Jesse Walden, founder and managing partner at Variant, has argued that smart contract blockchains may move away from some of the values that shaped early crypto.
In a blog post published in September 2024, Walden said the first decade of smart contract blockchains was built around Bitcoin-era ideas such as censorship resistance, open-source software and permissionless access.
He said the next decade could look different because the mainstream market puts more weight on performance, cost, profit and compliance.
Commercial use is changing what blockchains are built for
Walden pointed to stablecoins, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) as examples.
These products can use a public blockchain without making every part of the system fully decentralized or permissionless. Instead, they can use the blockchain for open settlement, shared records and links between different systems.
That does not mean decentralization has stopped mattering. It means different users may value different parts of blockchain technology.
A bank may care about fast settlement and clear rules. A DeFi user may care more about open access and self-custody. A developer may care about open-source code and the ability to build without asking for permission.
Walden described this change as “the end of the beginning.” His point was not that crypto’s early ideas would disappear. Rather, he argued that commercial use will force the industry to make trade-offs as blockchain products reach more people.
That change can already be seen in tokenized financial products. Many tokenized assets have rules around who can buy, hold or transfer them. The blockchain can remain open while the asset itself has access rules.
This creates a mix of old and new crypto ideas. The network can stay public, while the product built on it can follow financial rules.
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The crypto market is splitting into different paths
Walden’s later writing suggests that he does not see this shift as a simple end to crypto’s original culture. In a March 2026 essay, he wrote that crypto was splitting into institutional financial infrastructure and speculative markets. He also pointed to open-source, composable and decentralized agentic services as a new area that shares some of the ideas that attracted early crypto users.
That view matters because it shows that institutional adoption and decentralization do not have to move in the same direction. One part of crypto can become more regulated while another part keeps testing open systems.
Walden’s own work at Variant also reflects this mix. In June 2026, Variant announced a new $222 million fund focused on “autonomy,” while keeping digital ownership, open-source software, permissionless markets and decentralization among its core themes.
Meanwhile, blockchain networks are adding tools aimed at financial firms. Ripple’s XRPL EVM Sidechain went live in June 2025, giving developers Ethereum-compatible smart contracts connected to the XRP Ledger ecosystem. Native smart-contract functionality for the main XRPL is a separate project that Ripple said was still under research. Ripple recently outlined the plan for permissionless smart-contract development on the mainnet.
The debate Walden raised is therefore still active. Blockchains are being used by banks, asset managers and other large firms, but developers are also building systems that put more control in users’ hands.
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