The Open-Source Paradox: Why Giving Away Code Builds Stronger Companies
by Daniel Liebert, Co‑founder
We get one question more than any other: "Why do you open-source everything?"
Fair question. You spend months building something - an auth SDK, a data governance framework, a decentralized identity layer - and then you just... put it on GitHub. Anyone can use it, fork it, improve it. Where's the business model?
Took us a while to articulate this clearly, but the answer is simple: the code is never the moat. The knowledge is.
The Gift That Keeps Giving Back
When we open-sourced SIWT (Sign-in with Tezos) back in 2021, some advisors thought we were nuts. Why not license it? Why not keep it proprietary and charge per integration?
Here's what actually happened:
- 750+ NPM downloads and counting - each one a potential conversation
- Adoption by projects we'd never have reached through sales alone
- Bug reports and contributions from developers who caught edge cases we'd missed
- A reputation as the team that builds standards - not just products
That reputation opened doors no sales deck ever could. When the automotive industry needed a partner for decentralized data governance, they didn't go looking for the cheapest vendor. They wanted a team with a track record of building things that last - open, auditable, built to be shared.
That team was us.
The Real Competitive Advantage
Here's the paradox resolved: when code can be copied in minutes, your advantage isn't what you build. It's how you think, why you build it, and what comes next.
Open-sourcing SIWT didn't commoditize our auth expertise - it proved it. Every line of code was a public demo of our engineering standards, our security practices, our privacy-by-design approach.
Same thing happened with ENVITED-X. Making the framework open attracted 60+ ecosystem members who now contribute to the standard. We don't own the ecosystem - we shape it. And shaping an ecosystem beats owning a product, every time.
Lessons for Venture Studios
If you're a venture studio or small team thinking about going open-source, here's what we know now:
1. Open-source your infrastructure, protect your insight. The SDK can be public. The strategic understanding of why it's built that way, how it fits a larger vision, and what's next - that's your real edge.
2. Contribution is a hiring signal. Our best engineers found us through GitHub. Open-source is a magnet for people who care about craft over compensation.
3. Standards beat products. Products have lifecycles. Standards compound. When you contribute to an open standard, you're investing in something that gets more valuable as adoption grows - and your position as a contributor grows with it.
4. Trust is the ultimate currency. In blockchain, this is especially true. If your identity SDK is closed-source, why would anyone trust it? Open-source isn't just strategy in our space - it's a requirement for credibility.
The Compounding Effect
Seven years in and the compounding is undeniable. Every open-source project we ship increases our surface area - for partnerships, hiring, new opportunities. SIWT led to ENVITED-X. ENVITED-X led to Haven. Each one built on the reputation and relationships from the last.
This isn't charity. It's strategy. And it works because the blockchain ecosystem fundamentally rewards openness, composability, and trust.
Give away the code. Keep the vision. Build the next thing.
That's the vDL way.