The Operators' Charter

We run the infrastructure of the so-called “decentralized” networks. Our machines, our electricity, our time. We ask for neither glory nor fortune. We ask only that you stop lying to us.

We have observed this:

• that the decentralization we’re sold applies to the machines, never to power or to value;
• that those who keep the networks standing — the node operators — are paid in crumbs, or not at all, while the value flows up to a token held by a few;
• that a project can call itself “decentralized” and end up before a bankruptcy court, its operators last in the line of creditors.

We hold that the original will — to abolish the trusted third party, to hand power back to people, one CPU, one vote — has been betrayed, and replaced by a new form of rent.

Therefore, we ask of any network that claims to be decentralized:

1. Transparency. Publish, in plain terms, who receives what: the share going to operators, the share going to foundations, to investors, to insiders.

2. A share for those who keep the network running. That a real fraction of the protocol reward the work of infrastructure — not merely the holding of the token.

3. One node, one vote. That governance rest on participation, not on the weight of the wallet. One dollar, one vote is not decentralization: it is plutocracy.

Failing all of that, one minimal demand: stop calling it “decentralized.”

We are not asking for money. We keep the lights on, at our own cost, for an idea. We ask only that it be respected.

— The operators. Sign it, translate it, repost it. This charter belongs to no one.

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