0:08

Hello everyone . You're listening to the Blockchain

0:11

Socialist podcast . I am Josh

0:13

and I am here in

0:15

Istanbul , turkey , where

0:17

I am currently in the middle of going

0:20

to different events for DevConnect . I

0:23

was also at another event before

0:26

this called ZooConnect , which was

0:28

an offshoot or kind of spin-off of

0:31

ZooZalu , which was the event

0:33

in Montenegro that Primavera

0:35

and I went to , where we were able

0:37

to have time to kind of dig into our new

0:40

conceptual framework for coordination

0:42

as an alternative to network

0:44

states . But so I

0:46

came to ZooConnect in order to do a panel . This

0:50

panel the title was something

0:52

along the lines of when to unplug , so

0:55

it was meant to be a panel on

0:57

when not to use

0:59

technology . So it was a really fun panel

1:01

. Hopefully , by the time this podcast comes out , I

1:03

can find a link to that panel

1:05

to share with people . So

1:08

I wanted to have on

1:10

Afra Wong on the podcast

1:13

. She is a Chinese

1:15

diaspora journalist because

1:18

she was also one of the people who helped organize

1:20

ZooConnect and the day that

1:23

I was involved in for decentralized

1:25

social was the theme . But

1:28

so , yeah , maybe , before I keep

1:31

rambling , afra , would you like

1:33

to give a quick introduction to yourself

1:35

.

1:35

Yeah , sure , really

1:37

honored to be in your podcast , josh

1:39

. I've been listening to some

1:42

of your episodes since I

1:44

joined the space last year , so

1:46

it's pretty surreal to be in the same space

1:48

with you recording this podcast . Yeah

1:51

, a little bit introduction about myself . My name is Afra

1:53

Wong . I was

1:56

an in-house journalist as well

1:58

as a content product person for two

2:00

mobile news app you know that's AI

2:02

news recommendation to people

2:04

based in Silicon

2:06

Valley for about three years and then

2:09

, around a year and a half ago

2:11

, I joined crypto and

2:13

me , as a Chinese

2:16

immigrant in California I've been living in the

2:18

US for more than a decade , so

2:22

like just bringing this really like bilingual

2:24

, bicultural background delve

2:26

into crypto . I've been

2:28

really like observing different groups interacting

2:31

under the concept of , you know

2:34

, free money Sorry

2:36

, not free money like this like sort

2:38

of cryptocurrency which can enhance your

2:40

like sovereignty . Yeah

2:43

, and I got involved in Zoo

2:45

Connect as one of the theme

2:48

curators or organizers

2:50

, where I organized a day

2:52

called Decentralized Social Day on

2:55

November 7th , where I invited Josh

2:57

to moderating a panel

2:59

called when to Unplug Social

3:01

Connection from Physical to Digital , where

3:04

the you know some also

3:07

really active members like Jenny and

3:09

Noah , was involved to talk

3:11

about you know how to

3:13

sort of organize a coherent

3:15

physical experience

3:18

when everyone is

3:20

in , especially in the crypto space ? Are hyper digitized

3:23

yeah .

3:26

Yeah , and that for that panel , I think

3:29

, just to share with people . I

3:32

think one of the things that I wanted to do was kind

3:34

of help , you

3:36

know crypto people who are oftentimes very

3:39

, very they default

3:41

often to using

3:44

digital technology as the answer to everything

3:46

. Yeah , we find that often , I

3:48

think , there is a kind of a pretty high rate of kind of

3:51

like addiction to digital

3:53

platforms , tools , computers

3:56

, phones , etc . That

3:59

is kind of , I mean , for many

4:01

reasons . Part of that is that crypto markets

4:03

are 24-7 . So a lot of people are constantly

4:05

looking at prices and markets . And then

4:07

there's also a bit of like a crypto

4:11

Twitter or like these certain platforms are important

4:14

for different narratives within

4:16

the crypto space , and like trying to react to certain

4:18

things at a certain point , Like people

4:20

are always kind of like on wanting to know what is like

4:22

current latest edge of

4:25

like the informational landscape

4:28

. I guess you can say so

4:30

. In the beginning of the panel I forced everyone to

4:32

turn off their phones .

4:33

That was great . That was great . That's really

4:35

memorable . That's even . I asked a lot

4:37

of participants . They said that was the most memorable

4:40

moment of that day . So thank you , Josh

4:42

, for letting us get off the phone for 15 minutes

4:44

. Yeah .

4:47

So I was like we're not starting this

4:49

panel until everyone turns off their phones . I

4:53

just felt that , like if we were going to discuss

4:55

, you know critically , when we're

4:58

supposed to use technology and not when we

5:00

wanted to enhance our social relationships

5:02

and when is it a bad idea to use technology

5:04

to enhance , to try to enhance our

5:06

relationships . We need to like

5:09

. People cannot be looking at their phones at

5:11

the same time or else the entire message is completely

5:13

lost .

5:14

Yeah , true , I find the crypto community

5:16

is the most formal community

5:18

that I've ever seen , like I've been living

5:20

my entire life digitally . To be honest , you

5:22

know , had my first personal computer

5:24

very early on . My dad , you know

5:27

, got one for the family . But

5:29

yeah , I mean just like delving into crypto

5:31

. I was absolutely overwhelmed

5:34

by the amount of information , not just you know the

5:36

market , the 24

5:38

seven market , but also the

5:40

trends , the cool things . Right , what are the

5:42

latest memes ? The latest memes will

5:44

make you funnier , cooler and

5:47

, you know , in a sense like more lovable

5:49

by the community and , in a sense , more information

5:52

. You can learn about different communities . Right , and

5:55

community means people . People means projects

5:57

and projects means things can

6:00

, can give you a lot of either profits

6:02

or you know some upsides . Yeah

6:06

, but , like that

6:08

panel , when I was writing about the introduction

6:11

, I remember there's a line

6:13

I wrote where is you know ? Previously

6:16

, when we're talking about going

6:18

online , it means escape from reality

6:20

. But right now , when we're trying to

6:22

escape from reality , we

6:25

unplug from whatever

6:27

is online , we put our phone down

6:29

. We would go to the nature . We

6:32

tell people be like I'm gonna away

6:35

from keyboard for this next couple

6:37

hours . Yeah , and crypto

6:39

is , you know , naturally a

6:43

space where a lot of conferences , a lot of interactions

6:45

happen . You exchange with someone

6:48

with your Instagram or Telegram

6:50

handle and then you sort

6:52

of like complete this transactional interaction

6:54

and that's it . And I think one of the reasons why

6:56

Zuzalu was initiated

6:58

or established by Vitalik was because

7:01

this thousand

7:03

people going into

7:06

a big venue exchange

7:08

their Telegram and chat

7:10

for 15 minutes was too

7:12

tiring for many people . So

7:14

he was like , oh , why not ? I just put 200

7:17

highly innovative

7:20

, smart crypto people

7:22

into the same space . But , like you know , those

7:24

200 people are sort of from different domains

7:27

and then they can cross-poll in it and

7:29

also eat breakfast together and flap

7:31

together . So I think that's initially

7:33

what Zuzalu

7:35

comes around , yeah , yeah , yeah .

7:38

I think it's like , if you get , because

7:40

the community is so globalized

7:43

and most

7:45

people don't live next to their crypto

7:48

friends . Oftentimes , I see , because so many people

7:50

are digital nomads or whatever else , they

7:53

don't have the opportunity to kind of like sit down

7:55

and be face to face if they're

7:57

doing work or something like that , if they want to do work , they

8:00

have to be on the computer . That's

8:02

sort of like a default . So getting people together

8:04

is one way to kind of like reduce

8:07

perhaps the dependence

8:10

on , you know , digital

8:12

technology for communication and

8:15

then , as well , I think there is . I

8:17

think that's why I think this is another reason that

8:19

I'm starting to realize , maybe partially , why people

8:21

became interested in , like the network

8:23

state stuff and all these things . Because

8:27

it tells people that we can , you

8:30

know , find your clan or your

8:32

group or whatever else , and then we're

8:34

all online and then bring them in a physical space

8:36

and just live next to each other . And

8:39

everyone loves that idea of like . Oh , I would love to like live with

8:41

all my best friends . You know like it's like

8:43

.

