$Oscar Army – Defending Ryoshi’s legacy

When Ryoshi published the Shiba Inu “Woofpaper” in 2020, it wasn’t just another meme token launch. It was a manifesto disguised as a joke—a deep critique of centralized finance, top-down crypto projects, and the cult of personality that had already started forming around blockchain founders.

Ryoshi made it clear: “I am nobody, I am not important.” He renounced ownership, control, and recognition. The project launched with no pre-sale, no dev allocation, and no official leadership. The liquidity was locked. The contract was renounced. He disappeared soon after, deleting all social accounts and leaving only his writings behind.

In the whitepaper, Ryoshi emphasized three principles: 1. Radical decentralization – No central team, no roadmap, no controlling party. 2. Community ownership – The community should own, build, and govern every aspect of the ecosystem. 3. Experimentation for good – Crypto wasn’t just about speculation; it could be a force for social change and empowerment.

He believed that a meme could be more than just a meme—it could evolve into a decentralized ecosystem with real-world impact, powered entirely by its community. He left as an act of faith, trusting that the idea would either flourish organically or fail honestly.

In hindsight, SHIB’s rise was both a success and a compromise. While it reached massive popularity, it eventually required centralized listings, partnerships, and influencers to scale. That doesn’t invalidate the project, but it diverged from the original vision Ryoshi laid out.

Now, almost five years later, a small but growing number of projects are returning to that vision—not to mimic Shiba’s tokenomics, but to finish what Ryoshi started.

One example is $OSCAR, a token that quietly underwent a Community Takeover (CTO) in 2024. Since then, it has operated with no paid marketing, no KOLs, no team wallets, and no central figurehead. Liquidity is locked. The contract is renounced. Utilities like Doge Rebase and $COLLAR are being built to support decentralized experimentation, and parts of the ecosystem are already supporting charitable initiatives, something Ryoshi hoped to see more of in DeFi.

Unlike most projects in the meme space, $OSCAR isn’t chasing listings or attention—it’s deliberately low-noise, high-integrity, and community-run. In a space flooded with over-marketed, short-lived pumps, it’s refreshing to see something so aligned with the values that got many of us into crypto in the first place.

As we head into another bull run, it’s worth asking: what kind of crypto do we want to win this time?

If we repeat the last cycle—centralized teams, token allocations, opaque governance—we might get bigger numbers, but we won’t get closer to the original dream of decentralization. Ryoshi’s vision wasn’t just poetic—it was practical. It offered a framework for how decentralized communities can build lasting ecosystems without relying on trust, promotion, or control.

Projects like $OSCAR may not dominate the headlines, but they might just be the quiet answer to Ryoshi’s open question: Can crypto be run by the people, for the people—without leaders, without marketing, without compromise?