China is a Process: Understanding the Chinese Crypto Diaspora Community
In this episode I spoke to Afra Wang, a Chinese diaspora journalist who has been in crypto now for a year and a half with Mask Network and organizer of the ZuConnect Decentralized Social Day in Istanbul where I moderated a panel on technology addiction in crypto. Given that usually crypto is often seen through and talked about from a western lens, Afra was a great guest to help bring a Chinese diasporic point of view. During the discussion we spoke about the tumultuous history of China's in...
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Hello, everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialists podcast. I am Josh, and I am here in Istanbul, Turkey, where I am currently in the middle of, going to different events for Dev Connect. I was also at another event before this called ZooConnect, which was an offshoot or kind of spin off of Zuzalu, which was the event, in Montenegro that Pimavera and I went to, where we were able to have time to kind of dig into our new conceptual framework for coordinations as an alternative to network states. But so I came to ZooConnect in order to do a panel. Specifically, this panel, the the title was something along the lines of, when to unplug. So it was meant to be a panel on, when not to use technology. So it was a really fun panel. Hopefully, by the time this podcast comes out, I can find a link, to that panel to share with people. But so I wanted to, have on, Afra Wong on the podcast. She is a Chinese diaspora, journalist, because she was also one of the people who helped organize ZooConnect, and the day that that I was involved in for decentralized social was the theme. But so, yeah, maybe before I keep rambling, Afra, would you like to give a quick introduction to yourself?
Yeah. Sure. Really, honored to be in your podcast, Josh. I've been, listening to some of your episodes, you know, since, I joined the space last year. So it's pretty surreal to be in the same space with you recording this podcast. Yeah. A little introduction about myself. My name is Efra Nguyen. I was an in house journalist as well as a content product person for two mobile news app, you know, that's AI, news recommendation to people, based in Silicon Valley for about three years. And then, around a year and a half ago, I joined crypto. And, me as a Chinese immigrant in California, I've been living in The US for more than a decade. So, like, just bringing this really, like, bilingual, bicultural, background delve into crypto. I've been really, like, observing different groups interacting, under the concept of, you know, free, free money. Oh, sorry. Not free money, like but this, like, sort of, cryptocurrency, which can enhance your, like, self so sovereignty. Yeah. And I got involved in, ZooConnect as one of the, theme curators or, organizers where I organized a day called decentralized social day on November 7, where I invited Josh, to moderating a panel called, when to unplug social connection from physical to digital, where the, you know, some are also really active members like, Jenny and and and Noah, was involved to talk about, you know, how to sort of organize, a coherent, a physical experience when everyone is, in in especially in the crypto space are hyperdigitized.
Yeah. Yeah. And that for for that panel, I think just to to share with people, I think one of the one of the things I wanted to do was kind of, help, you know, crypto people who are oftentimes very, very, they default often to using digital technology as the answer to everything. Yeah. We find that often. I think there is a a kinda a pretty high rate of kind of, like, addiction to digital platforms, tools, computers, phones, etcetera. That is kind of I I think for many reasons, part of that is that crypto markets are twenty four seven. So a lot of people are constantly looking at prices and markets. And then there's also a bit of, like, a, crypto Twitter or, like, these certain platforms are are important for different, narratives within the crypto space and, like, trying to react to certain things at a certain point. Like, people are always kinda, like, on wanting to know what is, like, current latest edge of, like, the informational landscape, I guess, you can say.
So in the beginning of the panel, I forced everyone to turn off their phones. That was great. That was that was great. That was really memorable. That's even I asked a lot of participants, they said that was the most memorable moment of that. So thank you, Josh, for letting us get off the phone for fifteen minutes.
Yeah. So I I I was like, we're not starting this panel until everyone turns off their phones. I, yeah, I just felt that, like, if we were going to discuss, you know, critically when we're supposed to use technology and not when we wanted to enhance our social relationships and when is it a bad idea to use technology to enhance, to to try to enhance our relationships, we need to like, people cannot be looking at their phones at the same time, or else the entire message is completely lost. Yeah. True. I I find the crypto community is the most formal
community that I've ever seen. Like, I've been living my entire life digitally, to be honest. You know? Had my first personal computer very early on. My dad, you know, got one for the family. But, yeah, I mean, just like delving into crypto, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of information, not just, you know, the mark the market, the twenty four seven market, but also the trends, the cool things. Right? What what are the latest memes? The latest memes will make you funnier, cooler, and, you know, in a sense, like, more lovable by the community and in a sense, more information. You can learn about different communities. Right? And and, community means people. People means projects, and projects means, things can can give you a lot of either profits or or, you know, some upsets. Yeah. But like, that that panel, when I was writing about the introduction, I remember there's a a line I wrote, where is, you know, previously when we're talking about, going online, it means escape from reality. Right. But right now, when we're trying to escape from reality, we unplug from Yes. Whatever is online. We put our phone down. We we go to the nature. We tell people, be like, I'm gonna away from keyboard for this next couple hours. Yeah. And and, and crypto is, you know, naturally a a a a a space where a lot of conferences, a lot of interactions happen. You exchange with someone with your Instagram, or Telegram handle, and then you you you you sort of, like, complete this transactional interaction, and that's it. And I think one of the reason why Zuzalu was, initiated or established by, Vitalik was because, this thousand people going into a big venue exchange their Telegram and chat for fifteen minutes was too tiring for many people. So he was like, oh, why not? I just put 200, highly, innovative, smart crypto people into the same space, but, like, you know, those 200 people are sort of from different domains, and then they can cross poll in it and also eat breakfast together and unplug together. So I think that's initially, what comes up comes around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I think there yeah. It's like if you get because the the community is so, globalized, like and most people don't live next to their crypto friends oftentimes I see because so many people are are digital nomads or whatever else. They don't have the opportunity to kinda, like, sit down and be face to face if they're doing work or something like that. If they wanna do work, they have to be on the computer. That's sort of like a a default. So getting people together is one way to kind of, like, reduce perhaps the the the dependence on, you know, digital technology for communication. And then as well, I think there is I think that's why I think this is another reason that I'm starting to realize maybe partially why people became interested in, like, the network state stuff and all these things and, because it it it it tells people that we can, you know, find find your find find your clan or your group or whatever else, and then, we're all online and then bring them in a physical space and just live next to each other. And everyone loves that idea of, like, oh, I would love to, like, live with all my best friends. You know? Like,
it's it's like And then start a bookstore.
