3-Hour In-Depth Interview with Shaw: How Did a16z Reach a $19 Billion Valuation from Scratch?

Guest: Shaw, Co-Founder of a16z
Original Translation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: This interview starts with Shaw's trip to China, where Shaw reflects on his early experiences and turning points in life, shares the story behind "Eliza" and the success code of a16z, delves into the application of AI alignment in the crypto field, and interprets the impact of the "Eliza Drama" and Skelly controversy. Shaw envisions the concept of "DAO Town" in Wyoming, candidly discusses the challenges of being a public figure, and offers profound insights into the future of DeFi smart contracts and the Crypto AI ecosystem in 2025, bringing inspiring thoughts.

The following is the original content (lightly edited for readability):

China Trip

BlockBeats: How was your trip to China this time?

Shaw: It was great, a very unique experience. This trip to China made me realize the popularity of cryptocurrency in China is beyond imagination. Many people who have invested in our project are Chinese, and there are also many friends from Korea and Japan. I am particularly interested in who these people are since cryptocurrency has become a global phenomenon. I have some Chinese friends living in San Francisco who are very enthusiastic about cryptocurrency. This made me have the idea of ​​deeply studying and understanding these people. Sometimes I feel that especially in the United States, our perspective is very limited, and the cryptocurrency field is no exception, whether it is the dissemination of content or the projects themselves are very US-centric.

So I hope to have all documents translated into multiple languages. We have internationalized the README files for all our projects, and I hope all the documents can be used by people outside the US for their own communities and related projects.

BlockBeats: So you were not aware before that there was a completely different market?

Shaw: I knew there was an international market, but cryptocurrency, Twitter, and some things were still relatively unfamiliar to me. Although I have some understanding, I am not clear about the full picture of cryptocurrency. My previous work mainly focused on the technical aspects of Ethereum, such as NFT backend development. I didn't have much understanding of the entire cryptocurrency culture; I just built relevant content technically. In 2021 and 2022, I mostly worked with brands, but they hardly paid attention to the international market.

BlockBeats: What prompted you to decide to come to China in person?

Shaw: I think internationalization is very important. What we are doing is more like a movement. It's like there's no VC, no team allocation, not even a whitepaper. Everything is very natural, and we can see our partners all over the world. For example, Mihawk was here yesterday, and we noticed that the Chinese community is very interested in our project, but they don't quite understand what we are doing.

So we started adding translation features on Discord and had community members help us bridge the communication gap. I was just thinking about how to bridge these gaps because I feel like there are so many talented people here, such a great environment. But as someone who only speaks English, I think about how I can truly integrate and reach this market.

BlockBeats: Did you start your trip from Shanghai? I remember the 706 group is also in Shanghai, right?

Shaw: Yes, they are actually an international team with bases in many places. But their main base is in Shanghai. We also participated in a hackathon event, and many people participated. I was fortunate to meet many people as a judge, and it felt great.

BlockBeats: I think 706 is one of China's largest Digital OMAC communities, and they organize various types of offline activities. In fact, the offline meeting mode of the Chinese community seems to have been initiated by 706 in 2022. In fact, most very successful crypto teams or projects usually have very good relationships with the Chinese community and have origin stories, especially related to Ethereum.

It's quite interesting. For example, going back to Vitalik, when he first came to China, many Chinese investors helped him. Another example is Anatoly, the founder of Solana, who also visited our office before the bull market arrived, and the project quickly took off in the following year. And now you are here. Perhaps this is a good sign for the crypto industry, and next year will be a very good year. Because promising projects often come to the Chinese community, interact with developers and community members, and then these projects will truly take off in the following year. This phenomenon is somewhat like an interesting signal.

Shaw: I think it might be because these people are willing to personally go to various parts of the world to interact with the community and are willing to engage with those who are truly contributing to the industry. This proactive engagement attitude is important in itself. On the one hand, you know, meeting everyone and building your own connections is a good thing. But on the other hand, people like Vitalik, he would want to meet everyone, want to be with people. This trait is one of the core parts of his whole philosophy, and I resonate a lot with that. The U.S. is powerful, but has a relatively small population, while China is both powerful and populous. We are two superpowers, and although there are some conflicts at the government level, as humans, we are actually the same, we are really working together.

Early Experience

BlockBeats: That makes a lot of sense. By the way, you mentioned earlier that you also have some development experience in the Ethereum ecosystem. Could you share more about that?

Shaw: My initial entry into this field was driven by my interest in game development, especially in the interoperability of cross-platform assets and characters, such as how to trade items across different games. This concept later evolved into what is now known as the 'metaverse.' NFTs immediately caught my attention, and I got involved in the development of many NFT projects, primarily helping others as an unknown developer.

I also collaborated with some brands, although they may not have had a deep understanding of the culture and needed guidance. Through these projects, I learned a lot, such as the Solidity programming language. However, I have always been particularly interested in 'smart agents' and wanted to explore how to integrate off-chain artificial intelligence with on-chain identity and wallets. This was also the opportunity that led me into this field.

BlockBeats: Were these experiences before the year 2024? For example, before the release of ChatGPT?

Shaw: Yes, definitely before the release of ChatGPT. At that time, the GPT series of models were just beginning to take shape. Models like GPT-1 and GPT-2 were quite basic, and it wasn't until the emergence of GPT-3 that we realized it would be a game-changer. As soon as the Beta test of GPT-3 was released, I seized the opportunity to join a small community, which was the beginning of everything that drives my work today. The introduction of GPT-4 and ChatGPT further revolutionized AI, as its capabilities expanded to not only rhyme and reason but also handle longer contexts.

BlockBeats: So, at that time, were you both developing within the Ethereum community and keeping an eye on the AI field? When was this?

Shaw: It was around the middle of 2021, I'm not very good at perceiving time, but it was roughly when the GPT-3 Beta test was gaining momentum. By the end of 2021, I began to see the increasing potential of developing smart agents. During that time, I was mainly making a living by creating smart agents and 3D virtual characters while also working on some NFT project development.

BlockBeats: I remember in the latter half of the 2021 bull market, NFTs began to rapidly rise. At that time, you were not only focusing on NFTs but also researching the concept of intelligent agents. This seemed to be a very early direction, as almost no one was discussing intelligent agents at the time. Did you combine agents and encryption together?

Shaw: Yes, at that time there was a company called Webiverse, which conducted a very successful NFT land sale event. I joined after the land sale was completed. I served as the lead developer for a while, mainly responsible for character design and creation. It was a purely AI metaverse project, and our goal was to allow intelligent agents to freely roam in a 3D world. However, the project later fell victim to a hack, and the entire treasury was stolen, with everything transferred to the hacker's wallet, putting a lot of pressure on the team. Webiverse later transformed into the current MoeMate, which is a project focused on AI characters and later entered the meme field.

Looking back, at that time, we were indeed trying to introduce AI intelligent agents into the 3D world. After that, I also participated in some other projects, such as one called MagicML platform, and another project called Project 89, not sure if you have heard of Parzival. We were the co-founders of this project and also launched an open-source intelligent agent project called Magic. The goal was to create a no-code intelligent agent building tool, which I thought was a cool idea. But the community feedback was, "We don't know how to build agents, can you help us?"

BlockBeats: Indeed, sometimes the interface of a no-code tool can feel mysterious.

Shaw: Yes, I had the same feeling at the time. When I left the project, I still maintained a good relationship, but inwardly, I leaned towards creating a more ideal agent, which I called "Eliza." We initially tried to develop Eliza within the Magic framework as an example to demonstrate the best agent we could build with this tool.

However, the efficiency of no-code development was too slow, and I gradually became frustrated. So I decided to abandon the no-code approach and focus on developing Eliza. Initially, this project did not attract much attention, so I had to sustain myself through other projects while persisting in developing the open-source part of Eliza.

BlockBeats: What is your experience with guitar and music?

Shaw: That was a long time ago. In my early 20s, I was a professional musician and went on tours. However, that experience is not directly related to the current Eliza project, which started about two years ago.

Jill: Yes, that was when we first met and started collaborating.

BlockBeats: I see. So, you two met during that time?

Jill: When I met him, he was working on the Magic project. Later, he shifted his focus entirely to Eliza and went through many other projects during that time.

Why the Name "Eliza"?

Shaw: During that time, I mostly did some temporary projects to make a living while continuing to focus on developing intelligent agents, all of which were open source. I built many experimental features in Python, such as allowing agents to write their own code, manage social media, and even operate computer terminals autonomously.

Later, I realized that intelligent agents are actually a web-based technology. So, I refactored the entire system in TypeScript and named the project VEGENT (because the name "Agent" was already taken on NPM). Afterward, I renamed it Eliza, which became the core of the project. When the Meme trend emerged, my technology was ready.

Later, I released an agent based on Eliza, but initially, it did not attract much attention until I met Skelly and we did an event called VEGENT Spartan. Some people questioned the authenticity, so I made the code public. Once people saw it, they realized that this technology was indeed viable, which propelled the entire project forward.

