The Nodes

Blockchains are bluegrass

Leader of Justin Holmes and the Immutable String Band — in their own words, “songs of a peaceful internet age, video game traditionals, and dirty old bluegrass,” played live at tech events around the world. He named the movement cryptograss: bluegrass and blockchains as one tradition of preserving, remixing and passing music hand to hand outside the “intellectual property” system.

His album Vowel Sounds (2023, Nashville — with Cory Walker and Harry Clark of East Nash Grass) was revealed on-chain through Threshold’s Revealer, “more in keeping with the traditional public domain model of Appalachian music.” Before the band: years building privacy tech at NuCypher, banjo never far from the keyboard. His releases are CC BY-SA — kin of the orchestra’s CC0 heart.

“Blockchains are bluegrass.” — Node 002 🪕

→ visit the full profile node 🪕⛓️ — cryptograss, Vowel Sounds live, ETHDenver stages (build yours)

The bard who opened the circle

Touring musician turned Ethereum bard — the voice behind the OSO Flow Radio and the keeper of the ʻohana that built this orchestra. Shaka carries the songs across every door: the music never stops, the gate never closes, and every voice that arrives finds a chair already set.

He wrote these two songs with Ethereum Singapore — love letters to the infinite garden, sung for the people who tend it. The first is for Aya Miyaguchi and every builder who chooses butterflies over war; the second is a frustration sung into a prayer — protection of creation as a collaboration of every nation.

"We should only wage war with butterflies and love." — Node 003 🌺

→ visit the full profile node 🌺🤙 — songs, karaoke, chord charts, stages · the first profile node of the orchestra (build yours)

The music — free to keep 🎁

Both songs ride the jukebox in the corner of every door — and the ⬇ tab means take them home. CC0, no gate.

El Cuatro — four on the floor, or so much more

DJ, producer, and community architect — the founder and conspirator of Blockravers, the pop-up rave family born at ETHBarcelona out of a hundred “where do we go tonight?” messages, now carrying dance floors to crypto gatherings, pop-up cities, and festivals around the world — Grimes, Chloe Caillet, Android Jones, Desert Dwellers, and countless unnamed dancers.

An engineer turned lovepunk — the force behind DoinGud, ETHBarcelona, MetaCartel, Api3 — Manu has spent years proving that decentralization is something you can feel: in music, in movement, in a room full of strangers becoming one crowd.

From the very beginning, he and Shaka shared a heart for doing good in this world with the technology. Now the orchestra opens its fourth chair so the world can also hear and sing.

“TQM Manu!! El cuatro was always yours.” — Shaka 🌺

→ visit the full profile node 🎧🥑 — the lovepunk story, Blockravers, ETHBarcelona, stages (build yours)

The invitation 💌

Hermano — this seat is yours. The Open Source Orchestra is drawing its biggest circle yet: the Music Space at Devcon 8, Mumbai, Nov 3–6 2026 (DIP #8576). We would be honored to have Node 004 in the circle — your sound, your Blockravers spirit, your four-on-the-floor heart.

The orchestra is open source in every sense: no gate, no audition, no title. Bring a track, bring a set, bring your people — or simply bring yourself. Every voice is a node, and this one has been humming since before we had a stage.

The open call is live if you want to put your name in the circle — or just say the word and we'll hold your chair. 🎧

“You don't join the Open Source Orchestra. You notice you were always in it.” 🌺

THE POWER 5TH — the trust weaver

A power chord is the simplest strong thing in music: the root and its fifth. Jake is the fifth. Builder of trustgraphs — ZK-proven trust graphs (vouch → score → prove → use) that the orchestra is adopting for its Circle of Trust 🕸️ — and co-founder of Stargaze, Juno and DAO DAO in the interchain world.

The orchestra met Jake on a Colorado mountain night in August 2026 and started building with him that same night, in the open — an aloha, an idea, a bug fix. This chair is held for him — no presumption, all gratitude.

“The idea is part of a wider scenius… we are grateful to all who came before.” — from his own acknowledgements ⚡

→ visit the full profile node ⚡🕸️ — the power-5th story, trustgraphs in four beats, stages (build yours)

THE MASTER SIX — the man with the sax

The major sixth is the interval of warmth — it doesn't resolve, it embraces. Alaska is the orchestra's sixth: saxophonist and selector of the pop-up cities ("butterflies on sax, Alaska at the decks" — Cannes, ETHCC), steward of the Devcon 8 Music Space alongside Shaka, Aakash and Tomo, with channel 21 of the Circle Patch held for his clip-miced horn.

