For eight years I've been building on Ethereum.
For eight years I've watched talented teams waste millions redeveloping the same infrastructure over and over.
The problem: Every project has to build their entire stack from scratch.
Want to launch a token?
Great, just spend $381,000 on legal fees like we did.
Invest months coding distribution systems, bespoke governance mechanisms, and treasury management - then get it all audited - before you can focus on the actual product you wanted to build.
It's like if every mobile dev had to code their own version of iOS before launching their app. Ridiculous. And unsustainable.
I think the worst part is that this approach limits Ethereum's potential. There's no app layer to justify Ethereum's valuation. There's no infrastructure that makes it effortless to build and deploy. No wonder other chains are gaining ground.
The Missing Piece
Ethereum today feels like the early internet — the pipes are there, but the tools to build real apps aren't.
There's no AWS, no Stripe, no App Store equivalent for token projects.
This isn't just a tech problem; it's a trilemma involving token communities, international law, and smart contract infrastructure.
Projects are facing a three-dimensional challenge that isolated solutions can't solve:
The Community Dimension
Every token creates a community with specific needs for transparency, governance, and engagement. Yet most projects lack proper tools to maintain community cohesion.
The Legal Dimension
Projects have to navigate a maze of international regulations, with compliance costs averaging $100,000+ for initial setup. Regulatory fragmentation means solutions that work in one jurisdiction often fail in others.
The Technical Dimension
Smart contract development remains specialized and risky, with the average project deploying 17+ contracts across multiple protocols before launch.
A platform offering only developer tools (like Alchemy) addresses just one facet of this trilemma.
What's missing is a holistic solution that integrates all of these dimensions:
Compliance tools that automatically handle taxes and regional regulations—critical for 70% of tokenized treasuries on Ethereum.
Community management systems that create transparent governance without sacrificing execution speed.
Pre-audited contract templates that eliminate the majority of development time that is currently spent on infrastructure rather than product features.
Cross-chain solutions that seamlessly bridge the growing network of L2s while maintaining legal compliance.
Just as cloud providers bridged this gap for web2, Ethereum needs its equivalent – and fast.
Without it, token projects stay stuck in infrastructure limbo, with two-thirds of activity now happening on L2s while app-layer tools lag behind, preventing the ecosystem from reaching its full potential.
What This Means
Today it costs less than $3 to launch a project on Decent. A project with a token, streamlined governance, treasury management, contributor onboarding and wide range of payment tools.
Three dollars.
We're collapsing what used to take months and millions into days and dollars. We're handling the economic considerations, the legal considerations, and the technical considerations so projects can focus on what matters - building something people want.
This isn't just about DAOs or governance. It’s about tokenizing everything: Real World Assets. Gaming. Web3 protocols. Investment vehicles. Environmental initiatives. All of it.
Every meaningful onchain project has a token. Every token has a community. Every community needs infrastructure. We provide that infrastructure at a fraction of the cost and time.
Why This Matters
The application layer is where value gets created. It's where users live. It's where adoption happens.
Network infrastructure without applications is like highways without cars. The value isn't in the asphalt - it's in the transportation.
For Ethereum to fulfill its promise, we need thousands of applications that bring real utility to millions of users. Not just DeFi protocols for crypto enthusiasts, but applications that solve real problems for real people.
That's how we bring the next billion users into web3. That's how we justify Ethereum's existence beyond speculation.
And that's what we're building at Decent - the application layer platform that will scale web3 and accelerate the tokenization of everything.
The infrastructure exists. The regulatory clarity is coming. Now we need the bridge that makes it all accessible.
That bridge is Decent.
— Parker McCurley
Co-founder & CEO, Decent Labs