MakerDAO Co-Founder Mushegian Left ‘Principles’ of His Latest DeFi

Three months after the mysterious death of 29-year old Mushegian, his colleague published the code of principles the MakerDAO co-founder wrote for his last development, the Rico stablecoin platform. This impressive manifesto addresses various aspects of DeFi tech development, ecosystem building and working with potential users.

Neutrality, auditability, truth: Nikolai Mushegian’s DeFi pillars

Yesterday, on Feb. 17, 2023, seasoned Ethereum (ETH) developer Brian McMichael revealed that Mushegian had written a set of rules for DeFi before passing away. The author added that these rules are derived from “cultural differences” of his last project Rico.

Before he passed, Nikolai Mushegian, aka @delete_shitcoin sent me a link to a set of principles he had written up for his latest project. The link isn’t available from the main site, so I want to share it here so that it is not lost to time.

🧵

— Brian McMichael 🙂 (@brianmcmichael) February 17, 2023

First, he said, every project should prioritize building a system of incentives. Incentives are the natural (“physical”) law of the DeFi segment: every element of the protocol that goes in conflict with incentives would be exploited sooner or later.

Then, DeFi teams should focus on “credible neutrality.” A sound and credibly neutral system will leave in the dust a competitor that relies on “growth hacks” and compromises.

Proper DeFis would benefit from integrations and “power users,” i.e., customers interested in improving the project they are using. In a broad sense, “synthetic assets” created by these groups would catalyze growth of the Web3 protocol.

Crypto developers and marketers should be honest about the products they are building and promoting. Teams should not market their platforms in a misleading manner. Every possible interaction with the protocol should be described while introducing it, Mushegian stressed.

Mysterious death of crypto visionary

While creating their services, teams should avoid playing in “decentralization theaters”: every point of centralization, including interfaces or GitHub repositories, can be hacked. True decentralization would allow the protocol’s mechanics to protect themselves.

Last but not least, every proper DeFi design should be auditable: not only cybersecurity vendors would be able to audit the system, but also “power users” with no large resources.

Nikolai Mushegian was found dead in Puerto Rico on Nov. 1, three days after posting a tweet about CIA, Mossad and the global “pedo elite” that targeted him. As covered by U.Today, Amber Group’s founder Tiantian Kullander died three weeks later at the age of 30.