tony🧙🏽‍♂️

Cyber Meta, Inc. Is Dead. Long Live @oncyber. gm, I’ve been pretty quiet for the past few months, but today I’m sharing an important chapter in our journey. It’s a tough story to tell, but one that ends with hope; and a new beginning. For those who don’t know, I started @oncyber out of my bedroom in 2020. I was just a kid on a lifelong mission to make the internet more fun, and this was just an idea: to enable anyone to experience crypto + creativity with others through 3D NFT galleries. Thanks to you—our incredible community—we grew fast. Over 10 million visitors to 400k+ user-generated crypto experiences, and moments that showed us the open metaverse could be real + fun. But as much as we accomplished, the bear market hit us harder than I could’ve imagined. As many reading this will relate, in times of euphoria I arrogantly thought we were invincible, and that left us unprepared for tougher times. In September 2023, I had to let go of many valued team members. I stopped paying myself to make space for runway. Heads down, we kept grinding, looking for new markets, new ways to stay alive. But then we had to cut again, and cut again until we were back to devs only - who also sacrificed and are still fighting alongside me today - gents, I am grateful for your effort and I will never forget it. However, we couldn’t turn the tide in time, and eventually, last month, the company ran out of funds. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t raise more capital. The market didn’t care about how much we’d done or how much I believed in our future. I failed. It was humbling in a way I’ll carry with me forever. Throughout the adventure, I kind of lost myself in trying to fit the role of a funded company’s “CEO”. I started coding less, and then not at all. I started delegating community stuff until I wasn’t involved in it as much. If you don’t keep yourself in check often, you risk waking up one day with a headache, wondering how you’ve wandered so far away from home. Why would I ever change the ways that got me where I am and that I love so much? With challenges come lessons and I’m grateful for them all, but this isn’t a story about obstacles, it’s about what happens next. My biggest worry with running out of money was that we’d need to liquidate the company’s assets (domains, servers etc). It quickly went away though; our investors were more supportive than I could have imagined. They put aside their own interests, their ownership, and gave me the chance to keep @oncyber alive—for you, for our community. They didn’t have to do this, and I’ll always be grateful to them: [@jessewldn, @punk6529, @packyM, @krybharat, @jdh, @ShrugCap, @jtriest, @CozomoMedici, @tarunchitra, @DeeZe, @luizgram, @eric_rsno, @jarroddicker, @ReoffGenaud] you've always been incredible, anyone would be lucky to have you by their side, and your support through all times mean everything to me. So here’s where we are now: Cyber Meta Inc. is gone. The company incorporated in 2021 (pre Facebook rebrand 😁) is dissolving. But @oncyber lives on—clean slate, free of any pressures, fully focused on serving the community that made it what it is. I'm not going anywhere, I'm committed to keeping the platform alive no matter what it costs me, personally or financially (I thankfully have some once illiquid memes set aside in case of emergency). And I’m not alone, I got my team with me to bring the product back to what it was always meant to be: an open, resilient platform that makes it as simple as 1, 2, 3 to create 3D NFT mini worlds. I’m writing this from the very same bedroom I started the project in back in 2020. Back to square one. What a beautiful journey this has been, and what an amazing feeling to be back at the very same desk to lay the first bricks of what’s next. We’re working on something new. Something that will ensure @oncyber is not just alive, but is resilient and thrives for years to come. I can’t share much as of now, but I’ll promise you this: it’s being built with the same principles that got us here—openness, accessibility, and an obsessive focus on what our community wants. I’ll die on this hill. The open metaverse will win. To everyone who’s been part of this journey: thank you. To those who stuck with me when things got hard—you’re my heroes. To the community that has supported us from day one, this is for you. If you believe in this vision, if you want to see the open metaverse flourish, join me. Join us. Share your ideas, shape the future, and let’s make history together. I’ll stay hanging out in my favorite place in the world, the internet, and you can find me here or on our discord. This isn’t the end. It’s a rebirth. Long live @oncyber.