8:44

And then start a bookstore .

8:45

Yeah , yeah

8:48

, yeah , yeah . So

8:51

, yeah , so that's why I think we touched on

8:53

network state stuff in the panel as well . But

8:57

, yeah , one of the things that

8:59

I wanted to bring you on for , though , to

9:02

talk because we talked a lot during during

9:04

ZU Connect was about your

9:06

kind of perspective or experience from

9:09

like from the Chinese points

9:11

of view , because it's oftentimes yeah

9:15

, a lot of crypto is spoken about

9:17

from a very Western point of view , from a very

9:19

American or European point of view

9:21

, so I thought it'd be good to have someone

9:23

on who is able to share their own

9:25

experience and thoughts on that , so

9:28

maybe we can start off with like what

9:30

is the like ? What is it

9:32

that you find perhaps that makes

9:34

crypto interesting from

9:37

?

9:39

a .

9:39

Chinese point of view .

9:40

Yeah , yeah , in terms of Chinese

9:42

point of view , I want to maybe make this

9:44

perspective a little bit more nuanced

9:47

although I hate this word nuanced but

9:49

yeah , there's some complexity of

9:51

my , my position

9:53

. I

9:56

started to live in the US since

9:58

2012

10:01

and educated

10:03

, worked , sort

10:05

of trained , in the US , so

10:07

, like , naturally , I was in

10:09

the space . I was seen as sort of

10:11

this culture bridge between people

10:13

who are solely working

10:16

in crypto in China or in

10:18

Asia in general and people who are

10:21

working in quote unquote the Western

10:23

crypto space . A lot of people see me as

10:25

a bridge , see me as a connector

10:28

, and I do

10:30

have been

10:32

like observing how both communities

10:35

thrive

10:37

, involve and clash

10:40

in a sense . So

10:43

China China has a long

10:45

history with cryptography as

10:48

well as cryptocurrency . So

10:52

China in the early days of

10:54

Bitcoin , there's a big Bitcoin community

10:57

in China at the time , where

10:59

the Chinese taxing was really prosperous

11:02

as well , and a

11:04

lot of Chinese investors many

11:06

of them are practical are drawn into the potential

11:09

for hiring terms on

11:11

the cryptocurrency investment , and a

11:13

lot of the really famous exchanges emerged

11:16

during the time from 2013

11:19

to 2017 . The

11:21

big ones like OKX

11:24

and Huobi were

11:26

all the really known

11:29

ones .

11:30

And you also have Binance as well , which is founded

11:33

by Zhao Changpeng CZ , who from like many

11:39

Chinese entrepreneurs perspective

11:42

.

11:42

Cz , although educated in Canada

11:44

, is indeed very Chinese

11:47

. A Chinese person using WeChat

11:49

, writing

11:51

articles in China , speak absolutely

11:53

full of Mandarin and he's

11:55

like no difference than the person

11:58

who grew up and does everything

12:00

in China . So yeah , cz . Another

12:03

example . Justin Sun , of course

12:05

, very

12:08

famous hustler and , thank

12:10

God , meme generator for

12:12

. Ethereum . And

12:16

then , yeah , since 2017 , you

12:18

see this a big

12:20

crackdown in the sense

12:22

that the Chinese government doesn't see itself to regulate

12:25

cryptocurrency . And

12:27

then in 2021

12:29

, there's another wave

12:31

of crackdown where Chinese

12:34

government banned crypto mining in

12:36

China . So I was in China at the

12:38

time . It was also during

12:40

COVID , so it's like a layer of surrealism

12:42

. Another layer of surrealism where you see

12:44

, like the

12:46

mining machines in Xinjiang

12:49

province , in many , many provinces in

12:51

China , were being removed

12:54

, the

12:56

cables , the electric cables were cut

12:58

down . You just see thousands

13:00

of machine , abandoned crypto

13:03

mining machine piled

13:05

on the abandoned playground , and

13:07

that photographers

13:09

, when they're took photographs

13:11

. And still

13:13

a lot of great materials

13:17

for journalism exist somewhere in

13:19

the internet .

13:20

I think a lot of people have seen that video

13:22

of the giants . I don't even know what the

13:24

thing is called , but that

13:26

just like flattens all of this huge

13:29

pile of

13:31

A6 machines . It

13:33

was used a lot for I mean

13:35

, yeah , a lot of use propagandistically

13:38

for the crypto people , for

13:40

Bitcoiners especially .

13:41

Exactly so . In a sense , China

13:44

incubated cryptocurrency

13:48

and

13:50

still , like the most of the mining machines

13:52

were produced in China , Most

13:54

of the mining infrastructures

13:57

were established in China

13:59

, and China

14:01

still has a big amount of population

14:04

who were in , like the earlier waves

14:06

of cryptocurrency . On

14:11

top of everything , I think , not

14:13

just crypto space , but the entire world and

14:17

people inside China . Outside of China , the

14:20

fact that we're all dealing with is a

14:22

China that's been

14:25

drifting away from the rest of the world , a China

14:27

that's closing off , a China that's

14:29

no longer telling the world

14:31

that , oh , we're opening up for a direct

14:34

investment . Where that

14:36

China is gone . The Olympic

14:39

China , the Ku China is gone . The

14:41

China who says I'm gonna open my door to

14:43

welcome the foreign visitors to come

14:45

to my living room and I'm gonna serve them teas

14:47

like that China is already gone . So

14:49

the whole world , no matter who you are

14:51

, you're gonna deal with this , and

14:54

this is the

14:56

history of China with cryptocurrency

14:59

. Basically , yeah , and then we can maybe

15:01

talk about what ? About those people

15:04

who are involved in crypto

15:06

in China ? What ?

15:07

they're gonna do . Well , just maybe to

15:09

double check , like , from

15:13

what I understood , at least previously , that a lot of the crackdowns

15:15

happened specifically for mining

15:18

. That was like the big thing

15:20

, but then I don't know

15:22

what is the current state right now . Are people

15:24

allowed in China to hold

15:27

or purchase cryptocurrency ? Is

15:29

that fine ?

15:30

So , namely , ICO is

15:32

banned in 2017 , like any

15:34

initial coin offering .

15:36

That's same in like other

15:38

countries as well , but yeah how

15:41

strictly they do . It is something else .

15:43

Right , and then that became illegal

15:45

in 2017 , and then in 2021

15:47

, mining became illegal , and

15:50

namely exchange

15:52

by or trade cryptocurrency shouldn't

15:55

somehow be allowed in

15:57

. China as well , and then

15:59

that's why some

16:02

Chinese entrepreneurs who initiated

16:05

their coins before all

16:07

fleet , left China or

16:10

they don't feel safe anymore . And

16:13

I'm pretty sure there's a spreadsheet in

16:17

some agency , government agency

16:19

in China , like locally and nationally , there

16:22

are like a list of people who should be

16:24

target next

16:26

and I do know , like those

16:28

Because there are people who have a lot of cryptocurrency

16:31

. Because people are deemed rich , maybe

16:34

from a local government official's perspective

16:36

. My KPI this year is to

16:39

gain this amount of money for my

16:41

local government and if I do

16:43

not have enough , like maybe like tax collected

16:47

, my

16:50

next thing will be probably go to the spreadsheet

16:52

and see who should I to go after

16:54

so

16:56

I can complete my KPI

16:58

that year . So yeah , I mean I'm pretty sure

17:00

, like just knowing like how

17:03

Chinese government in different levels

17:05

operates . There must

17:07

be a spreadsheet somewhere that has like list

17:09

of crypto rich in China

17:11

?

