Jonathan Rivera

I’ve have been thinking a lot about what happened with the Binance Top 100 contest. Yonatan Sompolinsky (@hashdag ) Kaspa founder, was voted the number one independent researcher. @michaelsuttonil was voted the number three industry advocate. Both results came straight from the community, not from an exchange or a marketing machine. Then Yonatan publicly said he would not attend the Binance event where the awards were going to be handed out. It was mostly a protest against exchanges listing silly meme coins while ignoring this century’s greatest advancements in internet speed digital money. Calling them out from going wayward from the original version of cryptocurrency. This weekend Binance gave the trophy to the second place winner and never mentioned Yonatan at all. There is a lot wrapped up in that moment. Right after Yonatan’s protestpost, @Kaspa_Commons used a simple phrase in a post as an acknowledgment to the potential for Kaspa to find greater use cases outside Cryptoland and as a small dig at the exchange. Nov. 7 Can you imagine?! "Tokens backed by real multibillion dollar assets that actually have utility and generate revenues for decades." @Kaspa_Commons can. @KaspaKii can. 👋🏼Bye-nance, enjoy Cryptoland and your millions. That simple tag, “Bye-nance”, seemed to resonate and a small rebellion started. Bye-nance was a direct message, a goodbye to Binance that encouraged others to step away. After the award ceremony failed to mention Yonatan’s name, the community responded in force. That little pebble dropped in the pond was becoming a tsunami. A huge wave of Kaspians have been dropping the tag and deleting their accounts and Binance is clearly not thrilled about it. We have yet to verify this, but I heard that Binance approached @Kaspa_KEF reps to ask them to encourage the community to stand down. 🤣 But the bigger story is what this whole episode reveals. First, the Kaspa community is one of the most engaged and passionate groups in the entire blockchain space. The voting proved it. The unified response after the snub proved it. People showed up for Yonatan because he has shown up for the principles that matter. Second, this was a chance for crypto to take a stand again. Yonatan did. It reminded me that Bitcoin began as a protest against captured institutions. It was a push for self sovereignty, economic freedom, and independence from the usual gatekeepers. Over time, the space drifted. Memes, speculation, and exchange driven hype drowned out the deeper purpose. Seeing the reaction this week makes it clear that a new wave of cypherpunks is rising again. Builders who care about research, engineering, and integrity. Researchers like Yonatan. Developers like Michael Sutton. And communities like Kaspa. People who want crypto and blockchain tech to mean something again. Third, the whole thing exposed the true nature of some of these L1 exchanges and classic crypto in general. The incentives. The politics. The greed. The selective celebration. The silence when the results do not serve their interests. Many people are looking at that and deciding they are done. So let us not waste this moment. What we just saw is a big opportunity. An opportunity to show the strength of our community. It is obvious. An opportunity to reintroduce a modern cypherpunk spirit. It is happening. An opportunity to shine a light on the difference between real builders, real solutions, and the bad actors inside the Cryptoland circus. The original Bitcoin movement of protest was against real world finance and government control. It is interesting and ironic that Kaspa’s latest protest is against the dark side of Cryptoland itself. Let us not waste this moment. And even though we are focused on one exchange and their actions, we need to turn our backs on the entire Cryptoland mindset. Let us start here. Everyone, say it with me. 👋🏼 Bye-nance