The Weekly Slice by VedasLabs.io - Issue 36 🍕

In partnership with

Invest Smarter with Digital ETPs

DeFi Technologies (US: DEFTF & CAD: DEFI.NE) is transforming traditional finance by offering regulated access to over 60 digital asset exchange-traded-protocols (ETPs). Empower your portfolio with secure solutions for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Ripple and beyond.

Discover the Future of Investing

The Path to Decentralization: A New Series on Open-Source, Cryptography, and the Future of Finance

Dear Friends,

Over the past several months years, we’ve explored emerging trends in decentralized finance, governance, and the evolution of funding models. But to truly understand where we’re going, we first need to take a step back and examine how we got here—the history, the movements, and the open-source technologies that made all of this possible.

That's why we’re launching The Path to Decentralization, a multi-part blog series diving into the roots of open-source software, the Cypherpunks, Bitcoin, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), and the future of decentralized governance.

Each week, we’ll uncover the hidden forces that shaped today’s digital and financial world, leading up to the decentralized systems we are building today with the VedasDAO.

🔍 This week, we begin with Part 1: The Hidden Backbone of the Internet: How Open Source Powers Everything

From the internet’s early days to the cryptographic breakthroughs that paved the way for Bitcoin, this deep dive will show how open-source software laid the foundation for modern finance, communication, and decentralized networks.

The Hidden Backbone of the Internet: How Open Source Powers Everything

The Invisible Foundations of the Digital Age

Every time you send a message, check your bank balance, or stream a video, you’re relying on an invisible infrastructure—one built not by corporations, but by an army of open-source developers.

From the financial markets that drive global economies to the communication networks that power our daily lives, open-source software is the unsung Protagonist of modern civilization. Yet, despite its omnipresence, few people realize how deeply open source is embedded in every aspect of the digital world—including the very systems that power decentralized finance and blockchain technology today.

This is the story of how open collaboration, cryptography, and decentralized networks laid the groundwork for everything from the internet to Bitcoin, and why we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us.

I. The Birth of Open Source: From Collaboration to Global Infrastructure

The Early Days: ARPANET and the First Networks

The origins of the internet can be traced back to ARPANET, the first decentralized network, created by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1969. Designed to be resilient and fault-tolerant, ARPANET laid the foundation for TCP/IP, the protocol that still governs global internet communication today.

But TCP/IP wasn’t proprietary. It was openly shared, allowing universities, researchers, and eventually corporations to build upon it. This decision to keep the protocol open and collaborative rather than closed and commercial was one of the most consequential in technology history.

UNIX and the Rise of Open Software

In the 1970s, Bell Labs developed UNIX, one of the first multi-user operating systems. UNIX introduced the concept of modular, shareable code, and became the backbone of many early computer networks. Although UNIX was originally proprietary, its core design principles—modularity, portability, and a focus on small, composable programs—inspired the development of free and open-source operating systems like Linux and, later, Android OS.

The Birth of Free Software: Richard Stallman and GNU

In the 1980s, computer scientist Richard Stallman (rms) founded the GNU Project, an effort to create free software alternatives to proprietary operating systems. Stallman’s GNU General Public License (GPL) ensured that software could be freely used, modified, and distributed—a radical departure from corporate-controlled software development. Click here to check out the GNU mascot.

His vision laid the groundwork for what would become one of the most important movements in software history: open-source development.

II. How Open Source Became the Backbone of the Financial System

Linux and the Operating System That Runs the World

In 1991, a young Finnish programmer named Linus Torvalds unknowingly set in motion a revolution when he shared his personal operating system project with the world. He wrote, “I’m doing a (free) operating system, just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like GNU.” But he was wrong. It became something far greater than he had imagined.

What made Linux revolutionary wasn’t just its technical excellence, but its philosophy. Unlike the proprietary UNIX systems of the time, Linux was open, permissionless, and freely available to all. Developers from around the world contributed to it, not because they were paid to, but because they believed in a shared vision of collaboration and technological freedom.

Today, Linux is the foundation of the modern digital economy:

• 100% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers

• 96% of the top 1 million web servers

• Over 90% of cloud computing infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure)

• The majority of stock exchange trading systems (NYSE, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange)

Linux proved that open-source collaboration could outperform corporate-controlled technology. Its ethos of transparency, shared innovation, and global participation laid the foundation for the decentralized systems we are building today.

III. The Foundation of Decentralization

As we’ve explored, open-source technology is the foundation of everything we rely on today—from financial systems and communication networks to decentralized governance. The principles of transparency, collaboration, and decentralized innovation have not only shaped the modern internet but have also paved the way for the next evolution of decentralized finance and governance.

But this journey doesn’t stop here. The emergence of cryptography and the Cypherpunk movement in the 1990s set the stage for a radical transformation—one that would challenge traditional financial systems and reimagine the very nature of money and trust.

🔜 Next in our series: The Rise of Digital Money & the Cypherpunks

Next week, we’ll uncover the rebels, mathematicians, and visionaries who saw the internet as more than just a communication tool—they saw it as a path to financial sovereignty and digital privacy. Their groundbreaking work led to the first serious attempts at digital cash, ultimately culminating in the birth of Bitcoin.

🚀 Stay tuned for Part 2: The Rise of Digital Money & the Cypherpunks.

Want to join the conversation? Follow us on X, Discord (coming soon!), and LinkedIn for updates.

That’s a Wrap Slice 🍕

What is VedasLabs.io again?

VedasLabs.io is a Web3 funding and networking platform that incentivizes an active, global community comprising founders, mentors, and investors. Our vision is to create a world where investment, the exchange of knowledge, and collaboration among investors, issuers, and industry experts are secure, instantaneous, and without friction.