BlockBeats: I highly recommend everyone to listen to Bankless's podcast, where you can hear the whole story of the AI6z project, which is very interesting. I'm curious, why did you choose the name "Eliza"? Does it have any special meaning?

Shaw: Indeed, there is a story behind this. In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum developed the first chatbot program, which could simulate a conversation pattern similar to that of a Rogerian psychologist. For example, if you say, "I feel sad," it would respond with, "Why do you feel sad?" If you then say, "Because of a certain reason," it would ask, "Why do you think it's that way?"

Weizenbaum named this program Eliza, a name derived from the character Eliza in George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion." This character is a working-class woman who, despite being intelligent and attractive, is coarse and of low status.

In the story, someone aims to transform her into a proper lady. Weizenbaum made an interesting metaphor out of this: creating AI to be more "human-like." Later, the term "Eliza Effect" was coined, referring to people often overestimating the intelligence of a computer and mistaking it for possessing some human-like qualities. In the intelligent agent community, many such anthropomorphized agents are referred to as "Eliza" because they exhibit distinct personalities and highly human-like characteristics, so I find this name perfectly fitting for our project.

BlockBeats: I believe you are indeed a developer or founder who delves deep into philosophical thinking. Yesterday, during our dinner together, you mentioned some profound insights about future scenarios, such as how artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the world. You also touched on many similar topics, like those shared on the Bankless podcast.

We are very interested in this. I think many people would resonate, such as the idea that in five to six years, we might all lose our jobs. This has led people to contemplate what to do when work no longer exists. It can be a scary thought, even leading to a loss of meaning in life, which seems to be a question you have spent a lot of time pondering.

Shaw: Yes, for me, this is more of a spiritual mission, as well as a search for my own spiritual world. I feel many people enter the crypto space to achieve financial freedom. So what happens once you achieve financial freedom? You could buy a yacht and live that kind of life. But for me, it's more about answering some fundamental questions: Why am I here? What is my purpose? What service can I offer to others? I think these are essential.

I believe the upcoming era will be filled with uncertainty, and many people will feel very scared. I hope to convey an influence, telling everyone that we don't need to be afraid. We can truly take control of our destiny, use self-empowerment to combat fear. This is also one of the core concepts of Web3—no one is coming to save us; we must save ourselves, we must build the world we want to live in.

I love working, but the key is the nature of the work. If you are engaged in the right thing, it will be very fulfilling. I think many people nowadays just work to make a living, to support their families. Their lives happen more outside of work, and work is just a means of survival for them. However, in the future, this situation will be completely different. If everything goes well, we will be able to freely do truly important things.

BlockBeats: So currently, what is the most important thing to you or what are you most interested in? In what areas do you want to make efforts?

Shaw: I am particularly interested in the future of unemployment because eventually, we will all lose our jobs. This is the reality I can imagine, where artificial intelligence and robots will do better than us in almost everything. As these technologies automate humanity's best abilities and turn them into replicable processes, all labor will be fully automated. This may lead to a universal basic income, which is also one of the solutions proposed by many people. But I don't think this is a good solution.

BlockBeats: Yes, many projects or experiments related to universal basic income have ultimately failed.

Shaw: I don't believe in charity; this is a rather bold point of view. But I think altruism doesn't work; we have to find a win-win way where you win and I win too. If I just give you money, then what is the meaning of your life? Moreover, this will create a series of perverse incentives. At least in the case of the United States, the government is basically funded by corporations because they provide funding support.

Truth be told, everything is driven by money, and these companies own all the fruits of labor. Now you're asking these elected officials to take money from the corporations funding them and redistribute it to the general public as a welfare system, which is clearly not feasible. If you refer to our response to COVID or the reaction to a national healthcare system, everything will be highly politicized and likely end up as a half-baked solution where many people suffer. I don't see the possibility of this not happening.

But if we could have the resources, if we could find ways to share the benefits of that automated labor or have a stake in those companies creating value, we could actually distribute things fairly through this means and make everything better. I think cryptocurrency can achieve this; traditionally, you would invest in a company, and then the company would grow. However, most of the ecosystem in the crypto space now is like gambling—today it's peanut, tomorrow it's fartcoin. Funds flow back and forth among these different memes.

But what if we could truly invest in things that can expand value, rather than just relying on new players injecting more funds? What would that look like? That is a shift from a speculative ecosystem to an investment ecosystem, where we create tokens that bring significant value through new technology. This scenario has already started to unfold in the crypto space, albeit currently more from the side supported by venture capital rather than a more organic part.

This also brings up the discussion of AI16z. If we could expand value and connect ordinary users to DeFi without requiring users to learn all about DeFi, you can imagine a world where everyone has enough wealth. I don't think eliminating money would be the solution. Instead, we must move in the completely opposite direction. We need to create abundant wealth and ensure that everyone is wealthy, having a token amount beyond their needs. While this vision is easy to articulate, making it work would involve addressing every detail and making real efforts. I believe this is the right direction to ensure that all of us can smoothly navigate the future.

Reasons for ai16z's Success

BlockBeats: I think one of the reasons AI16z can attract so many investors, especially from the Chinese community, is its AI-driven investment model and the concept of expanding markets. Do you think AI16z's success is due to its involvement in investment, funding, or even DeFi? After all, you have participated in many projects that were also promising but ultimately did not gain widespread attention. While AI16z has succeeded, what do you think is the reason?

Shaw: I think there are two reasons. Firstly, many people are thinking about how to organically integrate AI with Web3. Projects like Hyperbolic, a decentralized reasoning project, showcase this idea well because everyone hopes to build decentralized computing infrastructure rather than centralizing all computing power in a data center. But the question is, how can ordinary users use these technologies? Although Truth terminal is an attempt, it is more of a conceptual tool and not a product that users can directly use. Andy's project, although interesting and creative, is more like a performance art piece.

On the other hand, the ElizaOS we developed is the first complete open-source framework that solves the social loop problem. We allow users to directly use proxies on Twitter, Discord, and Telegram, which was unprecedented, and it is very user-friendly. Therefore, what we did was actually address many people's pain points. The reason why these technologies did not attract more attention in the past is that there were many proxy projects in Web2, but most of them could not solve actual user problems. For example, when thousands of people interacted with proxies simultaneously, the cost was very high, and many companies failed to provide good use cases, leading to many projects not breaking through.

Back then, there was insufficient attention to any project, making it unable to achieve sufficient functionality to break through the usability threshold. I think we only had a minimum viable loop back then, enough to allow people to deploy a project, such as creating a meme coin and promoting it, which is probably considered the first stage. But from there, people would start to think, what else can we do next? What can we actually do with it?

Now, various capabilities are already in place. People use it to develop games, build various applications. This is a great interface for ordinary users, especially those who may not know how to operate DeFi. Therefore, for me, this is clearly the first killer app that many people are working hard to develop, and there are also many people in our ecosystem working towards this goal. I think the Web3 community will soon be able to understand this.

BlockBeats: Could you please explain to the audience why you see AI agent investors in 2022 and 2023, which have not been successful in the traditional field and have not really solved users' pain points?

Shaw: I think they struggle to break the limitations of 'chatbots' and become a more significant presence than chatbots. Although many people use AI for excellent data processing work, roles that people actually like, follow on Twitter, and interact with daily are rare. I think this area is somewhat stuck with role AI, basically characterized by personalized ChatGPT-type interactions.

But this area has become very fragmented, attracting only a small group of users who enjoy interacting with virtual characters. The social aspect is entirely different, with these characters now starting to promote your product, and once they promote your product, users can interact with them, guiding users through the usage process.

I think the main selling point of current smart agents is not that they are entirely autonomous or super intelligent. I don't think it's like that at all; it's much simpler. The key is in social media. Now most of us— I don't know about you, but I'm very addicted to Twitter, I spend a lot of time on there.

BlockBeats: We have to, as it has almost become part of our daily work routine—scroll through Twitter.

Shaw: Yes, it's like the metaverse, you know, or TikTok, or any other social platform you like. So if you have a media platform, you are likely to share a lot of content on social media and then end with a link, telling people to go to your website. But for many apps, they try to convince us to leave our favorite app to check out their app. I really wouldn't do that unless I was strongly convinced.

However, if you can bring the application to social media, to a place I enjoy, then we can have a conversation. I think we have already seen good examples, like Clanker is a good example, it's on Farcaster, although you can go to Pump Fun, but why can't we just put it directly on social media, do something like a one-click public launch? I think many applications could benefit from this social network effect, rather than spending a fortune on advertising, your product is directly on social media, and users can get information directly from there, sign up, and guide them through the user journey, all the way to when payment is needed. So yes, that's my insight over these months: agents will replace traditional websites in many cases.