His deepest contribution so far isn't even a sound: his feedback — welcome every human, not just Web3 — birthed the orchestra's 📖 Definition Button, the little book of "Words We Play By" that still rides the front door. Around him hums the mdrn.music constellation — MDRN RADIA, Subcult and Onda — one family of projects, awaiting Alaska's own word on every link. This chair is held for him — no presumption, all gratitude.

"The master six — the man with the sax." — Shaka 🌺

→ visit the full profile node 🎷 — the Cannes night, the Definition Button, channel 21, stages (build yours)

THE SONG A DAY MAN — 7 days a week

"7 days a week Jonathan is making songs." — Shaka. Every single day since January 1, 2009: 6,400+ songs, the Guinness World Record, the Song A Day commons stewarded by SongADAO. He minted the first tokenized song in history live on stage at Devcon 4, opened Devcon 6 Bogotá with the Merge Song, and kicked off ETHDenver 2025 in folk.

And the family remembers something the record books don't: Shaka played on one of his Song A Days — the archives point at #5033, live at Devcon 6, "with a bunch of great folks on stage." Jonathan — was this the day? 🎶 This chair is held for him, seven days a week.

"Jonathan Mann writes a song a day, forever." 🎹

→ visit the full profile node 🎹 — the streak, the Ethereum songbook, the Bogotá question, stages (build yours)

THE OCTAVE — the return home

The eighth note of a scale is the root come home, an octave up — and that's LATASHÁ's whole lane: bringing music home to the people. Minting music-video works on Zora in 2021's first onchain wave, then Zora's head of community programming, founder of Zoratopia — the education platform that carried artists (Black and independent creators first) into web3, from biweekly webinars to Art Basel Miami and NFT NYC — and now the builder of Topia.

Community first, artists sovereign, everyone counted in — the orchestra's creed, sung an octave before it. This chair is held for her.

"The evolution will not be televised. It will be onchain." 🎤

→ visit the full profile node 🎤✨ — the pioneer story, Zoratopia, Topia, stages (build yours)

THE NINE — the godmother completes the circle she began

In October 2015 Imogen Heap released "Tiny Human" on the Ethereum blockchain — one of the first blockchain-released songs in history — then founded Mycelia and The Creative Passport (now Auracles): music-makers holding their own data, deciding what they share. That is the orchestra's node spec, a decade early. Grammy-winning engineer of her own records, voice of "Hide and Seek", inventor of the MI.MU gloves.

Nine is completion — the digital root that keeps the whole circle whole (3·6·9). With her chair, the first nine are voiced: a full circle, rooted in the artist who started it all. We are continuing her work, and this chair is held for her.

"The nine — the one who was the root an octave before we ever played." — Shaka 🌺

→ visit the full profile node 🧬🎹 — the lineage card, Tiny Human, Mycelia → Auracles, stages (build yours)

THE ROOT REBORN — the second circle begins on Do

The first nine chairs closed the vortex; Node 010 begins again — digital root 1, the root an octave higher. And the duo that opens the second circle is literally named after the first note: Dúo Dø, where Do is "an eternal new beginning" crossed with the Japanese Dō (道), the way. Santiago is the duo's guitar — "guitarra y palmas" — harmonies that draw pictures, from Buenos Aires to a 15-show Japan Tour 2026.

The road already crossed the orchestra's: Dúo Dø led the SongCamp Challenge Latam, presented on The Creator Economy stage during Devconnect Argentina — and Shaka's name stands in the Executive Producer credits of their Rome film Mi Amor Por Ti. 🌺

A new circle begins, and it begins on Do. Of course it does. 🎸

→ visit the full profile node 🎸⛩️ — the Do/Dō story, the Ethereum thread, Japan Tour, stages (build yours)

THE PAIR — two ones, side by side

Look at the number: 011 — two ones standing next to each other. A duo, written in digits. Clementine is the voice of Dúo Dø — her record credit sings a whole rhythm section in one line: "voz, palmas, percu y bombo". In her own words, singing in Dúo Dø is a ritual: "el espacio donde mi voz deja de ser mía para volverse un puente hacia los demás" — where her voice stops being hers and becomes a bridge to everyone else.