Yeah. Yeah. Ultimate dream. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So that's why I think we we we touched on on network state stuff in the panel as well. But yeah. One of the things that I wanted to to bring you on for, though, to talk, because we talked a lot during during ZooConnect, was about your kind of perspective or experience from, like, from the Chinese point of view because it's oftentimes, yeah, a lot of crypto is spoken about from a very Western point of view, from a very American or European point of view. Mhmm. So I thought it'd be good to have someone on who is able to share their own experience and thoughts on that. So maybe we can start off with, like, what is the like, what is it that you find perhaps that makes crypto interesting from,
a Chinese point of view? Yeah. Yeah. In terms of Chinese point of view, I want to maybe make this perspective a little bit more nuanced, although I hate this word nuanced. But, yeah, there's some complexity of, my my position. I, started to live in The US since '20, 2012, and educated, worked, sort of trained in The US. So, like, naturally, I was in a space, I was seen as a sort of this cultural bridge between people who are solely, you know, working in crypto in China or in Asia in general and people who, you know, are working in, quote, unquote, the Western, you know, crypto space. A lot of people see me as a bridge, see me as a, connector. And I do have, been, like, observing how both communities thrive, involve, and and and clash in a sense. So China, China has a long history with cryptography, as well as, you know, cryptocurrency. So China in the early days, of Bitcoin, there's a a big Bitcoin community in China, you know, at at the time where, you know, the Chinese taxing was really, prosperous as well. And, a lot of Chinese investors, many many of them are practical, are drawn into the, you know, the potential for higher returns on, the cryptocurrency investment. And a lot of the really famous exchanges, emerged, during the time from 2013 to 2017. You know, the the big ones like OKX, you know, and Huobi, were all, you know, the the really, known ones. Right.
And you also have Binance as well, which is Yeah. Right. Binance as well
by Zhi Zhang Peng CZ Yeah. Who, you know, from, like, many Chinese entrepreneurs' perspective, CZ, although, you know, educated in in Canada, is indeed very Chinese, a Chinese person using WeChat. Right? Right. Writing articles in China speak absolutely fluent Mandarin, and, like, he's, like, no difference than a person who, you know, grew up and does everything in China. So, yeah, CZ, another example, Justin Sun, of course. Yeah. Super famous hustler and, thank God, you know, meme generator for Ethereum. And and then, yeah, since 2017, you see this, a big crackdown in in a sense that the Chinese government doesn't see itself to regulate cryptocurrency. And then in, 2021, there's another wave of crack crackdown where, Chinese government banned crypto mining in China. So Right. I was in China at the time. Mhmm. It was also during COVID, so it's like a layer of surrealism add another layer of surrealism where you see, like, the mining machines in, you know, Xinjiang province, in many, many provinces in China were being removed. The the cables, the electric the electric cables were cut were cut down. Like, you just see, like, thousands of machine abandoned mining machine, piled on the abandoned, you know, playground and that, like, photographers went there to photographs and, you know, still, like, a lot of great,
materials for journalism exist somewhere in in in Internet. Yeah. I think a lot of people have seen that, like, video of, you know, the Giants. I don't even know what the thing is called, but, like, that just, like, flattens all of this huge pile of, Yeah. Of ASICs machines. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. It was used a lot for I mean, yeah, a lot of, used propagandistically by Yeah. For the crypto people Yeah. For Bitcoiners especially. Exactly. So, you know, in a sense, China
incubated cryptocurrency, and still, like, the most of the mining machines were produced in China. Yeah. Most of the mining, infrastructures were established in China, and China still has a big amount of population who were in, like, the earlier waves of of cryptocurrency. And on top of everything, I think not just crypto space, but the entire world and people inside China outside of China are like, the fact that we're all dealing with is a a China that's, been drifting away from rest of the world, a China that's closing off, a China that's no longer telling the world that, oh, we're open up for foreign direct investment. We're like, that that China is, like, gone. You know? The Olympic China, the cool China is gone. The China who says, I'm gonna open my door to welcome the foreign visitors to come to my living room, and I'm gonna serve them teas. Like, that China is already gone. So the whole world, no matter who you are, you're gonna deal with this. And this is, you know, the history of China with cryptocurrency, basically. Yeah. And then, like, we can maybe talk about what about those people who are involved in crypto in China? What what they're gonna do? Well, just to maybe to to double check, like, the
from what I understood, at least previously, that a lot of the crackdowns happened specifically for mining. That was, like, the big the big thing, but then I don't know what is the current states right now. Are people allowed in China to hold or purchase cryptocurrency? Is that fine?
So namely, ICO is banned in 2017. Like, any initial coin offering. That's same in, like,
other countries as well, but, yeah. Yeah. How strictly they do it is something else. Right. And then,
that became illegal in 2017. And then in 2021, mining became illegal. And, namely, exchange by or trade cryptocurrency shouldn't somehow be allowed in China as well. And then that's why some, you know, Chinese entrepreneurs who initiated their coins before off lead left China where they don't feel safe anymore. And I'm pretty sure there's, like, somewhere, there's a spreadsheet, in some agency government agency in China, like, locally and nationally. There are, like, a list of people who should be
target next. And I I do know, like, those there are people who have a lot of cryptocurrency.
Because the people are deemed rich.
Mhmm.
Maybe from a local government official's perspective, my KPI this year is to gain this amount of money for this my local government. And if I do not have enough, like, maybe, like, tax, collected, my next thing will be probably go to this spreadsheet and see who should I to go after. Mhmm. So I can I can, I can complete my KPI that that year? So, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure, like, just, knowing, like, how Chinese, government in different levels operates, there must be a spreadsheet somewhere has, like, list of crypto rich
Mhmm. Yeah, in China. Yeah. But so then I imagine still people is it that, like, Huobi or these exchanges are blocked?
They are they all, you know, namely left China. Mhmm. So they're, like, now either Like, they're they're headquartered outside of China. They're headquartered outside of China.
But can the mainland Chinese person living in Mainland China access the website to
buy Ethereum or something? Yeah. So this is, like, a a super, super great Zoom. Like, are are am I allowed to use Twitter or Google when I'm physically inside Mainland China? No. I'm not allowed. It's because it's banned by but VPNs kind of Yeah. It's namely banned by the Chinese law as well as the grid firewall. Mhmm. I'm definitely not allowed to check my, someone's, shit post on Twitter when I'm, you know, eating, you know, anything in Beijing. Right? Namely not allowed. But can I do it? Yes. Sure. Of course, I can. I can just use VPN and Yeah. Trick the system saying I'm in Malaysia, and I can check out that shit post on Twitter. Right? So same way, like, when you wanna purchase cryptocurrency in this exchange, are you allowed?
Not really. But can you do it? Yes. Of course. Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I I I went to China in 2012, actually, because my my older brother lived there for a very long time. And I remember him showing me, like, how he checked his Facebook by using a VPN Yeah. And then did all that. Yeah.
I mean, things went out really fast. I have I remember when my dad got his Nokia seven ninety or Nokia nine seventy. They're still pre installed Facebook in that Nokia. That was, like, 2009. And then in in 2000, and '12, Google was banned in China. And then, you know, just
things start to decline ever since. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a yeah. I I have a bit of a spicy take that, like, I think from a Western point of view, that can look like very it can look very authoritarian. Mhmm. But I think it ended up being now China does have, like, its own tech industry. Whereas, I think, and and it has basically it was a geopolitical move to essentially ban American, an outsider, like, these different tech companies because then America or potential enemies would have, like, full access to the information of Chinese citizens, which could be quite dangerous. But it is, like, a a tough situation then. If you are in between these two countries, you have to deal with basically a a splintered Internet.
Yeah. For me, as someone who grew up in a fairly open age in China, this tech divergence simply caused more ideological divergence. My cousin, for example, who is maybe ten years younger than me, certainly, like, is not as informed as I am because I like, growing up, I was able to read a lot of Wikipedia. I was, I was I was able to read The Economist when I need to study English. But my cousin and her generation, is comparably more nationalistic. You know, she would say something like, you know, Jeje, I mean, sister, is, you know, is Japanese people all like this bad? You know, like, the they're they're educated in a very, like, insular environment to where, having some autonomy to read free information became increasingly hard for them, although they have a lot of access to, to smartphones. Mhmm. So that's a very sad truth. So that's why, like, my peers and I, have often, speak about this, this deeming reality where we could be the last, quote, unquote, free generation in China. Yeah.
So Interesting. Yeah. So you find that a lot of the kind of do you think a lot of the Chinese diaspora community in crypto are more or less a lot of people from this generation of people or this this age?
Of, yeah. They're from this age where China, was more open. And, of course, entire nation, entire multiple generations benefited from this openness, not only economically, but, you know, education wise, ideologically, technologically as well. Right? Like, a lot of people in China, like, you know, for example, my company, you know, the the the technologist in my company who wanted to do techno who wanted to build products that's that's, like, somehow anti Facebook, anti Twitter, anti monopoly is because they they certainly benefited from the decentralized technology when they grow up. Right? So, yeah, that's definitely, like, an an age which is somehow, only lives in our memory
in in Right. Yeah. It's from my understanding, yeah, it's sort of like, especially since COVID, it has, increased a lot. Yeah. And it's perhaps I mean, it's it's a it's to to me, it's a it's a symbol of of a couple of different things. One is, of course, this narrative of, like, we're entering into a multipolar world where now, I guess, China has less dependence on, American capital and American tech Mhmm. That I think now it doesn't it can close off. And so and The US is, of course, I think, like, kind of scrambling to kind of figure out how to keep its hegemony in many ways. And so but it is you know, it's hard to be in the middle of this whole thing. Like, what what do you do? You don't necessarily want to take a side in this, like, this type of in this type of world. It's like a very, tough position to always be in where you know, look to your left and it's like, oh, those those freaks. And you look to your right like, oh, those guys. You know?
Yeah. I think before the year of 2022, which, you know, 2022 maybe marked the the moment to the year that you you gotta choose. Meaning, if you want to stay in China or you you get the fuck out of it. Like, 2022, like, during the massive city lockdowns where, people see how the government treated its people by putting them into this massive sort of like internment camp style, you know, hospitals or places where you can somehow get quarantined, and some other very extreme measures to to keep people from getting sick. But ended up, the whole policy was executed extremely messy. Yeah. Many people died, from this, you know, semi detention. Many people died from, lockdown. And when the the all the cities all of a sudden open up, a lot more people died from infection and from the the shortage of medical assistance. So, you know, 2022 is definitely the year where a lot of people completely lost faith to to China's future. You know, from the capital's perspective, just give you one example of how capital lost face in China's future is. If you know TikTok, right, a really strong, you know, advertisement revenue generator. TikTok's mother company, ByteDance, I think their revenue scaled as nearly approached to Meta, meaning, like, ByteDance and Meta are are, like, pretty much making the same revenue last year. I mean, I mean, this year. Sorry. This year, 2023. But, Biden's only valued one fourth of what Meta's valuation is. Mhmm. You know, where is that, you know, three Right. Three fourth worth coming from, you know, lose to it's it's because people have completely lost faith to to China due to this, geopolitical uncertainty. And I've like, for a fact, I know many of my parents' friends, many of my friends, left China just because they see a a a dimmer reality in the future China when they when when after they see the government sort of implemented this extreme COVID, lockdown or, like, whatever measures, was in China.
Mhmm. Yep. I remember my have, family, from China, and they were in the beginning, like, very, very supportive Mhmm. I think compared from, you know, they were based in The US, seeing, like, The US's response basically being nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then watching China, them saying, like, why can't how is China able to do this if we're not able to do, like, basically anything? So they were very supportive at the at that time. And then towards the end, I think it became, they thought it was too much. I think it just I mean, it is interesting that, like, China, you know, I don't know if you know much about, like, Nick Land or, like, these kind of, like, hyper capitalist people who actually they they love China, because they think it is, like, the the place where capitalism will, like, reach its peak, you know, or go to its most extreme, especially, like, technologized capitalism. Yeah. But it so it is, like, a bit a bit I mean, when you see the kinda, like from what I understood, kinda like the you have the phone app where if you were near someone else who potentially had COVID, then Yeah. You know, you'd be locked in your in your you you're required to stay in your your apartment for for two weeks or something like that, which that can feel it it feels very sci fi Hypotistopian.
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. One other thing is people lost faith in China because previously, the Chinese leadership, let's say, is a very meritocracy based sort of selection. You do have a very black boxed political operation by the party, but the party or the black box, at least, you know, like, multiple people are in the black box making decisions Mhmm. You know, collectively. And now this is just a one man, party, which is pretty scary. Yeah.
How how do you how how so? Like, how how do you how do you know that?
Yeah. It's just the the very obvious truth about dictatorship, which I don't want to expand too much. Okay. Because I'm scared.
So when it comes to, is there is there something when it comes to cryptocurrency, what is it exactly that you think, attracts, from the Chinese perspective, what what attracts people to it?
From a very like, as far as I know, people are attracted to cryptocurrency for its, like, potential of investment return. That's, like, what draws, like, a lot of people into cryptocurrency in China. But for a fact, I know, like, a lot of, idealistic people, like developers or programmers, definitely start to build meaningful projects around Ethereum, when they learn about Ethereum operating as a decentralized world computer.
Is Ethereum kinda like the largest?
I yeah. I think so. I think Ethereum ecosystem is the largest ecosystem, like, no matter, like, anywhere, maybe in in China as well, that attracts the most talented developers. Mhmm. Yeah. But the thing is we we see, this grand exodus of, Chinese people leaving China and moving their capital and moving, their physical body to Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, such as Chiang Mai, Thailand, Bangkok. And this is happening is is, the new crypto rich and the the the the the the the crypto capital, along with, the human capital, start to, like, really flee from China and go to, you know, you know, previously called, which means the, you know, Chinese term that translate into South Seas, to to find, like, a a safer haven, to to survive. Yeah. Mhmm. So, like, right now, if you really go to, go to Southeast Asia, you go to Singapore, there are a lot of, Chinese investors, Chinese crypto investors, in Singapore. That's why the biggest, crypto conference token 2020 2049 was held in in Singapore. And for a fact, I know, like, you know, maybe more than half of the participants are, are are people with with, you know, more or less Chinese backgrounds. And, and then there are some native, crypto community, sort of initiated in in Thailand. Four Seas, for example, is one community I know where they want to purchase land and real estate in Chiang Mai, to establish, a a semi permanent crypto, like, crypto entity or, crypto community, where Chinese crypto people can come and go, and some of them can live there a constant like, they live as, like, more like stationary thing. And then there are GCC global Chinese community, is also sort of derived from, you know, that group of people. And we see, WAMO, this, this group of crypto conference organizers, which also broadly they maybe refer to, maybe refer to a community with, like, maybe a thousand people ish. Also sort of, you know, moving from Dali, which is like a previously a crypto haven to, to Thailand, to Chiang Mai. And, you know, like many more, like, sort of Chinese diaspora community, started to do things in in Thailand, not not just crypto, Like, some Chinese, like, journalist people went to Chiang Mai. Some Chinese LGBTQ people moved to Chiang Mai just simply because there's no enough space for them to thrive in Mainland China. Mhmm. Yeah.
Hi, everyone. If you're enjoying this episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord or Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you're enjoying the episode or find the content I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist to help me out and join the nearly 100 other patrons that contribute financially, which really helps since making this stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. As As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode and access to bonus content like q and a episodes. You can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer, and I'll give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. The current bonus episodes have so far explored plenty of topics, including how co ops and DAOs relate, whether there is a socialist blockchain, a review of previous crypto events I've been to, and recently a video reaction to an episode of The Deprogram. Of course, I'll still be making free content like this episode to help spread the message that blockchain doesn't need to be used to further entrenched capitalist exploitation if we put our effort into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. So is so then crypto, does it kind of just represent for a lot of them, just kinda like their ability to I think when when you experience, like, wanting to leave a particular place, then you maybe have a slight trauma about, like, potentially needing to leave again and having some way of being able to have the things that you have or have the access to the, at least your capital. You're interested in crypto to be able to move it with you without needing to, like, have to deal with a new legal regime or things like that. Is that kind of what you think, like, a big part of the the interest is coming from in diaspora communities at least? You mean
can you can you, rephrase the question again? I mean, basically, that, like, you can,
crypto is interesting because you can leave, like, if if if you have left the state because you don't you are afraid or you don't like it. You feel very negative about it. And there is some possibility of, like, having having things taken from you, or you feel that you could have things taken from you. Having at least some amount of capital which you can use in a globalized you know, in in global capitalism, you at least have some amount of capital that you can take to another place Mhmm. Where then you can, you know, at least have not have to start from zero. Right. Right. Yeah. Certainly.
Crypto can definitely enable this, in in in in a sense, personal sovereignty and individual freedom, especially when you are in this regime where you're like the like whatever, like the space of freedom just getting more like narrow and narrow. And in terms of the Thailand case, there's a famous saying in China called means use your feet to vote. And that happens through the entire Chinese history is people left China and, you know, spread out somewhere else because they they voted their their fate with their feet. Right? No. That I mean, that that's a saying in in in English as well. English as well. Well. Yeah. Yeah. The pull the pull forth and the the push forth. Right? When you decide to move to a certain place, there's a push force from where are you from, and there's a pull force from the place in your world you were immigrated to.
Right. Right. But it's a very it's also yeah. It is, like, whenever you have to exit yeah. As I with that with that phrase, I'm sometimes I'm like, is I don't know if voting is the right word for it because it's sort of like exit. Mhmm. It's like less voice and more exit. Mhmm. But I guess it sick it signals in some way at a at a higher level of view that people want to leave this place and and they're going to this other place for, you know, x y z reason. Yeah. Yeah.
I think throughout the Chinese history, leaving China would always give people more agency in a sense. And just just refer back to the history of going to South Seas. Right? People going to places like Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, everywhere. It's it's like a it's a history not just started in the early twenty twenties. Sure. Sure. But this whole history of Chinese people moving to Southeast Asia happened, like, within the last two decades. I mean, that's our last two centuries
in in in the nineteenth century. That, like, Singapore didn't join Malaysia was because it was there are too many Chinese, and Malaysia didn't want Singapore.
Exactly. There are you you see, like, Chinese people, like, migrants to variety parts of the world throughout the entire that's why there's this famous saying called China is a process. China is not a fixed state. I was talking to my friend yesterday in in a table It's a dinner. Dinner time. I said, we're all carrying a piece of China, and we're that process of China. And, and when you're immigrating into a new world, it doesn't necessarily means you cut off that tie with China, but you're still sort of using your using your front body to embrace the new world, but also on your back, your China is, like, still witnessing you, and you're just a continuous process of China. Like, I am China. I'm a hard work of China in a sense. So, yeah, China is a process, and there are, 18,000,000 Chinese language, Chinese speaking people living many, many parts of the world Mhmm. From places like Singapore, Malaysia, you know, Hong Kong, Taiwan, who has been, like, physical places that been, like, embracing and welcoming Chinese immigrants, the past many, many years. But places like, you know, California where I live, and New York's New York, where many of my friends live, have a lot of, you know, Chinese immigrants. So, yeah, China is is a process, indeed. And, yeah, I can definitely see the process twenty four seven.
Yeah. Interesting. I mean yeah. I mean, I I I resonate a lot with it. I think it's it's a very, like, I mean, whenever I I mean to be, like, stereotypical, it's like it seems like a very, like, Eastern perspective about these things. Whereas I think in the West, we have a lot of, we have like, the platonic ideal is, like, very prevalent in the West where there is, like, a still image of what is something Mhmm. Whether that be, I mean, America or Europe or whatever else when, really, all these things are constantly changing and going through a process of evolution for, like, whatever, like, the modern time is. Yeah. No. I mean, I resonate with that because, I mean, my family is also immigrants. So, like, and but if and when I think about the immigrant, story, especially in America, a lot of it oftentimes includes, like, removing or detaching your connection to the previous place that you were. That you are no longer you're no longer Mexican. You are American. Like and there's a I think there's, like, a a tendency for people either who immigrate immigrate or who are who are children of immigrants to, like, hate that side of them or to hate the the place that they come from. They don't want to identify with it because of, I don't know, either, like, racist associations with it in the country or or things like that. But it is, like, a fact. It is true that, like, you're intrinsically there is a connection between you and where you come from.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And, yeah, I think in in the in the case of China, though, from at least the the bit of history that I understand and that I've been shared with by a lot of people is that China has a huge history of revolution Yeah. Of, like, constant revolution and constant and therefore, a lot of these waves of people leaving China come from potentially, like, either the losing side of a revolution or, whatever else. And so they had to they had to leave to places around, which is I mean, you can argue is the case for, like, many different nationalities of of people or and diasporas are just, like, from internal conflict that then, like, spills over. Yeah.
I think for me, like, often, I lived in Southern California for a long time, and just observing the, the Chinese community, gives me a lot of like perspectives on the history of Chinese immigrants. You know, you entered Los Angeles Chinatown, that's the immigrants, you know, moved to The US in, like, the nineteenth century, early twentieth century. And then you you you go to, new cities like Rolland Hyde. There there are a lot of immigrants who moved to, to those cities in, you you know, like, in the ninety eighties, right, when China opened up its economy, and and opened up to the Western world. And after the cultural revolution, people, can get educated in in in The US. So, like, a a batch of Chinese immigrants, moved to The US to get educated and then, like and then so forth, forge, like, some local communities, in in in in, places like Rolland Hyde, in Arcadia, and the Saint Gabriel Valley. And then fast forward, we're, we're in the early, twenty first century where China sort of completely opened up its economy and that there's, like, a new class of rich Chinese people, who would buy properties, who would buy, you know, luxury houses in in in Irvine, and in Newport Beach, you know, the adjacent area. And those are the people who who, you know, who are, you know, made themselves in China, but wanted to give their, their children a better future, a better education in The US. And, of course, you know, US is like a a favorable, destination for immigration for many Chinese people. And then you you you see an entire new landscape of of Irvine, places like Irvine, where, the the the second generation of Chinese people would hang out, like, in in Irvine. So, you know, just the the the the hour drive in Southern California will give you, like, you will walk through the the entire, modern Chinese history. Like, different generations. Different generations. Ways of With with different generations of capitals accumulated through different stage of China.
Yeah. No. That's interesting. Yeah. I I yeah. It was interesting. I I went when when I went to university, there were a lot of very wealthy,
Chinese international students Yeah. Who came, and Yeah. It was interesting hearing their perspective, a lot of them. Yeah. And then I actually come I can, not not necessary just introduce you with, you know, what my cohost of the decentralized social day, Guo. What what he was doing is he cofounded, this writing platform called matters. Town. Matters. Town is this, IPFS based, Chinese language writing platform, serves the Chinese population who are no longer in China, but still need a a place to exchange ideas, to write, to to sort of recontend, simply because WeChat is really, really censored. Many, many social media platforms in China are heavily censored, and and and you can't really get satisfactory, content from those platforms. So matters is not necessarily, an Ethereum or a Web three project, but it is a project that supports, anti censorship mechanism, supports, decentralization, meaning whoever. Like, if you write on matters.com, you don't necessarily need to worry about your content band, from that platform. And since, they are since 2002, since 2022, you can log in, not just with your email, but also with your Ethereum wallet. So I see that, you know, matters.town as a a very promising use case of Ethereum, of crypto, of decentralization, and I think it really speaks to, my desire of, of getting involved in in crypto. Yeah. So it's not a crypto native platform like Miro. It's, the content is not even on chain because it's not necessary. Right? But it it's it it indeed connected a lot of Chinese writing community among users who are in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and gave them it's it's really rare right now, that, you know, users from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and, you know, users from Singapore Malaysia, or, you know, people live in West Coast can't access to, to a a single platform and write exchange ideas freely. In Mandarin. In Mandarin. Yeah. Mandarin Chinese. And the cofounder, Guo and Jia Ping, are, you know, really, people who I respect deeply, and especially Jia Ping. She's a experienced journalist who lived in Hong Kong for ten years and now lives in Taiwan, as a, like, independent journalist.
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask as well, I think based, you know, based on your experiences in the crypto world so far, are there any, like, western biases that you see in this space that you think, a light should be shed on or that you want to, to take note of?
In terms of talking about Western biases, I wanna talk about the surviving situation for Chinese entrepreneurs. So previously in tech, there is this word called means going overseas. It is a term refers to people like, the founder, Zhang Yiming, who want to expand TikTok overseas. This previously was just a a feel good strategy or good to have kind of strategy for many Chinese, tech people. But now, especially not just Chinese tech, but Chinese crypto tech, Chuhai became a necessity. But how to Chuhai? Chuhai means you you not you not only need to provide really robust tech, product or infrastructure for users, but you need to learn the users. You need to learn about the contacts. So I see many, many Chinese tech builders, not only in Ethereum, but, like, Chinese tech builders in general, felt this tremendous frustration because they simply cannot contextualize the Western users' needs. Mhmm. And this contextual gap became their biggest weaknesses. So I I've seen
But do you think that's the same vice versa as well?
That's not necessarily a a very, balanced vice versa. Mhmm. Is there's no space there's no Chinese users, let's say, in in crypto, and there's only crypto users in in the Western world, if that makes sense. So I've definitely seen, like, this one Ethereum builder who's frustrated because he says, he says, oh, I'm doing something really similar to e n what ENS is doing. And my team can probably finish all the ENS coding within two weeks. But why my project is not as as legitimate or as gaining as much traction as like ENS does in the space is simply because we don't know how to align ourselves with Ethereum. And aligning ourselves with Ethereum means we need to contextualize ourselves with their ideology, their lingual, their culture, and whatever, you know, the Ethereum mainstream is. And, of course, you know, aligning with Ethereum became a inner joke among any developers simply because aligning theorem became some sort of political correctness. But, you know, this speaks to greater frustration to, to builders, like, especially Chinese builders who, first of all, they're facing a big language barrier. Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of Western biases, it's not necessarily bias, but it's, like, more like a Western ideology domination, which can be really translated to Chinese community. And this sort of domination is really, unwelcoming to Chinese language speakers, which could pose a greater threat to the healthy development of Ethereum.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I when I think of all of the biggest projects in the crypto world, I only think of really projects by either people who are I mean, they're largely based in the West, so it's globalized, but, people who are from Western countries, from Europe, or from The US. Yeah. Like, I don't I don't I'm not really aware of any, like or maybe I can if I think a little bit more, but I'm not aware of too many, like, big, Chinese crypto projects besides maybe these centralized exchanges.
Right. Right. Right. Right. So I'm pretty sure there are enough talents want to build things. There are enough, tenacity and enthusiasm of, you know, smart enough developers want to build things. It just just, just too high, like, in a in a ideological sense is challenging.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. And language is a big part. I think, like, yeah, if you can't if you can't write to your audience as well, it's it's quite difficult.
Yeah. Yeah. I've definitely seen products with their description, contains, like, some grammat like, grammar arrows Mhmm. That would completely just throw people off. Right? And that's really
I mean, I would if I if I read a website with, like, a big with some sort of grammatical error, then I'm like, it's a it's a red flag just because I and, you know, crypto is also like a a dangerous world where if something is spelled wrong and, like, they're like, that's enough reason for me to, like, think that maybe you're stealing my money.
True. Yeah.
Yeah. Because if something happens and I can't reverse it, oh, you're maybe in, like, another country or you can't even speak if you can't speak my language necessarily or, you know, I don't know if you can. Yeah.
Yeah. It's it's It's tough. It's it's a tough problem. It's a tough problem.
Mhmm.
Where just not only like maybe I had a lot ideology wise, or, like, you know, not just like putting up a decent marketing material, but, like, I just ideology wise. Mhmm. I also see a very big challenge of, like, really aligning Chinese developers
into a series. I would think that Chinese developers would also be there might be certain, practices or like, they're using it for different things than, like, maybe the Western developer is using it for. Or, like, the things that they are interested in building would be different. Very different.
Yeah. And their motivations are also different as well. And to be tested, I would say. Mhmm. Yeah. So in a sense, I often question myself, like, am I being washed to to only trust certain narrative, but not the others. Mhmm. But yeah. I don't know. Yeah. But yeah. But the like, just statistically speaking, you're more likely to get into, like, fishing or traps in, like, the non English environment. Right. But yeah. Josh, you should remove this part. It's me. Like, my PC, police is, coming after me.
No. But I mean, look, I think it's it's not surprising. I think the West has created this situation and the world where Yeah. True. You know, very people from other countries, like, I I mean, I have I don't want my money stolen, but, like, I'm not going to, like, I don't know, spend all my time, like, I don't know, bad talking people in poorer countries trying to make their money whenever like, they're in a they're, like, a you know, they were colonized by the West anyways where all their wealth was stolen. So, like Yeah. They're just trying to steal some back. That's
a Yeah. Totally, man. Just It's a fact. It's a fact. It's a fact. It's just I feel like it's really hard to talk about colonialism or talking about money and innovation. It's just it's it's it's like fundamentally related. Yeah. Like why a lot of Chinese entrepreneurs are not doing well in English crypto world, you know, one is because of the miss whatever the misfortunes happen in China, But, like, the root cause is really colonialism. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. The root cause. Yeah. I mean Like, why China as a strong country cannot collaborate friendly with the West? Right. Because the the dirty, brutal hundred years of humiliation of China. Like how if I were the Chinese leadership, I would probably be absolutely suspicious about comp having a full 100% open up
to Of course. To the West. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. China was, essentially, British colony for a long time. Yeah. Recommend people to look up the opium wars if you wanna see, like, how brutal, like, the the treating of, of Chinese people by by the British for a long time, just for a small thing. And yeah. So it is I think there's I think this, like, geopolitical reality is oftentimes missed when we're talking about, like, China and the West that, like, there's already this huge history that has happened, and there are already sort of, like, like, flags planted in the ground by the West in many ways in places that don't allow for like, I think much of the sort of ways that, you know, may be seen as, like, authoritarianisms in certain ways or kind of, like, reactions to a very difficult geopolitical situation where America has enjoyed its hegemony for the past seventy years after the after World War two. Mhmm. And capitalism has done its thing where, basically, money from The US, wealthy people have gone to other countries Yeah. And used China as a place for cheap labor for a long time. Yeah. Now China has a bunch of their wealth, and now they want to not, like, have their wealth leave the country. So now, like, it's like this, I see it just like a horrific, you know, like, cycle of violence that, like, we haven't been able to just, like, acknowledge and, like, we take think about that root problem as, like, the thing that we should be tackling. Instead, we, like, just, we tend to just revert back to our nationalisms to, like, blame, you know, the other that they're doing that and look how horrific they are now and, like, never sort of, like, look internally at what we've done.
Yeah. Yeah. True. My comment is I agree with everything you just said.
Alright. So we're we're coming up on the hour. Maybe one last thing. Do you want to talk a little bit about, Zuzalu and ZuConnect since you were at both of them and you've organized a little bit of it? Zuzalu was quite different than Zuzalu. It was in Istanbul in the middle of the city, whereas Zuzalu was at a a bit of a bubble in in Montenegro on a bay in a five star resort. But, yeah, do you wanna talk about kinda like the what what were the the differences between these two events and maybe some of the learnings that you took into to ZooConnect.
Disclaimer. I love Zuzalu. Okay. You just, just because I, I I do, like this experiment of innovation cross pollination, and I do want to be looped in. So, in terms of, like, the criticism part, I have some, and I've been, like, talking to my friends about, about, you know, like, my my criticism criticism, against Zuzalu, but just, from a very genuine level, I think Zuzalu is a very interesting venue and arena to put different people together to at least acknowledge each other. Like previously before knowing about Zuzadu, I do not know, there's a cohort of longevity people who are passionate about a lot of things that I talk about, such as not that. Right? And then I did not know there are those like, a whole group of people who are, who are, you know, use very, very different approach to build something that could close to Balaji's notion of network states, you know, building different communities across the world. And before, I do not know, some very interesting people who are doing, you know, you know, by all biology or like whatever science research based on Ethereum. So it was really, really eye opening to me. And in in a sense, life changing because just simply I have absorbed, a lot of information and made a lot of new connections. And, yeah, Zuzadu version one, was the iPhone four, you know, in a sense, what happened, the the classic Zuzadu version, happened in Montenegro as a two month sort of pop up community style, where, yes, it's happened in a exclusive resort, with, 200, people invited by the, quote, unquote, Zuzadu core team at the time. And then adding on, the visitors and the short term, residents, I think the first Zuzadu, there are, like, 700 to 800 people Mhmm. Visited, L'ustisha, which was the resort. And the yeah. The Zukanek experience is shorter. It's a, it's like a encapsulated version of Zulu one. It was only two weeks. But within those two weeks, it's essentially, have a lot of similar, component of the first Suzano where people can eat breakfast together, people can co work together, people can do co plunge together, and people can, you know, just, again, like, variety of people were being sort of converging into the same space. And, you know, there are different theme days. You know? One day would people will be talking about AI and art. One day people will talk about network states. One one day people will talk about, decentralized science and, and and and biology. And and one day we'll talk about, you know, decentralized social, and that's, you know, the day I was curating. I think it's my first time, encountering the complexity of governing a plural plural community. What I mean by plural, we're talking about this community is consisted of, really, really nerdy and smart, and in-depth, for example, Ethereum Foundation researchers and ZK researchers. They're this is a community where, people have been practicing, be organizing network states. You know, they flew in. I'm talking about a community where a lot of, you know, Chinese public goods people, would come who live in Chiang Mai. I'm talking about, really, young, like, 19 year old, 20 year old, Web three hackers, this plural community composed a very smaller fracture of either friend groups or conversations, and they somehow like weirdly coexist Mhmm. And somehow like even harmoniously. So I I I definitely see some like really weird person to person friendship. I was like, oh, how the hell, you know, this person, that person can become good friends. But, you know, this just happened in Zalu, and this is a magic about Zalu. And, and I was also talking to, Janine, one of the main organizers of I said, I was so worried that the first the first magic would disappear in Istanbul because Istanbul is essentially a very overwhelming big city. Like, what if people's passion and people's connection got diffused by the the setting of this temple given how many things are happening every day? But and later, the last day of Zuzakanak, I told, I said, I can put my my my worry away. I'm at ease right now because the magic didn't didn't go anywhere. The magic was being carried by by whoever, the people the the people who are attending, or zoo connect. And I I for myself, I I indeed enjoyed, being, being a contributor, being one of the organizers of zoo connect. And, I was also happy, like, a lot of people, especially newer ones, new participants see me as their, like, core experience of Zuzalo and see me as some embodiment of Zuzalo. Mhmm. So I'm I'm really happy, like, I can be the proxy of Zuzalo to many communities who not who didn't get to participate the first one. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. As a as someone who attended basically the ending of both of them, yeah. I mean, I really what I enjoy the most out of things is that it does provide a space to converse in a very open minded kind of, space and and community of people. Like, I have been honestly very, very surprised to the amount of people who have either listened to my podcast or, whatever. I get I get a lot of, like, oh, I follow you on Twitter. I like your tweets. Yeah. I go. Thanks, man. So I've been very surprised by that, to see how much kinda, like, my content has been able to reach people who are in, these types of, crypto circles already.
Yeah. Yeah. One example would be, in the first Zuzalo, there's a whole week dedicated to Balaji's side of, network states where I see is, like, the darker side of network states where, you know, like, good just going into Dome, which is a main conference place, you can see the, like, 99% of the network state organizers or network sips network state speakers are male or more so to speak, white male. But later, we got the Primavera came, and she had the mission of overthrowing our states. Right? O t o t n s. O t n s. Okay. Yeah. O o t n s. And, and, her narrative of, you know, waving, the community together, of having you're coining the concept of coordination also became a very essential part of my experience. Right? So I see those two, clans or tribes, existed, in the community at a different time, but they're all essential to this community. I think this is, really important to me. So I I hope to see this pluralism, going forward and being carried forward by by Zuzalo. Yeah. And I think that's a charm. Yeah. And I do wanna see, Primavera and Balaji be in the same room. Yeah. And I buy popcorn.
Yeah. I know. I would I think one of the things I would I mean, I'm totally open to debating, to Balaji. I think he's just kind of, he hasn't yet, I think, had the courage to to acknowledge us and the criticisms.
Yeah. So Yeah. So we generally invite, we generally invite Josh and Balaji to join the next Gonzalo and
I I if you invite me to debate him, I'll be there.
Hi, Balaji. DM. DM. DM. Slide into Balaji's DM.
Alright. Well, thanks so much, Afa, for coming on. Is there any last things you would like to plug for people, before we end it, or or just tell kids to stay off the Internet? Don't don't get addicted to their phones and screens. Yeah. One I think two things. One is, yeah, TikTok is bad.
Second is second is, I I I hope I can I can see myself as a reminder of a lot of pea people's mission in term of in terms of joining crypto or or a lot of people's idealistic mission of joining crypto? Like for me, joining crypto, I was really drawn by the lofty pie in the sky idea of crypto can enable enhance people's agency. Crypto can, can help the information flow better, with decentralized technology. And I think this is a constant practice. Like, this is some mantra. You just have to tell yourself every every morning, like, why you join the space. It's not because of, you know, monkey festival or or or dog coins. It's because this space has, beautiful ideas, and the beautiful builders. And and and those beautiful audience and beautiful builders can hopefully, make this space more beautiful in the future. Sorry if we give you a very, a halo like ending, but, but I, yeah, I I want to, like, return back to my, like, intention of why I'm here. Yeah.
Great. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for inviting me.