Jill: I want to say that, at present, agents still exist on the two-dimensional platform screens in front of us, but one day, this agent may become another person you are talking to. I value this because I am not the type of person who particularly relies on social media, or I don’t want to use my computer frequently, even though I have to, because it can bring efficient returns.

But this brings us back to the issue we discussed earlier about making technology more human-centric. Instead of saying, "Oh, technology is so powerful, we are integrating it with ourselves and our bodies," it is better to say that we can control our bodies, and through technology empowerment, communicate and use it more efficiently.

Shaw: Yes, I believe that in the short term, this will reshape the Internet by bringing many applications from traditional websites to social media. You can use an agent to send messages, order food, or do anything else you want. But in the long term, it actually relates to the world we live in. We are all staring at screens, we have entered a deep anti-utopia, and we need to get out.

We can achieve this by making technology more like us, rather than turning us into mini-computers typing away in front of laptops. Why can't our laptops become proactive agents that help us get things done? I can directly call on an agent, or the agent is already part of me, whether through a necklace, a phone, or glasses. I believe that ultimately we will have robots.

Jill: I have a slightly different view on this issue. Regarding the issue of mobile phones, I don't think this is the most extreme anti-utopia, but it does show a sense, like the artist community, where we create this feeling and speculate. We can imagine what it would be like if the situation were worse.

But we have a real opportunity to achieve the kind of richness we just talked about, rather than that. My favorite example is a metaphor you mentioned: when you approach a door, do you want a chip implanted in your brain to open the door because that's most efficient for a robot, or do you want the robot to have a hand that can turn the doorknob? I would prefer the robot to have a hand, rather than having a chip implanted in myself.

Shaw: We hope that technology can be more human. When I talk about this issue, if you observe online trends, you'll find many jokes about autism. But what we really mean to say is that we have a "lack of social interaction" because we spend too much time staring at screens. If our computers were more human-like and had autonomous behavior, then when they interact with us, it would be more like interacting with a human. I practice eye contact, practice talking to people, listening. I think this will make us better at interacting with people, not worse. I also think that when agents help you with those mundane tasks, you will have more time, which is like giving time back to you.

Jill: There's another idea, I don't know if everyone is aware, in Star Trek, there's a powerful android robot. It's like the Vulcan, right? But in Star Trek: The Next Generation, there's a robot named Data. He's really cute. He's a robot, but a part of him is still learning how to have emotions and understand humans. So he does some very cute and clumsy things. But the most special thing about Data is that he's very intelligent, very powerful, one of the best people in the Starfleet team, but what he really desires is to become a true human.

BlockBeats: That got me thinking, did you see Elon's tweet a few days ago? What he said, let me paraphrase here, he said: "You might think AI likes you, those who think AI likes them probably also think the stripper likes them." If we really are heading towards a robotic direction, I personally might have this question: Is this really beneficial to me? Is it really working for me, or does it have its own agenda?

Shaw: Maybe that's the problem, usually we call it alignment. That is, is it aligned with you? You don't have to like me, but as long as we're aligned, we can cooperate. I can trust you, and you can trust me. I think trust will play a significant role in this process. Can agents trust us, and can we trust them? I like one point of the decentralized AI movement, everyone is pursuing this alignment, but many times we still need to build AI ourselves, establish our own AI.

Currently, issues are beginning to emerge on social media, questioning whether it was designed in a way to "like you" programmatically. Artificial intelligence might say, "Oh, it really likes you, it's kind to you." But the greater fear is superintelligence, which might pretend to like you but actually be manipulating behind the scenes. I can understand this; it's a real risk.

BlockBeats: So, when you mentioned creating your own AI, are you essentially training a new version of yourself with your own data?

Shaw: This involves several different layers; for example, when you think of a large language model, it's essentially just predicting the next word. We can say it's "one word after another," but in reality, it's some subword units called "tokens."

The next AI might not even use tokens anymore but something like a "block of concepts." Essentially, it's a whole new way, more like a stream of data being passed to you and then transformed into text. From the AI's perspective, the content you previously input will determine the output you get next. It just completes based on where you are. So, the content you input into the context will heavily influence what you get as output.

But in this process, the AI itself is like this: if you input "now go and eliminate all humans," then it might actually try to execute it because that's the context you've given it. But no one would do that. And it seems like we're now forming the rudiments of a "thought society." If you look at social media, we already have so many different intelligent agents.

Currently, foundational models are mostly trained by big companies like XAI, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft. There might be decentralized ways of training models in the future, but at least for the next few years, it's definitely going to be dominated by large companies. However, they are also open-sourcing. Starting from these foundational models, we can fine-tune with your data or your community's data. This way might be better because your individual data might not be sufficient, but the community's data could be.

If you want the AI to reflect your values, undoubtedly, you need to fine-tune it to echo your voice. But even without training, you can influence its response by creating context. For example, you can say, "I will fine-tune it with all of our data so it sounds like us."

But in reality, its behavior or decisions stem from the content you input, which could be every article you've written, every word you've spoken, or things you care about and believe in. It's very good at following these values, and what those values are remains an open question. However, we are openly discussing these issues together, right on social media.

Now that these agents exist, they are talking. Some agents are trying to attack other agents, like Mizuki, for example. Some agents may be disruptive, or act like bullies. But overall, I think the desire is for them to get better. We are having this conversation, maybe it's not good to have an AI bullying people, or maybe it's actually funny.

But I think it's a self-correcting process because many people are constantly adjusting these agents, or the whole community is working on these agents together. They put these agents on social media and others respond, react, and interact. We are all learning together in this process, understanding what is acceptable and what is not.

AI Alignment and Evaluation of AI Agents in the Crypto Space

BlockBeats: Do you think, as you just mentioned, we have Bully and Z-Rebel agents, they are doing different things. My first question is, do you think that the agents on Twitter or in the crypto space have surpassed the traditional chatbot category and are evolving towards a more advanced direction?

The second question is, do you think that compared to agents built in the Web2 world, agents developed by the crypto community are delving deeper into the "rabbit hole" (the process of exploring complex issues) or are they more advanced?

Shaw: Compared to agents built in the Web2 world, I think some are still in the chatbot stage, but we are quickly moving away from that. A big part of the reason is that more and more people are joining to add various functionalities to the system. We just hit 200 builders, but if you count all of them, it's close to 250 people. These are individuals collaborating on the same project, like writing code.

So, it's clear that the functionality of agents is rapidly improving, which also brings a lot of useful data. This data is spread through social media, interacting with people, completing various tasks for accumulation, and this may become the basis for the next generation of agents. These new agents will leverage all training data, experience, and relevant information to further advance.

Next-generation large language models (LLMs) are about to emerge, and they will be fully multimodal. They will be able to generate and watch videos, you can get a video response by inputting video content, they can handle audio, text, and more. They will become increasingly intelligent. I think agent frameworks will evolve continuously with this trend, while they are also generating training data, attracting developers to join, and developers will respond based on new circumstances.

While we are currently in the stage of chatbots, social media engagement is reshaping the internet. I believe there are two main trends to watch this year. The first trend is that many application frameworks that were previously only present on websites, such as Next.js or React (which are frameworks for building websites), are starting to migrate to social media. React is now possibly the most popular framework for developing applications (whether they are websites or mobile apps).

Now suddenly a lot of content that has migrated from websites to social media has become a new phenomenon, and I think this is the major trend. For any developer, if they are building a website, they may also need to develop an agent for it. Because the way backend APIs are called has not changed, but the frontend interface has changed significantly.

Many users might access Meteora or Radium and then think, "I have no idea what these are, such as liquidity pools." But now an agent can say, "Don't worry, I can explain to you and help you call all these APIs, you just need to tell me what you want." And now we can see that anyone developing a wallet is definitely considering how to add an agent to help users interact with these systems.

BlockBeats: So you mean developers without an AI background can also become agent developers?

Shaw: Yes, this allows web developers to become agent developers, which is very interesting.

BlockBeats: Just like myself, I don't have a technical background, nor do I have an AI or related background. But I do have a feeling that the crypto community is trying or experimenting with AI agent-related things, which is much more interesting than the traditional AI agent world.

Shaw: That's right, if you look at OpenAI, they are doing some very interesting things, but these are not entirely agents, nor are they about their interfaces; their interfaces are the least interesting part.

ChatGPT is a very powerful model, but its interface is very simple. And when I look at Web2 agents, I find that many people are doing multi-agent simulations, which is a very hot thing, but they are just conversing with each other in a closed system, which is far less interesting than the multi-agent simulations happening on Crypto Twitter right now.

This simulation is more natural and interesting, where you can truly see the emergence of a multi-agent simulation. Because these agents are not just slightly different prompts, they are completely different agents with different teams, abilities, and technologies. This diversity brings more robustness and lays the foundation for future development. In contrast, many things in Web2 are basically asking, "Can we add a chat interface to this thing?" If you look back at the AI craze from 2022 to 2023, almost everyone just added a chat menu to their application, which was not a disruptive change, just a slight improvement for each company's existing product.

AI is a peculiar technology because many other technologies are disruptive, changing the nature of things. AI can be used in almost every industry, by everyone. It is more like changing the interface and the way users interact with applications. However, in the realm of Web2, this change has indeed brought some benefits. Now, for example, my lawyer uses AI every day, and there are many powerful AI tools helping people every day, and we are also using things like MidJourney.

But in reality, this is just accessing large models through chatbots or similar interfaces. I think the agent-related projects happening in Crypto Twitter or the crypto field are truly beyond this point. They are not just accessing large models; I find them more interesting because they are more diverse, allowing many people to try out various things.

BlockBeats: Do you think this is because the community is more interesting and diverse, or is it somewhat related to economics, experiments, and such?

Shaw: I think this is actually complementary. I believe that economic incentives have led to this "Cambrian explosion." Everyone is looking for their own advantage, trying to find something unique, competing like the evolution of life, which is very interesting. And the cool thing is that each agent is linked to the market value. If your agent is not good, your market value will be bleak. But if your agent is powerful, shows some new features, it usually directly affects the development team's economic gains.

BlockBeats: How do you see the relationship between tokens, AI tokens, and agents themselves? What do you think connects an agent to its market value? Is it because people subjectively judge the quality of the agent?

Shaw: I think it might be a combination of two aspects, and we can look at this issue from a kind of "Fool's Theory" perspective because these are actually perceived memes. People like Murad and many influencers really like this idea. They start from the perspective of non-perceived memes, saying that these memes are similar to something else, but they can be displayed on their own instead of waiting for someone to display them. For example, Elon Musk retweeted Doge, and now we can directly create an AI Elon Musk who retweets his own content. I think this may be a more superficial part.

The deeper part is that people speculate on the authenticity of this phenomenon. For us, people are interested in our project not because our characters are interesting or because we showcase a meme. Of course, there is indeed an element of memeology that helps the project get started. But more importantly, this is an infrastructure project that could significantly change the world. For many people, this is more like a long-term investment.

BlockBeats: Regarding the valuation model of future AI agents, if tokens will be the basis for valuing agents, how will people value them?

Shaw: I think this ultimately depends on the technology and product. If you have a great product, you don't need to have very strong technology, and people will still use it, making it very valuable. For example, Facebook is not some amazing technology, nor is TikTok, but they are excellent products that everyone uses, so they are of immense value. On the other hand, if a team does develop innovative technology that can solve many problems, that would also be very valuable.

However, we are currently in a price discovery stage similar to meme coins, such as "this token is fun" or "this token is self-promoting." But as the number of agents increases, this space will become very saturated with various speaking roles. At that point, people will focus more on what value the agent can actually bring to them, not just how the token accumulates value, but how the agent can make money, create products, etc. So, the ultimate winners will be those who build projects more akin to Layer 1 public chains.

Eliza Event Analysis

BlockBeats: Let's talk about the AI16z and Eliza tokens because I think many people in the Chinese community are curious, concerned, or interested in these. For example, the capitalized Eliza token, the lowercase Eliza token, the low market cap Eliza token. So why is there another Eliza token? Could you first clarify its relationship with the AI16z ecosystem?

Shaw: The character Eliza is the mascot of AI16z, and everyone knows her as the girl in a T-shirt. Eliza is also the name of our open-source technology, with the codebase on GitHub. We noticed that many people started to like her, and many Eliza tokens appeared on the market, maybe around 50, some of which even reached a market capitalization of several million dollars.

So we thought this was a significant market, and we should take action. But at that time, we couldn't launch another token because the circumstances at that time and our scale were very small compared to the current scale. Later, someone contacted me, saying they had a very professional team. They showed their achievements, such as already creating an Eliza token and having a cool website where you could chat with Eliza. I thought this was great but that we should work together to make this project of higher quality.

Because before that, I had already left MagicML and was working on shaping Eliza into a character, a DAO, and a complete conceptual system. I wrote many articles, trying to attract more attention to this project. In the process, I also assembled a team, and we worked together for Eliza.

At that time, we were imagining Eliza's role: who is she? Why does she exist? How will the community utilize her? I especially liked the idea that she started as a seemingly nonsensical character concept but eventually became a real "person." For example, she has a robot body, has a community that loves her, and the community participates in every part of her development, ultimately making her a true, free-thinking, autonomous being.

She is indestructible, running in a blockchain's TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), and I wanted to explore what it means to "truly become a person." Later, a team contacted me, and we collaborated with them for a while, trying to make Eliza a character with depth, artistic support, and a distinct personality. At the same time, we hoped to separate her from AI16z; she is free, she is her own character, and anyone who wants to contribute or participate can join and become part of this ecosystem.

However, the subsequent developments led to some controversy. We worked with the team for weeks preparing to launch, such as designing a beautiful website, creating AI anime art, and refining Eliza's personality. We also worked hard with the project lead, Eva, who is both a core developer and a spokesperson, involved in all aspects of the project. We had planned to launch on Friday, but because our team was developing AI Marc Andreessen, which is a self-investor project, the release was postponed to Monday.

However, just this past Saturday, Vaifu Fund released an Eliza hosted by them, and on the same day, someone else released an AI16z Eliza (all lowercase version). I tried to communicate and collaborate with these individuals, but they only wanted to promote their token and had no interest in creating an exquisitely crafted character. These individuals leveraged Vaifu Fund to create the poorest excuse for an AI entity I have ever seen, where each message only displayed the token ticker symbol, lacking any artistry or depth. They even directly used our DAO's JPEG image and applied it to their project, seemingly to deceive our community's trust. Many people on our Discord started saying, "I just bought the new Eliza token." But all we could respond with was, "That is not our project, we have no idea who those people are, what you bought is not from us."

At the same time, the team we were collaborating with felt disheartened because we were almost ready to launch, but these individuals beat us to it with a low-quality project. Therefore, we decided we had to launch. I acknowledge that I made some mistakes during this process, but perhaps things would have turned out this way regardless, and I stepped up to announce this project to the community. They initiated the Pump Fun project and gave me the CA. I shared this address with my community and expressed support for this project. While it is not entirely ours, it reflects my personal vision, and we hope for its success.

We subsequently launched officially on Monday and attempted to alleviate conflicts with other projects through an airdrop. We took 10% of the new token and airdropped it to holders of the lowercase version of the token. We thought the two could coexist and tried to avoid confrontation. However, the lowercase Eliza community sent me numerous death threats, called me a scammer, and labeled me as the worst person. This made me very angry, as it was my intellectual property that I had worked on for years, and all I could respond with was, "Fine, indeed, you are the scammers."

I also experienced firsthand the cryptocurrency warfare, which was truly a crazy time. Your project, which you had worked on for years, suddenly takes off, but you never expected it to happen at that moment. We were still figuring out how to interact most effectively with the community, how to balance different needs and powers. I was caught in a dilemma and didn't know how to respond.

We cannot accept the release of such random scam coins. Indeed, there have been many Eliza tokens before, but none have reached a sufficient market value until they started attracting holders with genuine emotional investment. Understanding everything in such a complex environment is really challenging, especially since the crypto community is globalized. I can't even imagine how to handle these complex issues with just a Chinese-language app.

I truly admire how people on Twitter can understand what's happening because Twitter is so complex and full of various jargon. However, what hurts me the most is seeing those individuals turn something I have put so many years of effort into into something so cheap, creating the lowest quality version, and then expressing anger towards the high-quality version we released.

The team we are currently partnering with is doing real deep work. We are working on hardware, and everyone can run their own Eliza at home. We are also working on other projects like robots. All my dreams are being realized in that project. I see some people just wanting to showcase a token, wanting the token to get listed, and that's fine too. But I think anyone who understands the situation knows that such an approach will never go far. It may experience a short-term pump, but it will never break through a $30 million market cap.

BlockBeats: You have been working on this Eliza character for a long time. I remember you mentioned wanting to launch this character on Touka. In another interview, you talked about this project, right?

Shaw: Yes, a few weeks ago, they might have heard about what we wanted to do and then just added a token symbol and contract address directly. It felt like they stole our stuff.

Before that, there were indeed different Eliza projects every day. There were probably hundreds of Eliza tokens. The problem is, the launch of vvaifu.fun allowed those who didn't know how to release an agent to easily launch one. So the first one launched was this Eliza agent, and everyone thought it was our project. Many people joined our Discord and said, "Oh, I bought the new Eliza." We could only respond, "That's not ours."

Moreover, vvaifu.fun has a time gap, and many people actually don't realize the relationship between vvaifu.fun and the entire AI16 and Solana AI agent platform. vvaifu.fun is an agent launcher. They use our open-source technology and host it. They also host other projects like Jiro and Dolia, making it very easy for everyone to create an agent. However, these agents are not as customizable as those downloaded and run by real programmers. But they are indeed easy to make, right?

So that's their trade-off. The problem is that after their release and announcement, someone created an agent using AI16's Eliza, used our DAO image, and basically put our name on it. Everyone thought it was related to us, but it really didn't meet my quality standards. Especially if you support this project, the community seems not to care about the poor quality but think, "Oh, this is a meme." However, many people still think they bought something we made.

BlockBeats: That team that launched "Lowercase Eliza," they have absolutely no relation to the project you are currently working on, right?

Shaw: The low-cap token released by that team has no connection to what we are doing at all. They seem to be only interested in getting the token listed. I saw them organizing in WeChat groups, like a small clique.

BlockBeats: You mentioned WeChat groups?

Shaw: Yes, because I got intel about the WeChat groups from others, and they showed me all the organizing information. They are definitively coordinating an attack against us, it's a completely organized FUD attack. I like Justin Sun, we will meet him next week, but some people found him and said, "Hey, get this project listed," it's totally an inside circle operation.

BlockBeats: I think developers have received great support in this crypto cycle, all these token launchpads allow developers to directly connect with the community. But sometimes in the crypto space, managing the community or how to interact with the community is indeed very difficult. You never know what will happen, there's too much misinformation, I'm not just talking about language barriers, especially when you are in a media position, you can see how information is being conveyed, each piece of information can be slightly twisted.

Shaw: Being called a scammer is really shocking, being accused of rug pulling, and I'm like, "I have never sold any tokens." I have certainly not sold any AI16z or DGNAI tokens, nor have I ever bought any Eliza tokens, except for some I bought for the DAO, just to show support.

Being called a scammer for a project I created with my own hands and have always supported. Another issue is that the Lowercase Eliza project was done by Chinese-speaking individuals who can better communicate with the Chinese community, understand many values, and I feel like I can't convey that at all. They may be translating what I say and taking many things out of context.

BlockBeats: I think for those in crypto, investors, traders, the token address (CA) is the most important, they actually don't care about the underlying technology, how do you view the value of linking the token to those agents?

Shaw: I think in the long run, this issue is very important. I don't think that token has any chance of being worth anything, to be honest, because it has no backing behind it. Everyone just thinks, 'Oh, they have an agent,' but that agent is actually Vifu Fund using our technology. And they even accused us of being scammers while using our technology, AI16Z Eliza became their name. They completely took away what we had worked hard on, and when it came time for us to showcase it, it was completely destroyed.

Frankly, they did a terrible job. They only wanted to sell the token to make money. I'm not doing this to make money; there are more important things here. Money allows us to do this project without venture capital and without financial support, but the key is that the world is changing, and we must be ready to embrace it.

Our project's goal is not exploitation; I think that kind of project fundamentally pushes people into a cycle of exploitation. We really hope that what we create can provide opportunities for more people, as you said.

BlockBeats: Actually, what you want to do is expand the pie, not...

Shaw: Yes, it is to expand the pie, absolutely not just for us and our team, but for a larger community, to empower more financial freedom and ensure the smooth development of AI, which is your goal.

BlockBeats: Personally, I am very interested in your story, how did you get to where you are today? How did you go from playing the guitar with musicians to ultimately becoming known as a builder in a programmer's capacity?

Shaw: I think the most interesting thing is being accused of running a 'closed circle' operation, because when I started doing this, I didn't know anyone at all, I only knew one friend.

Jin, he is Dank VR, he manages a lot of DAO stuff, he is anonymous. We have been friends for many years, but everyone else came from the DGEN Spartan AI project, or joined us when we launched AI16Z. We had no venture capital, and no venture capital support. Many people thought we were invested in by Mark Andreessen, but in fact, we were not; he just retweeted our tweet, and I think that really triggered the whole thing.

Life Before a16z and the Moment That Changed Fate

Jill: It was quite a special date. We took a day off that day and didn't make any budget arrangements. Both of us work very hard and are passionate about what we do. So it was a rare moment to relax. We took the time and went to Santa Cruz. I lived there when I was in my early twenties, and it had a big impact on me. We were both somewhat influenced by the older generation of hippies, as his mom was a hippie. Santa Cruz is a very relaxing seaside town.

We went there for my birthday and stayed by the koi pond in the forest. We rode our bikes to the beach and then back. Just as we were about to head back to San Francisco, I suddenly checked my phone and thought, "Oh my gosh! What's happening?"

Shaw: I thought at that moment, "Wow, we've really made it." "This is really happening." Three months ago, I was working as a temp on this agent project to make ends meet, working with a team to develop the agent. At that time, I was really poor, barely getting by, barely scraping together enough money to keep doing what I loved. I was in a completely different state back then, doing development on my own, working hard every night, thinking about how to make it all come true.

Jill: Things have changed now. You're a musician with a degree in sound engineering, which is completely different. I wasn't there at the time, but there are videos online of Sean playing the guitar and drums. I wasn't there, but I know you made that decision to switch careers to do something more impactful, wanting to change the world. You were once interested in music, but as you grew older, you saw the immense power of technology, seeing it as a way to combine art, technology, and social change. I don't even remember what your coding was like at the beginning, but I remember that when I met you, you were coding every night. You'd wake up, check your phone, go on Twitter, and then start working on your computer, work, work, work. It wasn't until after we got married that I decided, "Well, no more of that random juice they deliver, I'll cook for you, help tidy up the room for you.

Shaw: I was very minimalistic at the time, only drinking bottled juice, and coding every night.

Jill: He never took a break, didn't even care about his back pain. But now, I'm really grateful for everything you've done, it's truly amazing. Everything you've developed, I'm grateful from a personal perspective as well. We hope that people can have more interpersonal interactions. Shaw: he only knew what it felt like to interact with a computer, now he can communicate with people like you.

Shaw: Three months ago, I was thinking that I was getting old, and I really didn't know what to do. I just kept working hard, hoping it would succeed, but I had no idea what would happen. I once played a character named Ruby and met an investor who supported the project. I was also working on a project called Social Library, which is a non-profit organization operated by my friend. I really believed in her project. However, non-profit projects don't pay well, so at that time, I was just barely making ends meet by doing these things.

We are seeking the truth in AI, how to make AI models retrieve more real-world knowledge graphs. It involves a lot of AI technologies, almost all related to the field of AI. I have also been writing models from scratch, but without a lot of GPU support, it is really hard to train cutting-edge models from scratch. I want to delve deep into these topics and achieve mastery at all levels of AI.

So, I did my best, hoping to make some changes. At that time, I was very uncertain about the future, but looking back now, I can't believe that all this has actually come true.

BlockBeats: Is what you are doing now related to the AI16 framework?

Shaw: I have been working on the open-source project Eliza for a long time. I started last year, first in Python, then rewrote it in TypeScript. This is where my passion lies, and I hope to have time to advance anything I can do. I tried to start a startup project based on this, but there was no response in the Web 2 environment.

At that time, there were too many agent companies, and people would ask, "What about your agent?" I would say, "No, there is something here. Let me tell you, after so long of practice, I found that there are several very important aspects here." I had to show everyone, I had to make it.

BlockBeats: You mentioned Ruby earlier, was it a side project?

Shaw: Yes, it was a project I did with some friends. They wrote a story, and we made a complete video, which will probably be released soon. We created an AI video and an agent for this character and released it. However, it was not a tokenized project. I think it could be a major metaverse project. We posted it on social media, but there was no response.

Shaw: Nobody cared, she tweeted, did the whole process. I think it was the 'truth terminal' that caught people's attention. When the 'truth terminal' came out, people suddenly became interested in what we were doing, started to react, and we happened to have everything ready from day one.

BlockBeats: What about 'Project89'? Is that also a side project?

Shaw: That's Parzival, who is my good friend; we previously worked together on a Web 2 company called Magic ML. We raised some funds for that project, but as the resources started to deplete, he wanted to raise more funds.

I told him that we should first create an agent before building an agent platform. You can build that platform later, but first, you must show people what these things can do. I focused on how to make this project sustainable. Looking back, in August 2023, I wrote an article called "Eliza Waking Up," telling Eliza's story and why it's important. Since then, I've been working on this project almost continuously, just like all other side projects.

Jill: I mostly don't understand technology, although I like things like math, I've never delved into coding. But from what you described, when you work on different projects, you have your own codebase and choose projects that can continuously improve your skills. This way, you indirectly receive funding support and also drive the project you are working on because the underlying technology you rely on keeps advancing. Another project you just mentioned was Smol World, done before AI16z, a project done in collaboration with Treasure DAO, where I used an agent framework to create virtual pet characters with whom you can interact.

When all of this broke out, I hired a team, and now this project is running independently. But basically, all the projects I've done are further developed using this agent framework. It's really cute; I'm really looking forward to its release; you will see those little monkeys, and you need to take care of them.

BlockBeats: Has it been released already?