17:13

Yeah , but so then I imagine , still

17:15

people . Is it that

17:17

, like Huobi or these exchanges

17:19

are blocked ?

17:21

They are . They all you know

17:23

, namely left China , so

17:25

they're like now either- .

17:27

Like they're probably they're headquartered outside of China . Yeah

17:29

, they headquartered outside of China , but

17:31

can the mainland Chinese person living

17:33

in mainland China access

17:35

the website to buy

17:38

Ethereum or something .

17:39

Yeah , so this is like a super , super

17:41

great Zoom . Like

17:43

am I allowed to use Twitter

17:46

or Google when I'm physically

17:48

inside mainland China ? No , I'm not allowed Is

17:51

because it's- .

17:51

But everybody uses VPNs kind of .

17:53

Yeah , it's namely banned by the

17:56

Chinese law , as well as the Great Firewall

17:58

. I'm definitely not allowed to

18:00

check my someone's

18:03

shitpost on Twitter when I'm

18:05

eating anything

18:09

in Beijing right , namely , not allowed

18:11

, but can I do it ? Yes , sure

18:13

, of course . I can just use VPN

18:16

and trick the system saying

18:18

I'm in Malaysia and I can check

18:21

all that shitpost on Twitter . So

18:24

, same way like

18:26

when you want to purchase cryptocurrency

18:28

in this exchange . Are you allowed

18:30

? Not really , but can you

18:33

do it ? Yes , of course .

18:34

Right , okay , okay . I

18:37

went to China in 2012

18:39

actually because my older brother

18:41

lived there for a very long time and

18:44

I remember him showing me , like

18:46

how he checked his Facebook by using

18:49

a VPN , and then do all that

18:51

.

18:51

Yeah , I mean , things

18:53

went out really fast . I have

18:55

. I remember when my dad got

18:57

his Nokia 790 or

19:02

Nokia 970 , they're

19:05

still per installed Facebook in

19:07

that Nokia . That was like 2009

19:10

. And then in 2012

19:14

, google was banned in

19:16

China , and then

19:18

just things

19:20

start to decline ever since . Yeah

19:23

.

19:24

Yeah , I mean I have a bit of a spicy

19:26

take that like I

19:30

think from a Western point of view that can look like

19:32

very , it can look very authoritarian

19:34

, but I think it

19:37

ended up being now China does

19:39

have like its own tech industry , whereas

19:42

I think and

19:45

it has basically it was a geopolitical

19:47

move to essentially ban American

19:49

and outsider like

19:51

these different tech companies , because then

19:54

America or potential enemies

19:57

would have like full access

19:59

to the information of Chinese citizens

20:01

, which could be quite dangerous . But

20:03

it is like a tough situation and if you are

20:05

in between these two countries you have to deal

20:07

with basically a splintered

20:10

internet .

20:12

Yeah , for me , as someone who grew up

20:14

in a fairly open age in China

20:16

, this tech

20:19

divergence simply cost more

20:21

ideological divergence . My

20:24

cousin , for example , who is

20:27

maybe 10 years

20:29

younger than me , certainly

20:32

like is not as informed as

20:34

I am Because , like , growing up

20:37

I was able to read

20:39

a lot of Wikipedia . I

20:42

was able to read the economist when

20:44

I need to study English , but

20:47

my cousin and her generation

20:49

is

20:52

comparably more nationalistic . She

20:56

would say something like you know , jiejie

20:59

, I mean sister , is Japanese

21:01

people all like this bad , you

21:03

know , like . They're educated in a very like instiller environment

21:05

to

21:08

where having some autonomy

21:10

to read free information became increasingly

21:12

hard for them , although

21:15

they have a lot of access to smartphones . So

21:18

that's a very sad

21:21

truth . So that's why , like my peers and I have

21:25

often speak about

21:27

this , this

21:30

deeming reality where

21:32

we could be the last quote

21:34

unquote free generation in China

21:36

yeah .

21:40

So you find that a lot of the kind of , do

21:43

you think a lot of the Chinese

21:46

diaspora community in crypto

21:48

are more or

21:50

less a lot of people from this generation of people , this

21:52

age .

21:55

Yeah , they're from this age where China

21:58

was more open

22:00

and , of course , the entire nation , entire

22:02

multiple generations , benefited

22:04

from this openness , not only economically , but

22:06

you know , education wise

22:08

, ideologically , technologically

22:12

as well . Right , Like a lot of people in China

22:14

, like you know , for example , my company

22:16

, you know the technologists

22:19

in my company who wanted to do

22:21

technology , who wanted to build products

22:23

, that's . That's like somehow anti

22:26

Facebook , anti Twitter , anti

22:28

monopoly is because they certainly

22:30

benefited from the decentralized technology

22:32

when they grow up . So

22:36

, yeah , that's definitely like an

22:39

age which is somehow

22:41

only

22:43

lives in our memory and in

22:45

yeah , it's from

22:47

my understanding .

22:48

yeah , it's sort of like , especially

22:50

since COVID it has increased

22:53

a lot .

22:54

Yeah .

22:57

And it's perhaps I mean it's

23:00

, to me it's a symbol of a couple

23:02

of different things . One is , of course , this narrative

23:04

of like we're entering into a multipolar

23:06

world where now , I

23:09

guess , china has less dependence on

23:11

American

23:13

capital and American tech that

23:16

I think now it doesn't , it can close off

23:18

and so

23:20

, and the US is , of course , I think , like

23:22

kind of scrambling to kind of figure out how

23:25

to keep its hegemony in many ways

23:27

and

23:29

so , but it is , you know , it's

23:31

hard to be in the middle of this whole thing . Like

23:34

what , what do you do ? You

23:36

don't necessarily want to take a side in this . Like

23:38

this type of , in this type of

23:40

world . It's like a very

23:42

tough position to

23:44

always be in , where you look to your left and it's

23:46

like , oh , those freaks

23:49

. And you look to your right like , oh , those guys , you know .

23:52

Yeah , I think , before the

23:55

year of 2022

23:57

, which , you know , 2022

24:00

may be marked the the

24:02

moment to the year that you

24:04

you got to choose , meaning if

24:06

you Want to stay

24:08

in China or you you get the

24:11

fuck out of it . Like 2022

24:13

, like during the massive city

24:15

lockdowns where people

24:18

see how the government treated

24:20

its people by putting

24:22

them into this massive sort

24:26

of like internment camp a style

24:28

, you

24:30

know , hospitals or places where you

24:32

can somehow get quarantined

24:34

and some

24:36

other very extreme measures to to

24:39

keep people from getting sick , but ended

24:41

up the whole policy

24:43

was executed extremely

24:45

messy . Many people died

24:48

from this . You

24:50

know side my detention many people

24:53

died from lockdown and

24:55

when the all the cities

24:58

all the sudden open up , a lot more

25:00

people died from infection and from

25:02

the shortage of medical assistance . So

25:04

you know , 2022 was definitely the year

25:07

where a lot of people completely

25:09

lost faith to China's future

25:12

. You know , from the

25:14

capital's perspective just give you One

25:17

example of how capital lost faith

25:19

in China's future is , if

25:22

you know , take talk right Really

25:24

strong . You know , advertisement revenue

25:26

generator Tiktok's

25:28

mother company , by dance . I

25:31

think their revenue scaled

25:33

as nearly approached to meta

25:36

, meaning like by

25:39

dance and meta are like pretty much making

25:41

the same revenue last year I

25:44

mean this year , sorry , this year , 2023

25:46

, but by dance

25:49

only valued One

25:51

fourth of what metas validation

25:53

is . You know where

25:55

is that ? You know , three , three

25:58

, four . It's worth coming from . You

26:00

know , lose to . It's because

26:02

people completely lost faith To

26:04

, to China due to this geopolitical

26:07

uncertainty . And

26:09

I like for a fact I know many

26:12

of my parents , friends , many

26:15

of my friends Left

26:17

China just because they see a

26:20

Deemer reality in

26:22

the future China when they went after

26:24

they see the government to sort of implemented this

26:26

extreme COVID lockdown

26:29

or like whatever measures was

26:31

in China .