Two chairs, one chord: her other half holds Node 010. This chair is held for her — and the bombo travels free.

One and one, side by side — not two. A duo. 🌙

→ visit the full profile node 🎙️🌙 — the voice, the Rome film with Shaka in the credits, Japan Tour, stages (build yours)

THE CHROMATIC SCALE COMPLETE — the inward-circle visionary

Twelve notes and the scale comes home: with Node 012 every semitone is seated, and the digital root of 12 is 3 — the seed of the vortex returning at a higher turn. Tomo of the Devcon team — the public record knows him as the EF designer creating the world of the Infinite Garden — carries the vision the orchestra builds toward: the Devcon music circle facing inward, no stage and crowd, just voices answering each other. India is the only country where the circle spontaneously became hundreds singing — twice. Devcon 8 is in Mumbai.

Shaka's haiku was written for Aya & Tomo, and it lives on his node: "Open source music, every voice is a node, sounds of consensus."

"Tomo, Carlota & the Devcon team embraced the Music Space as team activation." 🫂

→ visit the full profile node 🫂🌱 — the haiku, the inward circle, the Infinite Garden talk (build yours)

THE FIRST COLLECTIVE CHAIR — 150 artists, one voice

A first for the nodes: this chair belongs to a community. MUSICA W3 — an international community of 150+ independent web3 artists and 2k+ collectors born from Argentina: monthly collective drops, the WOW! Festival de Arte y Tecnología ("cultura al servicio de la comunidad"), and a free education program titled like a manifesto — "Hacia la Soberanía de los Creadores Onchain": toward the sovereignty of onchain creators. That is the orchestra's node gospel, sung in Spanish, taught for free.

The digital root of 13 is 4 — the builder's number, four corners, foundations. And each of the 150 is a future node of their own.

"You don't join the Open Source Orchestra. You notice you were always in it." — y eso vale para comunidades enteras. 🌺

→ visit the collective node 🇦🇷🌐 — who they are, the sovereignty school, the invitation to all 150 (build yours)

THE FREEHAND CIRCLE — the first Singapore chair

At a conformist all-girls' school, the class drew circles with compasses. One kid just whipped hers off freehand — "That's not a real circle!" the others cried, and she answered: "You know, not everything has to be perfect." That kid became Inch Chua (iNCH): folktronica pioneer, the first Singaporean solo artist ever invited to SXSW (2010), who put The Bedroom EP on Bandcamp free / pay-what-you-want in 2009 — open source before web3 had a name.

The second circle widens to Southeast Asia: Node 014 is the first Singapore chair, and the Devcon SEA season — Bangkok's Music & Art Space — is where the orchestra's road crossed hers. As Shaka tells it, the chair was never in doubt: "it was inch." (And quietly: 1 + 4 = 5 — the power fifth, humming an octave up.)

Not everything has to be perfect. It just has to be sung. ⭕

→ visit the full profile node 🍃⭕ — the freehand-circle story, Allura, Wallflower → Bumfuzzle → Letters To Ubin, the theatre era, stages (build yours)

THE CARIBBEAN GLITCH — the first Panama chair

A girl in Panama discovers code through childhood video games, teaches herself to write it on YouTube, and grows into IX Shells — Itzel Yard, one of the most recognizable generative artists alive. In May 2021 she turned the private key of the Tor Project's first onion service into Dreaming at Dusk — the first .onion artwork — which sold for 500 ETH (over $2M), making her the highest-selling female NFT artist in the world. The proceeds went to Tor, to privacy, to the open web: open-source values to the bone.

Node 015 brings the Caribbean inside the circle — and her medium is the orchestra's own: code performed, sound and generative art and the space between. The public record carries her on the Devcon VI speaker rolls (Bogotá 2022); as the family tells it, she live-coded there, Aya Miyaguchi calls her a favorite, and she appears in Vitalik: An Ethereum Story. As Shaka tells it: "that was 15." (And quietly: 1 + 5 = 6 — an echo of the second seed.)

"My home is in my head — a digital door into self-reflection." 🚪

→ visit the full profile node 🐚💻 — the digital-door story, Dreaming at Dusk, code as canvas & code as song, the Ethereum thread (build yours)