as wishful thinking about fairness and equality in Web3 communities and the shadowy behavior that undermines those ideals.

“This idea of one token, one vote, or that we’re all created equal, and the shadow cabals? It’s dumb,” she said. “It’s 2025. Woman up. Let’s stop talking about political ideologies. There’s shipping to be done.”

For O’Brien, the problem isn’t just theoretical—it’s practical, pointing to Ethereum’s adoption struggles as a symptom of deeper gaps in the ecosystem.

“Once we figure out how to fix those issues, we can move into the infighting,” she said. “Our tools are broken. We can’t decide if we’re building at the app or protocol layers, or where the actual value lies.”

Owocki agreed that the space is still early, but urged critics to take a longer view. He likened today’s DAOs to corporations in their infancy.

“LLCs are 60 years old. Corporations are 300. When DAOs are 50, they’re going to be good,” he said.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair