In Memorium: Nikolai Mushegian
@dittoprojOctober 28, 2023
We mustn't move forward too quickly without taking time to remember those who helped us get here.
Today we raise tribute to Nikolai Mushegian. He was a true pioneer, a brilliant mind. Nikolai was an influential developer in the Ethereum community, as the architect of MakerDao and RAI. Before working on Ethereum he was a core developer on Bitshares, joining after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University. He in no small way helped to build the very first stablecoin project in crypto. He was there from the beginning, and his impact was significant.
Most importantly, Nikolai was a cypherpunk, one of a few that remained active in the crypto community. He was consistently an advocate for a more transparent and decentralized financial system, which principally led him to develop RAI, a fully immutable and permissionless stablecoin with little governance.
I had the opportunity to speak with Nikolai on occasion. Not only was he sharp and smart, but also he valued decentralization against abusive authoritative overreach. He was noble in the cause. However, sadly he passed away a year ago today in his place of residency in Puerto Rico.
But it's our job now to remember and carry on the spirit and values he championed. We should all contend to create, promote, and adopt censorship resistant money that is immune to oversight and regulation from central banks and centralized stablecoin issuers. History will not be kind to us if we did otherwise.
―Ditto