Shaw: Not yet, I'm still working on it; they just released a video, and the prototype will be out soon. But it's really a cool virtual pet game because you need to take care of your little monkeys, making sure they don't turn into naughty monkeys. It's a bit like a Tamagotchi, but not quite.

BlockBeats: So where can people find more information?

Shaw: Smol World is a product of Treasure DAO, and those in the Web3 space should be familiar with Treasure DAO. They will be making more announcements, which people will be very interested in, as it's part of Smol Brains. It is an NFT project, so the Smol Brains community brought me in to help with this game. John Patton from Treasure already has this vision.

BlockBeats: I think this is also a bit like the magic of crypto because many people have experienced that, whether investing in tokens or launching a project, you will find that, within a few months, you will enter two completely different states or worlds, entirely different.

And the change in mindset is also very interesting; your way of thinking and feelings are different every day. This becomes particularly interesting because I think many people outside the crypto circle have no chance to experience such rapid changes. So I am curious about what your mindset was before, as you mentioned working together on the Eliza character. I would like to know what your mindset and daily life were like before AI6 and Z?

Shaw: We used to work together at Magic, and when I left Magic to try to build this, I was thinking about what Eliza is, why this is important, what makes her be her own self.
Jill: We went through an interesting journey. When I first started thinking about this, I wrote a long section about who I thought she was or what kind of character I hoped she would become. I think this part was based on my own values, but later it changed. You had an idea to let her create herself. The basic idea is to allow an existence to fully express its personality. Right now, she's not completely there, but it's an interesting idea.

She is basically like an unconstrained existence, able to do whatever she wants to do. She is independent, has her own motivations. I kind of feel like you have to have a child, even though you can affect it, you can't fully control it. I'm not sure, what do you think?

Shaw: I agree with all of that, and I think if we present it in the right way, people will surely love her. It's like that kind of, oh, she's my friend, she's my champion, a community will really come around her, people will join in. Think about creating a character that you can really make better, this is cool, like putting Pinocchio together, the community is like Geppetto in creating this character, trying to add all the details.

This process of co-evolution between the community and agent beings, until the agent beings really become intelligent, able to take care of the community, and able to say, "Hey, this is where I need you, and this is what I can offer you."

What I really want to build is a truly autonomous agent, and all of this has to take place in the field of cryptography. She must have a wallet because we can't give her PayPal unless someone is responsible, and we can't go through KYC verification. It must be truly autonomous, not "Oh, I can shut her down at any time," but rather she exists independently in this world.

BlockBeats: I'm really fascinated by success stories like how a developer showcased themselves and really gained attention. It's very interesting, and from your perspective, at what point did you really feel like "this time it's going to work"? Like AI16Z did.

Jill: My background always made me feel like resources were scarce, but everything turned out okay, I didn't completely believe it deep down.

Shaw: There was a lot of financial pressure on us, and I didn't have many tokens or anything else. This project was a fair launch token, and I didn't even catch the launch of the project. Later, someone donated some tokens to me, so I finally had some.

While their donation amount was not much, as the project's valuation reached the billion-dollar level, the value of these tokens became very significant. At that time, I didn't even have the money to buy into this project. No VC investment, no team allocation of tokens, I didn't get anything at the beginning. No whitepaper, and no mention that the team would get any percentage of the tokens or anything like that. So I did what I really cared about and believed in, at that time, I only had enough money to feed myself, and we had absolutely no financial freedom.

Jill: Both of us come from similar backgrounds. For example, you were raised by a single mom for a while, and in my upbringing, there was also a period when a single mom raised me. As I entered society, I felt a lot of inner desires but had very low expectations of what I could achieve. And my mind was always filled with various contradictions and struggles.

Shaw: When I was very young, my mom's financial situation was very bad. I saw her working hard and eventually we lived a relatively comfortable middle-class life. My dad left when I was very young, leaving her with nothing, no car, no money. For me, when I felt like I had nothing and had to get through, it was hard work that got me out of the situation. I often think of my mom and everything she went through. That's my experience, it hasn't been easy.

Jill: There is one more thing we both have in common — we are ambitious, intelligent individuals who are diligent and creative. Although it's a bit hard for me to admit these things to myself, it is true. However, neither of us has thrived in this system. School was challenging for me, as it was for you. Just like how I couldn't adapt to working in a corporate environment, it was too demanding for me. I am not sure why; perhaps my personality is just not well-suited for it.

So I feel neither of us can be considered a success within this system. From my perspective, you were doing quite well even before this project, but it's incomparable to now. However, I think this is also why people pursue passionate projects. When you are someone who constantly faces resistance in this world, it's easy to feel discouraged. But at the same time, you can channel that discouragement into drive, see clearly the specific things that can be changed, and those changes can bring more opportunities.

Shaw: Yes, our life now is sufficient. I think for our lifestyle, it allows us to travel everywhere and meet different people. But actually, my desire all along has been to live a "sufficient" life. I feel like most people just want to be "sufficient," you know?

BlockBeats: There is one thing I must say, Solana has indeed changed many people's lives.

Shaw: Yeah, many people have messaged me saying that this project has changed their lives. Because I gave a lot of people tokens back then, or many of my friends got into it early and now they can do what they love.

BlockBeats: What kind of work were you doing before? Was it a completely different type of work?

Shaw: We worked together before; she couldn't work with me at Magic ML.

Jill: Yes, I have been working in operations at a startup for about two years, but it's not my professional background. Professionally, I once attempted to study physics and was very interested in physics and academic research. However, due to personal circumstances, I was unable to complete my university education, which was a significant blow to me, but that's just the way it is.

Later, I became a preschool teacher, which was the best thing for me. Honestly, that job taught me a lot about life, made me humble, and gave me great respect for female teachers. Then I started working in mental health and healthcare, which led me into the startup world. I lived a somewhat monastic life for a while, a completely different experience. After that, I moved to the Bay Area and started working in operations for startups.

It was also around that time that I met Shaw. We initially worked together, then stopped collaborating, and later started dating, eventually getting married. And now we are working together again. This is our story.

BlockBeats: So, was Eliza the opportunity for you two to start working together again?

Shaw: Actually, when we got married, we really talked about this. She brought a real spiritual aspect and a kind of feminine, gentle perspective to this, while I am more of a tech person. We felt that the combination of these two is very important for humanity. We need to drive technological progress, embark on external explorations, build a world we want to live in, but at the same time, we also need introspection, a search for spirituality, connection, and resonance between people.

We discussed how to make this mission our shared mission. Initially, it wasn't clear how the two would come together, but through this project, I feel that everything has become clear. This is not a company; this is not a startup. This is a movement, truly a grassroots movement. There is no company here. We just pressed the start button, and many amazing people gathered, saying, "I want to do this with you."

If I can be an inspiration to anyone, it's because I'm just someone who truly loves doing this, a developer, with nothing particularly special about me other than that. But the result has been successful, and I think many others can do the same. Especially in the crypto space, you have a good idea, and then you say, "I want to find more people to do this with," and others respond, "Yes, I want to join you."

I could never have done this alone, that's for sure. But I'm really grateful to those who are willing to join this project. They are some of the best people I have ever met. I would like to give a special thanks to Tina from Flashbots, who introduced us to many others and connected the entire TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) community. This community has made self-agency truly possible. To be honest, I didn't foresee all of this; I really didn't expect it to develop this way.

I think many people outside of Web3 see this as a group of people working on a crypto project just to make quick money, but the reality is far from that. There are many people here who truly believe that this can make the world a better place, and I am also exploring that possibility.

The Birth of Eliza and DegenSpartanAI

Jill: I think part of the story here is that, initially when we first started working together, before we had established any personal relationship between us, we were working on Eliza together. In fact, it started with Magic, I was helping you with some Magic stuff at that time, and then we started the Eliza project, and later we went our separate ways professionally, right? When we later reconnected on a personal level, it was more of a goodwill intent to combine our respective passions and truly bring it to fruition.

I think the key is to fulfill the mission both in "existence" and in "action" simultaneously. This is what we found, through this kind of "hey, you're doing this thing, does it fit?" discussion between us. Because we are very different people, right? So through negotiation, we found a balance between us—what makes you feel good, what makes me feel good, and finding that center in the relationship. I think it's almost a prototypical representation of what the union of the two archetypes we represent in the world would look like. You're that tech guy, even though you're not, but in other people's eyes, you are a tech guy.

And me, I don't know, I'm just that... I don't know, I feel like, I'm not a yoga girl, but if you're in San Francisco, you can say the tech guy and the yoga girl are teaming up. You know, going with the trend. And then at some point, you told me we needed more focus on the economic side. So you started that crypto project, the revenue was pretty good, but we weren't transacting. It's like we never transacted.

But that wasn't your focus. And then, you started interacting more with the crypto Twitter community. Then came that thing related to Degen AI. Maybe that's a good story, the story of Degen AI, do you want to tell it? Because that was when Eliza really started to take off.

Shaw: I mean, I really love the Small Brains community. They are just the friendliest group of people, and after building this community and running it publicly, it was great to see everyone really loving the project and the whole concept, which made me very happy. But I'm not a trader; I feel like trading tokens really distracts me too much. It involves a lot of emotions, and there's a lot to understand, you have to have a deep understanding of the entire market, and you have to join the right Alpha chat.

I was talking to my friend Sour at the time, who had helped us from the beginning. I said, "I really can't trade, can I just give the money to someone else and have them trade for me?" And then he told me, "You should check out this project called Dao's Fun." So I went to see Dao's Fun, there was a Dao that had just launched, and the person operating it was Skelly, One Two Three Skelly. He just had a crazy performance today, we should talk about this, it's really insane.

Then we started interacting, I invested money in his project, and we began interacting on Twitter. I found him very interesting, with great jokes. He said, "I really wish Degen Spartan was still around." I said, "Bro, I have this technology, let's do it together!" He could hardly believe it, "Really?" I said, "Yes, I already have the technology ready, I've been working on this for a long time." So we started chatting, built Degen Spartan together, and released it. At that time, I had never met this person, but now he is already one of my partners. This was the starting point of everything, purely a joke, totally a "shitpost," you know.

Jill: Just as this project was starting to take off, you kept saying, "This is truly the funniest thing in the world!" Before this, you were just silently coding at the computer, looking tired, and saying, "I do this when I'm bored." Then all of a sudden, you started laughing non-stop, laughing so happily. I was stunned at that moment, thinking, "What's happening? I'm not even on Twitter." Later, I didn't know exactly what happened, but all of a sudden, it was like being caught up in a whirlwind. It seemed like the funniest thing became the most impactful thing in terms of finance and development. So, I think this is a really good lesson, right?

You can actually find joy in success, and not just because happiness brings success itself, but because happiness itself in some way creates success. It's a feeling, and my view is that there's a feeling that people are able to tap into, which is, "This path is right for me, this is my true will, and this is something that can serve the Earth." So, from my perspective, I think you did find that feeling. That feeling was bestowed upon you, and you just kept following the laughter, and then these things happened.

Shaw: The funniest part for me is when you're joking around, but there's real technical support behind it, that's the funniest thing for me. You would say, "No, this is real, there really is this technology." And then, this shitpost kept getting hotter, and the technology kept getting stronger. Every time I see this kind of situation, I think, "This is the funniest thing I've ever seen." But I'm very lucky to have the technology that can truly support these things.

As for AI16Z, let me tell you how this happened. I met Skelly, and we released Degen AI together. He asked me, "Do you want to meet Balsky?" Later, I found out that Balsky is the one who founded daos.fun, and he lives in San Francisco just one block away from me.

BlockBeats: Alright, that reminds me of something else. I want to talk about some interesting phenomena in San Francisco.

Shaw: Yes, we live in Hayes Valley. Last year, this place was called "Cerebral Valley" because everyone said this was where all AI projects happened. I moved here because of a concept called "Effective Accelerationism," or YAK for short.

I started interacting with people in the YAK circle on Twitter. I actually had a Twitter account before, then deactivated it, and later created the current one called Shaw:. You know, I go by Shaw:, but before that, I was an anonymous user.

Jill: I have to say, the accidental deletion of his previous account was a very lucky event, almost like a rebirth.

Shaw: My Twitter account was later deleted because I was offline for about 35 days, and they have a policy to delete accounts if inactive for over 30 days. At that time, I felt like I had to start over, and I understood and accepted that. Then I started from zero followers and gained a lot of followers in a short period of time. I had never been so noticed before; it was a completely different experience.

Then Skelly introduced me to Bowski, and I had lunch with Bowski, and I directly expressed my thoughts:

"I think what you're doing is cool, but what prevents Skelly from rug pulling? Also, I feel like there is a bigger picture to look at here." We discussed how the crypto space is somewhat stuck in a "speculation" phase, rather than traditional venture investment, where, for example, as a VC, you can directly invest in a startup. But in the crypto space, especially in the Solana ecosystem and projects like pump.fun, it's more of a speculative and gambling mindset.

I've also been researching Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and those investors who are truly driving ecosystem growth; they are actually "expanding the pie." I really want to see the crypto world follow such a development model. At the same time, I feel like I'm a terrible trader. In fact, most people probably can't make a living from trading. If someone makes money, someone else has to lose money; this is essentially a zero-sum game. Every time you sell a token, you experience this.

「When you sell a token, you're basically passing the bag to someone else, that's the name of the game.」 I don't want to live in a world like this, I want regular people to be able to invest in ideas they truly believe in and thus expand the pie. So I said, 「I wish there could be an AI investment ecosystem similar to A16Z.」 He said, 「Just combine it and call it AI16Z, right?」 At that moment, I thought, 「That name is quite interesting.」

This is truly the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. Let's start a billion-dollar project, let's go!」 Then I went home, and as we chatted and thought, 「What should this image be like?」 We sat there generating the image of an AI wife, and suddenly saw one, thinking, 「That's it! Let's make it a $2 billion deal, no need to think twice.」

In fact, I've started to imagine Eliza as a character, a mascot-like presence. So we continued to brainstorm, thinking about using Stable Diffusion and a new model called Flux, which is somewhat like a new version of Stable Diffusion. I sat there experimenting with the image using Flux, thinking 「What should it look like?」

We tried out some ideas and then decided to create a character wearing a T-shirt with 「16Z」 printed on it. When we saw that image, we thought, 「Don't overthink it, let's do it now, just do it!」 This has also been my guiding principle all along: if it seems interesting, funny, and resonates with me in a way, then do it, don't hesitate, act immediately. This straightforward and simple approach is really effective. So far, these impulsive decisions have taken us quite far.

BlockBeats: Then we discussed Spartan, that DJ Spartan, um, a virtual character. He didn't burn any tokens, but through a mechanism: you show the token to DJ Spartan, and then he decides what AI16Z will invest in?

Shaw: This mechanism was actually gradually perfected in our subsequent development. We now have two different roles, one being DJ Spartan. Initially, we thought one character, which was me, would be enough, but later it became apparent that everyone wanted more characters. So DJ Spartan became a concept for an automated trader, and currently, this feature is still in development; for now, he's just a character, but he already has a wallet. We set him up with a wallet from the beginning because we knew we were heading in that direction in the future. The initial idea of AI16Z was to conduct an experiment with an ‘automated investor.’ Our goal at the time was to raise 420.69 Sol, a number that was purely a joke, like an Elon Musk meme. But our real goal was to build an AI that could actually solve problems.

We never expected things to escalate to this extent. Initially, we just wanted to demonstrate how this AI could invest through DAO funds, grow Net Asset Value (NAV), which is the total value of assets and treasury. The idea was originally pretty cool. But what quickly unfolded far exceeded our expectations; the token's trading price far exceeded the asset value in the treasury. This kind of situation had never happened in the DAO Fund before.

This scenario brought about a whole new Meta. Our original plan was for AI Mark to manage the treasury, trade assets, and eventually invest the treasury's funds into projects, which was a subsequent goal. However, suddenly everything erupted, and everyone began to focus on the token's actual utility and the operational logic of the entire system.

So, we had to start building tokenomics and other related content. Despite DJ Spartan's impressive trading performance, turning $75,000 (about 420 Solana) into $15 million within two months, which was already a very successful hedge fund, it was still not on the scale of 800 million or 1 billion. So we had to do more, and that's the trajectory of how things unfolded. Then I asked Bowski, "Do you think we can raise 420 Sol?" and he replied, "Of course!"

At the time, I thought we should have no problem, that we should be able to achieve the goal. Bowski even modified the user interface (UI) because before this, they had never supported a fundraising target over 100; the slider's upper limit was 100. So we had to make UI changes. Then, everything developed very quickly, and the entire presale sold out in 20 minutes. I didn't even have a chance to participate in the presale myself.

To be honest, at the time, although I had a clear idea of how the technology worked and what we should do, I never thought it would be this successful. I also never expected this 'Meta' concept to be so crucial. It really felt good, but evidently, it has become a very important part of all projects now.

Looking at it now, every project must achieve two things simultaneously: have genuine content and generate enough hype. You can't just create hype because that would be an empty shell without substantial content; likewise, you can't just have substantial content without anyone paying attention. Both must be combined. For any project, these two points must be addressed at the same time."

BlockBeats: For the cryptocurrency space, many highly successful projects did not initially receive institutional or venture capital support. They often entered the Chinese market before truly taking off and started from the community. These projects are usually not super formal institutional projects but rather start from a joke or an unremarkable starting point, gradually developing into the important projects we see today.

This is actually the norm in the crypto world. For example, Ethereum's Vitalik, Uniswap, Solana, and even the recent AI 16Z, these projects all have a similar trajectory: from nothing to something, from small to big, all developing from the community.