26:32

Hmm , yeah , I remember my , because

26:35

I have family From

26:39

China and they were in the beginning like very , very

26:41

supportive , I think , compared from you

26:44

know they were based in the US seeing like the US's

26:46

response basically being nothing , and

26:49

then watching China them saying like why

26:51

can't , how is China able to do this and we're

26:53

not able to do ? Like basically anything . So

26:56

they were very supportive at that time and

26:58

then towards the end , I think

27:00

it became they thought

27:02

it was too much . I think just , I mean it is interesting

27:04

that like China you

27:07

know , I don't know if you know much about like Nick land

27:09

or like these kind of like hyper Capitalists

27:12

, people who actually they love China

27:14

Because they think it is like

27:16

the , the place where capitalism will

27:18

like Reach its peak

27:20

. You know we'll go to its most extreme

27:22

, especially like technologized

27:25

capitalism . Yeah , but

27:28

it is like a bit , a bit , I mean , when you see

27:30

the kind of like from what I understood , kind of

27:32

like you have the phone app where if

27:34

you were near someone else who Potentially

27:36

had COVID , then you know

27:38

you'd be locked in your and your you're

27:41

required to stay in your your apartment for for

27:43

two weeks or something like that . Which

27:46

that can feel it . It feels very sci-fi

27:49

dystopian .

27:50

Sure , yeah , yeah , absolutely

27:53

. One

27:55

other thing is people

27:57

lost faith in China

27:59

Because previously

28:02

the Chinese leadership , let's say , is a very

28:04

meritocracy based Sort

28:06

of selection . You do have

28:09

a very black boxed political

28:11

operation by the party , but

28:14

the party or the black box

28:16

, at least you know like a multiple people are in the

28:18

black box making decisions , you

28:20

know , collectively , and

28:23

now this is just a one man Party

28:26

, which is pretty

28:29

scary yeah .

28:32

How so like ? How do you know that

28:34

?

28:37

Yeah , just the very obvious truth

28:39

about dictatorship , which I

28:41

don't want to expand too

28:43

much Because

28:48

I'm scared so , when

28:50

it comes to , is

28:52

there something ?

28:53

when it comes to cryptocurrency , what is it

28:55

exactly that you think attracts

28:57

From

28:59

the Chinese perspective ? What attracts people

29:01

to it ?

29:05

From a very like . As far

29:07

as I know , people are attracted to cryptocurrency

29:10

for its Like

29:12

potential of investment return . That's

29:14

like what draws like

29:17

a lot of people into cryptocurrency in China . But

29:20

for a fact , I know like a lot

29:23

of idealistic People

29:26

like developers or programmers definitely

29:28

start to build meaningful projects

29:30

around Ethereum when

29:33

they learn about Ethereum operating

29:35

as a decentralized world computer .

29:38

Ethereum kind of like the largest .

29:41

Yeah , I think so . I think Ethereum ecosystem

29:44

is the largest

29:46

ecosystem , like

29:48

, no matter , like anywhere , maybe

29:50

in China as well that

29:52

attracts the most talented developers

29:55

. Yeah , but the thing

29:57

is we , we see this

30:00

Grand exodus of

30:02

Chinese people leaving China

30:04

and moving their capital and

30:06

moving their physical body

30:08

to Southeast Asia , such

30:10

as Singapore , such as Qingmai

30:13

, thailand and Bangkok

30:15

, and this is happening , is

30:17

, is the

30:20

new crypto rich , and the , the

30:22

, the , the

30:26

, the , the crypto capital , along

30:29

with the human

30:31

capital , start to

30:33

like really flee from China and

30:36

go to , you know , you

30:38

know , previously called Nanyang

30:40

, which means the , you know Chinese term that

30:42

translate into Southeast to

30:45

, to find , like a safer haven

30:47

, to to survive

30:49

. Yeah , so

30:53

like right now , if you really go to

30:55

go to Southeast Asia

30:58

, you go to Singapore . There are a lot of

31:00

Chinese investors

31:02

, chinese crypto investors , in

31:04

Singapore . That's why the biggest Crypto

31:07

conference token 20 , 20 , 20 , 49

31:09

was held in in Singapore and

31:11

, for a fact , I know , like you know , maybe more

31:14

than half of the participants are

31:16

Our people with was

31:18

, you know , more or less Chinese backgrounds . And

31:22

and then there are some

31:24

native crypto

31:26

community Sort

31:29

of initiated in in Thailand , for

31:32

sees , for example , is one community

31:34

I know where they want to purchase

31:36

land and real estate in Qingmai

31:38

to establish , assign

31:42

my permanent crypto

31:44

like

31:46

crypto entity or

31:48

crypto community where

31:51

Chinese crypto people

31:53

can come and go and some of

31:56

them can live there A constant like

31:58

they live as , like more like stationary

32:00

thing . And then there are

32:02

GCC . Global Chinese

32:04

community is also

32:06

sort of derived from , you

32:09

know , that group of people and we see

32:11

Waimou , this

32:14

, this group of

32:16

crypto conference organizers

32:18

which also broadly they maybe referred to

32:20

, maybe

32:23

refer to a community was like maybe a thousand people

32:25

, rich also

32:27

, sort of you know , moving

32:29

from Dali , which is like previously

32:32

a crypto haven , to to

32:34

Thailand , to Chiang Mai , and

32:37

you know , like many more , like sort

32:39

of Chinese diaspora community Started

32:42

to do things in in Thailand , not

32:45

not just crypto . Like some

32:47

Chinese , like journalists people went

32:49

to Chiang Mai . Some Chinese LGBTQ

32:51

people Move to Chiang Mai just simply because

32:54

there's no enough space for them to thrive in

32:56

mainland China .

32:59

Yeah , Hi

33:02

everyone . If you're enjoying this episode so far , be sure

33:04

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33:06

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33:56

if we put our efforts into it . So if that message

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resonates with you , I hope you'll consider helping out . So

34:05

it's so then , crypto does

34:07

it kind of just represent for

34:10

a lot of them , just kind of like their ability to

34:12

. I

34:14

think when , when you experience like wanting to leave

34:17

a particular place , then you

34:19

maybe have a slight trauma about

34:21

like potentially needing to leave again

34:23

and having some way

34:26

of being able to have

34:28

the things that you have , or have the access to

34:30

the , at least

34:33

your capital . You're

34:35

interested in crypto to be able to move it with

34:38

you Without needing to like

34:40

have to deal with a new legal

34:42

regime or things like that . Is

34:45

that kind of what you

34:47

think like a big part of the the

34:50

interest is coming from In

34:53

Diaspora communities at least .

34:56

You mean ? Can you rephrase the question

34:58

again ?

34:59

I mean basically that , like you can , crypto

35:01

is interesting because you can leave

35:04

, like if you have left

35:06

the state because , you don't , you

35:08

are afraid , or you don't like it , you

35:10

feel very negative about it , and

35:13

there is some possibility of like

35:15

having things taken from you

35:17

, or you feel that you could have things taken

35:19

from you , having at

35:22

least some amount of capital which

35:24

you can use . In a globalized

35:26

you know , in global

35:28

capitalism , you at least have some amount

35:30

of capital that you can take to another place

35:32

, where then you can , you

35:35

know , at least have not have to start from zero .

35:37

Right , right , yeah , certainly

35:39

People

35:42

can definitely enable this in

35:46

a sense personal sovereignty and

35:48

individual freedom , especially

35:51

when you are in this

35:53

regime where you're

35:56

like the like , whatever

35:58

, like the space of freedom just

36:00

getting more like narrow and narrow

36:02

. And

36:05

in terms of the Thailand case

36:07

, there's

36:10

a famous saying in China use

36:12

your feet to vote

36:15

. And that happens through the entire

36:18

Chinese history . Is

36:21

people left China and

36:24

, you know , spread out somewhere else ? Because

36:26

they voted their

36:28

fate with their feet right

36:30

.

36:32

Yeah , that's a saying in English as well

36:34

.

36:35

Yeah , the pull force and the push

36:37

force right , when you decide to move to

36:39

a certain place , there's a push force

36:42

from where you're from and there's

36:44

a pull force from the place

36:46

in your world you're immigrated to .

36:48

Right , right , but it's a very . It's also yeah

36:50

, it is like whenever you have to exit

36:53

, yeah

36:56

, with that phrase I'm sometimes . I'm like is , I don't

36:58

know voting is the right word for it , because it's sort

37:01

of like exit . It's

37:03

like less voice and more exit , but

37:07

I guess it's sick . It signals in some way

37:09

at a higher

37:11

level of view

37:13

that people want to leave this

37:15

place and they're going to this other place for

37:17

you know XYZ reason .

37:20

Yeah , yeah , I

37:22

think throughout the Chinese history , leaving

37:25

China would always give people more

37:27

agency , in a sense . And

37:30

just just

37:32

to refer back to the history of

37:34

San Anyang going to Southeast right

37:37

People going to places like Singapore

37:39

, Thailand and Malaysia

37:41

, everywhere it's like a

37:44

. It's a history not just

37:46

started in the early 2020s

37:51

. But , this whole history

37:53

of Chinese people moving to Southeast

37:55

Asia happened in the early 2020s

37:58

, like within the last two decades I

38:00

mean , I'm sorry , last two centuries .

38:02

In the 19th century , the

38:04

whole reason that , like Singapore , didn't join Malaysia

38:06

, was because it was there are too many

38:08

Chinese and Malaysia didn't want Singapore

38:11

.

38:11

Exactly , there

38:13

are , you see , like Chinese

38:16

people , like migrants

38:19

to variety parts of the world throughout

38:22

the entire . That's why there's this famous saying called

38:24

China is a process . China

38:28

is not a fixed state . I

38:30

was talking to my friend yesterday

38:32

in a table during dinner

38:34

time I said we're all carrying a piece

38:36

of China and we're that process of

38:38

China . And

38:41

when you're immigrating into a new world , it

38:44

doesn't necessarily means you cut off that tie

38:46

with China , but you're still sort

38:48

of using your , using

38:51

your front body to embrace

38:53

the new world , but also on your

38:55

back , your China is like still

38:58

witnessing you and you're just a

39:00

continuous process of China . Like

39:02

I am China , I'm a hard work of

39:04

China in a sense . So

39:07

, yeah , china is a process and there are 18

39:10

million Chinese languages

39:13

, chinese speaking people living

39:15

many , many parts

39:17

of the world , from places

39:20

like Singapore , malaysia

39:22

, you know , hong Kong , taiwan , who

39:24

has been like physical

39:27

places that being , like

39:29

embracing and welcoming Chinese

39:31

immigrants the

39:34

past many , many years . But places

39:36

like California , where I live

39:38

, and New York , where

39:41

many of my friends live , have

39:43

a lot of Chinese immigrants

39:45

. So , yeah , china

39:48

is a process indeed

39:50

and , yeah , I can definitely see

39:52

the process in the year for seven

39:55

.

39:56

Yeah , interesting , I mean , yeah , I mean I , I

39:58

, I resonate a lot with that . I think it's it's very like

40:00

, I

40:03

mean whatever , I

40:05

mean to be like stereotypical . It's like it seems like a very like Eastern

40:07

perspective about these things , Whereas I think

40:09

in the West we have a lot of . We

40:12

have like the platonic ideal

40:14

is like very prevalent

40:17

in the West , where there's like a still

40:19

image of what

40:21

is something whether

40:24

that be I mean America or Europe

40:26

or whatever else when really all these things

40:28

are constantly changing and going

40:30

through a process of evolution

40:32

for like , whatever , like the modern

40:35

time is . Yeah , I

40:37

mean I resonate with that because I mean my family

40:39

is also immigrants , so like and

40:42

but when I think about the immigrant

40:44

story

40:47

, especially in America

40:49

, a lot of it oftentimes

40:52

includes like

40:54

removing or

40:56

detaching your connection

40:58

to the previous place that you were , that you are no

41:00

longer , you're no longer a Mexican

41:02

, you are American , and

41:05

there's a . I think there's like a tendency

41:08

for people either

41:10

who immigrate , immigrate or who are , who

41:12

are children of immigrants , to like hate

41:15

that side of them or to hate

41:17

the place that they

41:19

come from . They don't want to identify with it because of

41:21

I don't know either

41:23

like racist associations with

41:25

it in the country or or things

41:27

like that . But

41:30

it is like a fact . It is true that

41:32

, like you're intrinsically , there is a

41:34

connection between you and when

41:37

you come from .

41:39

Yeah , absolutely .

41:41

I think , in the case of China , though , from

41:44

at least the bit of history that I understand

41:46

and that I've been shared with by a lot of people

41:48

, is that China has a huge

41:51

history of revolution .

41:52

Yeah .

41:53

Of like constant revolution and constant

41:55

and therefore a lot of these waves

41:57

of people leaving China come

42:00

from potentially like either the losing side

42:02

of a revolution or whatever

42:05

else , until they had to leave to places

42:08

around , which is , I mean , you can argue , is the case for , like

42:10

many different nationalities of

42:12

people and diasporas

42:14

are just like from internal

42:17

conflict . That then , like spills over .

42:19

Yeah , I think

42:21

for me , like

42:25

often I lived in Southern California

42:28

for a long time and just observing

42:30

the Chinese community gives

42:33

me a lot

42:35

of like perspectives on

42:37

the history of Chinese immigrants . You

42:40

know , you entered Los Angeles , china

42:42

Tang that's the immigrants you know moved

42:45

to the US in like the

42:47

19th century , early 20th century

42:49

. And then you go to new

42:52

cities like Roll and Hyde . There

42:55

are a lot of immigrants moved to those

42:58

cities in like

43:01

in the 1980s when

43:04

China opened up its economy and

43:08

opened up to the Western world . And after

43:10

the Cultural Revolution people can

43:13

get educated in the US . So

43:15

like a batch of Chinese immigrants

43:18

moved to the US to get educated

43:20

and then and so forth

43:22

, forged like some local communities in

43:26

places like

43:28

Roll and Hyde , in Arcadia and

43:30

the San Gabriel Valley . And

43:32

then fast forward

43:34

. We're in the early 21st

43:38

century where China sort of completely

43:41

opened up its economy and there's like a new

43:43

class of rich Chinese people who

43:46

would buy properties , who would buy , you

43:49

know , luxury houses in

43:51

Irvine and

43:54

in Newport Beach , you know the adjacent area

43:56

, and those are the people who who

43:59

are made themselves in China but

44:02

wanted to give their , their

44:05

children , a better future , a better education

44:07

in the US and of course you

44:10

know US is like a favorable destination

44:13

for immigration for many Chinese people . And

44:15

then you see an entire new landscape

44:18

of Irvine , places like Irvine

44:20

where

44:22

the

44:24

Florida , the second generation rich Chinese people

44:26

, would hand out , like in

44:29

Irvine . So you know , just our

44:32

drive in South California will give

44:34

you like you will walk through the entire

44:37

modern Chinese history

44:39

. Different

44:41

generations with different

44:44

generations of

44:46

capitals accumulated through different stages

44:48

of China .

44:51

No , that's interesting . It

44:54

was interesting when I went to university

44:56

. There were a lot of very wealthy Chinese

45:00

international students who came

45:02

and it was interesting hearing their

45:04

perspective .

45:05

Yeah , and then I actually can not

45:10

necessarily just introduce you with

45:13

. You know what my

45:15

co-host of that decentralized social day , guo

45:17

, what he was doing is ? He

45:20

co-founded this writing

45:22

platform called matterstown . Matterstown

45:25

is this IPFS based

45:27

Chinese language writing platform

45:30

, serves the Chinese

45:33

population who are no longer

45:35

in China but still need a place

45:37

to exchange ideas , to write to

45:39

, to sort of recontent , simply

45:43

because we chat . This really really

45:45

censored many

45:47

, many social media platforms in

45:49

China are heavily censored and

45:52

you can't really get satisfactory content

45:55

from those platforms . So matters

45:57

is not necessarily an Ethereum

46:00

or Web3 project , but

46:02

it is a project that supports

46:04

anti-censorship mechanism

46:07

, supports decentralization

46:09

, meaning , whoever like

46:11

, if you write on matterstown , you

46:13

don't necessarily need to worry about your

46:15

content banned from

46:18

that platform , and since

46:21

2002 , since

46:23

2022 , you can log in not

46:26

just with your email but also with your Ethereum

46:28

wallet . So I see

46:31

you know matterstown asa very

46:34

promising use case of Ethereum

46:37

, of crypto , of decentralization

46:40

, and I think it really speaks to my

46:44

desire of getting

46:46

involved in crypto . Yeah

46:50

, so it's not a crypto native platform

46:53

like Muro , it's

46:56

. The content is not

46:58

even on chain because it's not necessary

47:00

, right , but

47:03

it indeed connected a lot of Chinese

47:05

writing community among users who are

47:07

in Milan , china , taiwan and Hong Kong and gave

47:10

them . It's a really rare right now that

47:13

you know users from Milan , china , taiwan

47:15

and Hong Kong and you know users from Singapore

47:17

, malaysia , or you know people

47:20

live in West Coast , can't access

47:23

to to a

47:25

single platform and write

47:27

, exchange ideas freely , and

47:30

then in Mandarin Chinese and the co-founder , guo

47:33

and Jie Ping , are

47:35

. You know really people

47:38

who I respect deeply , and especially

47:40

Jie Ping . She's a experienced

47:42

journalist who lived in Hong

47:45

Kong for 10 years and now lives

47:47

in Taiwan as

47:49

, like , independent journalist .

47:51

Yeah , yeah , I wanted

47:54

to ask as well , I

47:56

think based , you know , based on your experiences in

47:58

the crypto world so far Are there any

48:01

like Western

48:04

biases that you see in this space

48:06

that you think a light

48:08

should be shed on or that you want to to

48:11

take note of ?

48:15

In terms of talking about Western biases , I want

48:17

to talk about the surviving

48:20

situation for

48:22

Chinese entrepreneurs . So previously

48:24

in tech there is this word called Chu

48:27

Hai . Chu Hai means going

48:29

overseas . It is a term

48:31

refers to people like the

48:34

founder , zhang Yiming , who want to

48:36

expand TikTok overseas . This

48:38

previously was just a few

48:41

good strategy or good to have

48:43

kind of strategy for many Chinese tech

48:46

people . But now , especially

48:48

not just Chinese tech , but Chinese crypto

48:50

tech Chu Hai became a necessity

48:52

. But how to Chu Hai

48:55

Chu Hai means you not only need

48:58

to provide really robust tech

49:00

product or

49:02

infrastructure for users , but you need to learn

49:04

the users . You need to learn about the contacts

49:07

. So I see many

49:09

, many Chinese tech

49:11

builders , not only in Ethereum

49:14

, but like Chinese tech builders in general , felt

49:16

this tremendous frustration because

49:19

they simply cannot contextualize

49:21

the Western users needs

49:23

and this contextual

49:27

gap became

49:30

their biggest weaknesses

49:32

.

49:33

So I've seen but do you think

49:35

that's the same vice versa as well ?

49:38

That's not necessarily a very

49:41

balanced

49:43

vice versa . There's

49:46

no space , there's no Chinese

49:48

users , let's say , in crypto

49:51

, and there's only crypto

49:53

users in the Western world

49:55

, if that makes sense . So I've only seen

49:57

like this one Ethereum builder

49:59

who is frustrated because he says he

50:03

says , oh , I'm doing something really

50:06

similar to what ENS is doing

50:08

and my team can probably finish all the ENS coding within

50:13

two weeks . But why my project is not as legitimate

50:17

or as gaining as much traction as

50:19

ENS does in the space is simply because we

50:22

don't know how to align ourselves with Ethereum . And aligning

50:24

ourselves with Ethereum means we

50:26

need to contextualize

50:28

ourselves with their ideology , their

50:31

lingual , their culture and whatever

50:36

the Ethereum mainstream is . And , of course , aligning with Ethereum became

50:39

an inner joke among many

50:41

developers simply because aligning Ethereum

50:43

became some sort of political cragness

50:46

. But this speaks to greater

50:48

frustration to builders

50:51

, especially Chinese

50:53

builders , who , first of all , they're facing a big language barrier . So

51:00

, in terms of Western biases , it's not necessarily

51:03

a bias , but it's more like a Western ideology

51:09

domination which can be really

51:11

translated to Chinese community . And this sort

51:13

of domination is really unwelcoming

51:16

to Chinese language speakers

51:19

, which could post a greater

51:21

threat to the

51:23

healthy development of Ethereum .

51:28

Yeah , yeah , I mean when I think of all of the biggest projects

51:30

in the crypto world , I only think of really

51:33

projects by either

51:35

people who are I mean , they're largely based in the West it's globalized

51:37

but people

51:39

who are from Western countries , from

51:41

Europe or from the US . Yeah , I don't , I'm not really aware of any

51:43

like or maybe I can if I think a

51:48

little bit more but I'm not aware of too many like

51:50

big Chinese crypto projects . Besides , maybe these centralized

51:52

exchanges Right

51:57

, right , right . So I'm pretty

51:59

sure there are enough talents want

52:01

to build things .

52:02

So I think that's a good

52:05

point . There are enough talents want

52:07

to build things . There are

52:10

enough tenacity

52:12

and enthusiasm of

52:16

you know smart enough developers

52:18

want to build things . It just

52:20

just just

52:23

true . Highlight in

52:25

the ideological sense is challenging

52:27

, yeah .

52:29

And language is a big part . I think like , yeah , if

52:31

you can't , if you can't write

52:33

to your audience as well , it's , it's

52:35

quite difficult .

52:36

Yeah , yeah . I've definitely seen products

52:39

with their description

52:42

contains

52:45

like some grima , like grima arrows

52:47

. That would completely just

52:49

throw people off right . And that's really

52:51

.

52:53

I would if I read a website with like a big

52:55

with some sort of grammatical error , then I'm like

52:57

it's a red flag .

52:59

Right .

52:59

Because I you know , crypto

53:02

is also like a dangerous

53:04

world where , if something is spelled

53:06

wrong and like , that's enough

53:08

reason for me to like think that maybe you're stealing my

53:10

money .

53:11

True , yeah , yeah

53:14

.

53:15

Because if something happens and I can't reverse

53:17

it , oh , you're maybe in like

53:19

another country , or you can't even speak . If

53:21

you can't speak my language necessarily , or

53:24

you know , I don't know if you can .

53:25

Yeah , yeah .

53:27

It's tough .

53:29

It's a tough problem . It's

53:31

a tough problem when

53:34

just not

53:38

only like , maybe ideology

53:40

wise , or , like you

53:42

know , not just like putting

53:45

up a decent marketing material , but like just

53:47

ideology wise I

53:50

also see a

53:52

very big challenge of

53:54

like really aligning Chinese

53:56

developers into a theater .

53:58

I would think that Chinese developers would also be

54:00

. There might be certain practices

54:03

or like they're using

54:05

it for different things than

54:07

like maybe the Western developers

54:09

using it for or like the things that they

54:11

are interested in building would be different , very

54:14

different . Yeah .

54:15

And their motivations are also different

54:18

as well , and to be tested . I

54:20

would say , Um , yeah

54:24

. So in a sense , I often question myself

54:26

like am I being

54:29

washed to

54:33

to

54:35

only trust certain

54:38

narrative but not the others ? But

54:41

yeah , I don't know . Yeah , but

54:43

yeah , but like , just statistically

54:45

speaking , you're

54:51

more likely to get into like

54:54

fishing , or traps in

54:56

like the non-English environment

54:58

.

54:59

Right .

55:00

Yeah , Josh , you should remove this part

55:02

. This

55:08

is me like my PC

55:11

. Police is

55:13

coming after me .

55:16

No , but I mean , look , I think it's not

55:19

surprising . I think the West has created

55:21

the situation and the world where

55:24

you know people

55:26

from other countries like I

55:28

mean I have , I don't want my money stolen , but

55:31

like I'm not going to , like

55:33

I don't know , spend all my time like

55:35

I don't know , bad

55:38

talking people in poorer countries

55:40

trying to make their money whenever

55:43

, like , like they're in a they're like you

55:45

know they were colonized by the West anyways

55:48

where all their wealth was stolen , so like

55:50

they're just trying to steal some back .

55:53

Yeah , totally man Just it's

55:56

a fact , it's a fact . It's a fact

55:58

, it's just . I feel like it's really hard

56:01

to talk about colonialism

56:04

or talking about money

56:06

and innovation . It's just , it's

56:08

, it's , it's like fundamentally

56:10

related . Yeah like why a lot

56:12

of Chinese entrepreneurs are not doing well

56:14

in English crypto world . You

56:16

know one is because of

56:19

the mis , whatever the misfortunes happen in China

56:21

. But like the root cause is really colonialism

56:23

.

56:24

Sure yeah .

56:25

Yeah , the root cause . Yeah

56:27

, I mean like why China , as a strong

56:29

country , cannot collaborate friendly

56:32

with the West .

56:34

Right .

56:34

Because the the dirty

56:36

, brutal hundred

56:38

years of humiliation of China

56:41

. Like how , if I

56:43

were the Chinese leadership , I

56:45

would probably be absolutely

56:48

suspicious about having

56:50

a full hundred percent open

56:52

up to to

56:54

the West .

56:56

Definitely . Yeah , yeah , china

56:58

was essentially a British colony for a

57:00

long time . Yeah

57:02

, I recommend people to look up

57:04

the opium wars if you want to see , like how brutal

57:07

, like the , the treating of of

57:09

Chinese people by by the British for a

57:11

long time , just for a small thing , and

57:16

yeah , so it is . I think there's . I think this like geopolitical

57:18

reality is oftentimes missed

57:21

when we're talking about like China

57:23

and the West , that like there's

57:25

already this huge history that has happened and

57:28

there are already sort of like like

57:31

flags planted in the ground by the West

57:34

in many ways in places that

57:36

don't allow for like

57:38

I think much of the sort

57:41

of ways that you

57:43

know may be seen as like authoritarianisms

57:46

in certain ways or kind of like reactions

57:49

to a very difficult

57:51

geopolitical situation where

57:53

America has enjoyed its hegemony

57:56

for the past 70 years after the after

57:59

World War II , and capitalism

58:01

has done its thing , where basically

58:06

money from the US , wealthy people

58:08

have gone to other countries and used

58:10

China as a place for cheap labor for

58:13

a long time . Now China has a bunch

58:15

of their wealth and now they want to not like

58:17

have their wealth leave the

58:19

country . So now , like it's like this

58:24

, I see it just like a horrific , you

58:26

know like cycle of violence that like we

58:29

haven't been able to just like acknowledge and

58:31

like we take , think about

58:34

that root problem as like the thing that we should be tackling

58:36

. Instead , we like just

58:38

, we tend to just revert back to our nationalisms

58:40

, to like blame you

58:43

know the other that they're doing that , and look how horrific

58:45

they are now and like never

58:48

sort of like look internally at what we've done .

58:50

Yeah , yeah , true . My

58:53

comment is I agree with everything

58:56

you just said .

58:58

All right , so

59:00

we're coming up on the hour . Maybe

59:04

one last thing Do you want

59:06

to talk a little bit about

59:08

Zuzalu and ZUKANEC

59:10

, since you were at both of them and you've organized

59:12

a little bit of it ? Zukanec was

59:15

quite different than Zuzalu it was in

59:17

Istanbul , in the middle of the city , whereas

59:19

Zuzalu was at a

59:22

bit of a bubble in Montenegro , on

59:24

a bay , in a five star resort . But

59:28

yeah , do you want to talk about what

59:30

were the differences between these

59:32

two events and maybe some of the learnings that you took into

59:34

ZUKANEC ?

59:36

Disclaimer I love Zuzalu , okay

59:39

, just because I do

59:42

like this experiment

59:44

of innovation , cross-pollination , and I

59:46

do want to be looped in . So , in

59:51

terms of like the criticism part , I

59:55

have some and

59:57

I've been like talking to my friends about

59:59

, you

1:00:02

know , like my criticism , criticism

1:00:04

against Zuzalu , but

1:00:07

just from a very

1:00:09

genuine level . I think Zuzalu is

1:00:12

a very interesting venue

1:00:14

and arena to put different people

1:00:17

together to at least acknowledge

1:00:19

each other Like previously before knowing

1:00:21

about Zuzalu , I do not know . There's

1:00:24

a cohort of longevity people

1:00:27

who are passionate about a

1:00:29

lot of things . I

1:00:31

talk about such

1:00:33

as not die . And

1:00:36

then , I did not know , there was like a

1:00:39

whole group of people who are , who

1:00:43

are , you know , use very

1:00:46

, very different approach to build

1:00:49

something that could close

1:00:51

to Bellagio's notion of

1:00:53

network states , you know , building different

1:00:56

communities across the world and before

1:00:59

, as was Adu , I do not know some

1:01:02

very interesting these people who are doing

1:01:04

, you know , you

1:01:07

know biology or like whatever

1:01:09

science , research based on Ethereum

1:01:11

. So it was really really eye-opening

1:01:14

to me and , in a sense , life-changing

1:01:17

because , just simply , I

1:01:20

have absorbed a

1:01:22

lot of information and made

1:01:25

a lot of new connections . And

1:01:27

yeah , zuzalu version one

1:01:29

was

1:01:31

the iPhone 4 , you

1:01:33

know , in a sense , what

1:01:37

happened . The classic Zuzalu version

1:01:39

happened in Montenegro as a

1:01:41

two-month sort of pop-up

1:01:43

community style where

1:01:45

, yes , it's happened in an exclusive resort

1:01:48

with 200

1:01:51

people invited by

1:01:53

the quote unquote Zuzalu core

1:01:55

team at the time and then

1:01:57

adding on the

1:02:00

visitors and the short-term residents

1:02:03

. I think the first Zuzalu , there

1:02:05

are like 700 to 800 people visited

1:02:09

Lusitcia

1:02:11

, which was the resort

1:02:13

. And , yeah

1:02:15

, the Zuzalak experience is shorter . It's

1:02:19

like a capsulated version of

1:02:21

the Zuzalu one . It was only

1:02:23

two weeks but

1:02:27

within those two weeks it's

1:02:29

essentially have a

1:02:31

lot of similar component

1:02:35

of the first Zuzalu where people can eat breakfast

1:02:37

together , people can co-work together , people

1:02:39

can do co-plunge together and

1:02:42

people can just

1:02:45

again like variety of people or being

1:02:47

sort of converging to the same space . And

1:02:51

you know there are different

1:02:53

theme dates . You know , one day people

1:02:55

will be talking about AI and art

1:02:57

. One day people will talk about network

1:03:00

states . One day people will talk about decentralized

1:03:03

science and biology

1:03:05

and then one day we'll talk about

1:03:07

that , you know , decentralized social . And that's

1:03:10

the day I was curating . I

1:03:15

think it's my first time encountering

1:03:18

the complexity of governing a

1:03:20

plural community

1:03:22

. What I mean by plural we're talking

1:03:24

about this community is consisted

1:03:27

of really

1:03:29

, really nerdy and smart

1:03:32

and in-depth for

1:03:34

example , ethereum Foundation researchers and

1:03:37

ZK researchers . This

1:03:40

is a community where people

1:03:42

being practicing , being organizing

1:03:44

network states . You

1:03:47

know they flew in . I'm talking about a

1:03:49

community where a lot of

1:03:51

Chinese public goods people

1:03:53

would come who live in Chiang Mai

1:03:55

. I'm talking

1:03:57

about really

1:04:00

young , like 19-year-old , 20-year-old

1:04:03

, web3 hackers

1:04:05

, djs . This

1:04:07

plural community

1:04:09

composed a

1:04:12

very smaller fracture of either

1:04:14

friend groups or conversations and

1:04:17

they somehow weirdly coexist

1:04:20

and somehow even

1:04:22

harmoniously . I definitely see

1:04:24

some really weird person-to-person

1:04:28

friendship . I was like , oh how the hell this

1:04:32

person , that person , can become good friends

1:04:34

. But this just happened in Zulu and

1:04:36

this is the magic about Zulu

1:04:41

. I was also talking to Jeanette

1:04:43

, one of the main organizers

1:04:45

. I said I was so worried that the

1:04:47

first Zulu's magic would disappear

1:04:50

in this temple , because this temple

1:04:53

is essentially a very overwhelming big city

1:04:55

. What if people's

1:04:57

passion and people's connection

1:04:59

got diffused by

1:05:01

the setting of this temple

1:05:04

, given how many things are

1:05:06

happening every day ? Later

1:05:09

, the last day of Zulu

1:05:11

Connect , I told Jeanette . I said I

1:05:15

can put my worry away

1:05:17

on my ease right now , because the magic

1:05:19

didn't go anywhere . The

1:05:21

magic was being carried by whoever

1:05:24

the people who were attending

1:05:26

Zulu or Zulu Connect

1:05:28

. For myself , I

1:05:30

indeed enjoyed being

1:05:35

a contributor , being one of the organizers

1:05:37

of Zulu Connect . I was

1:05:39

also happy , like a lot of people , especially

1:05:42

newer ones . New participants

1:05:45

see me as their core

1:05:47

experience of Zulu and see me as some

1:05:50

embodiment of Zulu

1:05:53

. I'm really happy I can be the proxy

1:05:55

of Zulu to many

1:05:57

communities who

1:06:00

didn't get to participate the first one .

1:06:04

Yeah , as someone who attended basically the ending

1:06:06

of both of them , what I enjoy

1:06:09

the most out

1:06:14

of things is that it does provide a space

1:06:16

to converse in a very open-minded

1:06:19

space and community

1:06:22

of people . I have been honestly

1:06:24

, very , very surprised to the amount

1:06:26

of people who have either listened to my podcast

1:06:29

or whatever . I get a

1:06:31

lot of like oh , I follow you on Twitter , I like your tweets

1:06:33

, I go thanks , man

1:06:35

. I've been

1:06:37

very surprised by that , to see

1:06:40

how much my content has been able

1:06:42

to reach people who are in these

1:06:44

types of crypto circles already .

1:06:49

One example would be in the first

1:06:51

Zulu there's a whole week dedicated

1:06:53

to Bellagy's side

1:06:55

of network states

1:06:58

, where I see the darker side of

1:07:00

network states , where just going into

1:07:03

Dome , which

1:07:05

is a mean conference place , you

1:07:08

can see the

1:07:10

99% of the network states

1:07:12

organizers or network state

1:07:14

speakers are male or

1:07:17

white male . But later we got

1:07:19

the . Primavera came and she

1:07:22

had the mission of overthrowing our states

1:07:24

. O TNS , her

1:07:32

narrative of

1:07:34

waving the community together

1:07:37

, of having your coin

1:07:39

in the concept of coordination

1:07:41

, also became a very essential

1:07:43

part of my Zuzala experience . So

1:07:46

I see those two clans

1:07:51

or tribes existed

1:07:53

in the community

1:07:56

at a different time but they're all essential

1:07:58

to this community . I think this

1:08:00

is really important to me

1:08:02

. So I hope to see this

1:08:04

pluralism going

1:08:08

forward and being carried forward

1:08:10

by Zuzala and

1:08:13

I think that's a charm and

1:08:15

I do want to see Primavera

1:08:17

and Bellagy be in the same room and

1:08:23

I buy popcorn .

1:08:28

I'm totally open to debating . I think he hasn't yet had

1:08:30

the courage to acknowledge us and the

1:08:41

criticisms .

1:08:41

Yeah , so we generally

1:08:43

invite Josh and Bellagy to join the next

1:08:45

Zuzalo .

1:08:48

If you invite me to debate him , I'll be there .

1:08:51

Hi Bellagy , Dm , Dm

1:08:53

, Dm . Slide into Bellagy's DM .

1:08:57

All right , well , thanks so much , afe

1:08:59

, for coming on . Is there any

1:09:01

last things you would like to plug for people before

1:09:04

we end it ? Or just tell kids

1:09:06

to stay off the Internet . Don't get addicted

1:09:08

to their phones and screens .

1:09:10

Yeah , I think two things . One is yeah

1:09:13

, tiktok is bad . Second is

1:09:15

I hope I can

1:09:17

see myself as

1:09:24

a reminder of a

1:09:26

lot of people's mission in

1:09:29

terms of joining crypto , or

1:09:31

a lot of people's idealistic mission of joining

1:09:33

crypto , like for me , joining

1:09:35

crypto . I was really drawn by

1:09:38

the lofty pie in the sky

1:09:40

idea of crypto

1:09:42

can enable

1:09:45

, enhance people's agency

1:09:47

. Crypto can

1:09:49

help the information

1:09:54

flow better with

1:09:56

decentralized technology , and

1:09:58

I think this is a constant

1:10:01

practice Like this is some mantra

1:10:03

. You just have to tell yourself

1:10:05

every morning why

1:10:08

you joined the space . It's not because of

1:10:11

monkey festival or dog

1:10:14

coins . It's because this

1:10:16

space has beautiful

1:10:19

ideas and

1:10:22

beautiful beauters , and

1:10:24

those beautiful ideas and beautiful

1:10:26

beauters can

1:10:29

hopefully make

1:10:32

this space more beautiful in

1:10:34

the future . Sorry if we give you

1:10:36

a very halo

1:10:38

ending , but yeah

1:10:41

, I want to return back to

1:10:43

my intention of

1:10:45

why I'm here . Great

1:10:48

Well , thanks so much for coming on . Thanks

1:10:50

for inviting me , chrisync

1:10:57

. All cool .