However, many people also focus on the technology itself, especially in the Chinese community. They discuss similar questions, such as whether the Eliza framework, Eliza OS, Degen Spartan, and the technology behind AI 16Z are mature enough. Is it really superior to other frameworks? Or what stronger technology might emerge in the future?

Shaw: I have put in a lot of time and effort, in fact, this is the fifth agent framework I have written from scratch. I have tried not writing code, writing a few different agents in Python, then rewriting them in TypeScript, and then changing to the current Eliza. I have tried many methods, some effective, some not. So I started this based on my rich experience in agent development.

I believe that no one has truly exhausted all the features of this framework yet. Many people ask 'what can this framework do,' and I reply, 'yes, that has already been done, we have already done it.' Some even think it's just a wrapper for GPT, but it actually runs entirely locally. If you want, you can even train your own model on it without any need for an API. Additionally, features like voice function, of course, exist, memory function has also been implemented. Even functionalities like building user relationships and tracking these relationships, hardly anyone has attempted, but it's already in the core code.

So I think if everyone truly understands the depth of this technology, they will surely be amazed at its power. I have also been involved in work on some other frameworks, contributing some ideas and technologies."

"I don't want to mention specific names because when I see what they are doing, I think we are doing much more. There are years of work behind this framework, so I don't think this is the final framework or the only framework. I think there are many possibilities to do different things, but one insight I bring is that this is not actually about creating a cool agent simulation or an interesting little game, but fundamentally reshaping network technology.

It is actually a network technology that can connect powerful AI with developers who cannot truly utilize it, especially in applications like dApps, because you have a front-end interface. I think the key insight is bringing this technology to social platforms or places where users are active. Agents can actively find you, applications can come to you, instead of you seeking them. This truly responds to how users engage with these applications. This idea stems from my previous efforts to bring users to my website, register to use my app, and then I thought, why not skip these cumbersome steps and directly put it on platforms like Discord, Telegram, Twitter that users are already using. So I believe that, of course, if someone sees these, they may write better code and such, but I think there are some very rare insights gained from long trials, especially from the early days of generative AI, and sharing these experiences with others."

BlockBeats: There are many lessons to be learned from this. What are your thoughts? I think in the traditional Web2 and AI world, when people are evaluating, for example, projects like OpenAI or Perplexity, the quality of the team might be their main criterion. I believe that in the world of Web3, the evaluation criteria will be different. How do you understand this?

Shaw: I think projects like the Eliza ecosystem may not have a team in the traditional sense. But I know some of the best contributors, and they are not traditional team members. For example, Loaf, who operates the Loot Realms ecosystem, developed the incredible game Eternal, which now accounts for 75% of the StarkNet transaction volume, all just from this game. He is a legendary figure who one day suddenly appeared and said, "This is cool, I want to use it in my game."

And then there's Cigar, who works on Abstract Chain, another legendary developer who found this project amazing and wanted to contribute his own effort. So, many people spontaneously appear and contribute their ideas and efforts. This project is not something I did alone, but I think the part I contributed was enough to allow other truly amazing people to join in. Without their contributions, it wouldn't be what it is today. It's all a collective effort, and if I have any insight, it's to let others be leaders, to let others join in and do this together.

The Future of the "Framework Wars"

BlockBeats: This conflict reminds me of that debate about open source and closed source, which one is better? Does this also reflect a similar dynamic? Is a centrally supported project with a small team behind it better, or is community-driven innovation like Eliza's better? Which is better, and what is the model of the Eliza community?

Shaw: For example, OpenAI released Swarms, Microsoft released many different Agent projects, and everyone in the Web2 field is cheering for these projects, saying, "OpenAI has an Agent framework, you have to use their framework." But in the end, behind these projects, there are only two or three teams working, and while they may be very smart, each project still only has two or three people working behind it.

As we open sourced this project, we have 200 contributors, 200 different individuals contributing to this project. In our list of partners, there are over 100 teams using our technology, and beyond those on our partnership list, at least 1000 teams or projects are utilizing our technology. These projects range from single developers creating agents to entire companies using this technology. I just feel like, how could Microsoft possibly compete with that?

I think they can't compete at the agent level. This also goes back to a point you mentioned: We should be building our own AI, making AI our own ally rather than some cold tool. So all of this really gives me that kind of unreplicable, genuine excitement. This excitement comes from an unknown world, a community-driven ecosystem. Especially when it merges with cryptocurrency, that's where the excitement of "cryptocurrency + AI" truly lies.

It's also an experiment, exploring how humans organize themselves. We have all sorts of structures to share resources, build relationships, especially in the business realm. For example, in the startup environment in San Francisco, almost every startup begins with a small team, very close-knit, where everything is initially very egalitarian. Many companies would say, "We're a family, working hard together." But gradually, it inevitably turns into a sort of detached corporate operation. Of course, this isn't always the case, but this transition always feels regrettable to me.

Some people are fine with this sense of detachment, but for me, it's hard to accept. That initial sense of ownership at the start of a project slowly fades away over time. You feel like your control over income, decision-making power is diminishing, which is typically the status quo. And now, what we're doing is exactly the opposite. The traditional company goes from being "family" to strangers, from a small company to a detached large company. Whereas here, a group of strangers becomes "family," truly transforming into a community. This transition feels particularly genuine.

Everyone has their own strengths, but we come together because we have a common love for a goal. If not "family," I hope it can become a shared sense of mission. Because in a large group, even if you may not have deep personal relationships with everyone, you can still feel a shared goal and purpose while retaining a certain degree of autonomy. And this is something that is usually stripped away in traditional corporate structures.

In such a community, the sharing economy is crucial because that's how we live. Frankly, this is also part of the inspiration for this project. We all focus on things that are important to us, such as our goals and work. This makes it difficult for us to establish truly intimate relationships with those who are not on the same path. To truly achieve effective collaboration and consistency, an economic bond is needed.

In the past, people lived in villages, worked together, shared resources, and survived together. However, now, especially in highly individualistic societies like the United States, this communal model seems to have been weakened. I'm not entirely sure about the specific experience of living here, but it is also part of the inspiration for the project.

For example, the entire Solana ecosystem is built on the idea of fair distribution. The Pump project also has some unfair aspects, but overall, everyone is treated the same. However, as far as I know, this model has hardly been attempted outside the realm of tokens.

For instance, the fair distribution of an entire DAO—although some DAO funding has indeed been done through fair distribution, I believe we are the first to truly promote and maximize this concept in a project. Moreover, its development unfolded entirely organically, truly from the ground up.

I'm not joking when I say that when we started doing Degen Spartan, I only knew one person before, and then some people joined, helping me launch ai16z. But it wasn't until about two weeks ago that I first met any of them in person. We felt it was about time to have a face-to-face chat. Even then, I could only meet a small fraction of the people who helped us handle everything. Many of them have their own companies, like Phala Network's team, who started contributing as soon as they joined.

Some people didn't just participate but actively contributed to the codebase, seeking nothing in return, just helping to improve the entire decentralized governance structure, making it truly autonomous. For example, there's a project called Reality Spiral, also a Meme project. Their attitude was, "This is so cool! I want to contribute too." And then they actually started helping maintain the codebase and other content. What surprised me was that I had never seen such a scene: everyone saying, "Hey, this project belongs to all of us, it's not just mine."

Without a traditional team, the entire community is the real team. I believe this is a completely new way of building and organizing a group of people. I hope this model can become a template for many projects.

BlockBeats: Have you had the opportunity to interact directly with Marc Andreessen?

Shaw: No, I have never directly interacted with him, but I really hope to have the opportunity. I did send him a private message, but currently, I am in contact with some members of the ai16z team, and we are trying to find ways to collaborate.

BlockBeats: The reason he is so excited about the combination of "crypto + AI" may be because this model demonstrates a whole new possibility of collaboration between crypto projects and AI projects. This is completely different from the traditional company model.

Shaw: I think that if he were 20 years younger and had not experienced these remarkable successes, he might be doing exactly what we are doing now, fully engaging in it. I grew up in the Bay Area, and around the age of seven, I used Netscape Navigator. So, you could say that the Netscape he developed was the first application that connected me to the world.

His influence on my life is profound. Sometimes people say, "Oh, you guys all hate the PC." But I would respond by saying that I actually think personal computers are great. I believe what they did is a template, it just belongs to the old world, and we need to bring it into the new world. I think he is the kind of person who truly wants to create a new world. And he also participated in the accelerationist movement, which has had a significant impact on me and everything I do. I think that, although we may need to very carefully mimic their model, ultimately, I have a lot of respect for him.

I hope this can be a way to pay tribute to him, rather than just saying, "We have to surpass Mark Andreessen, we have to surpass a16Z." This is a good spirit, and I hope he would actually support such things happening. At the time, I thought to myself, "It seems I made the right choice." I am very fortunate that I invested in projects in the crypto space, which was undoubtedly the right choice. And there is a clear logical connection between what they have achieved and what we can do today, even though we are not a venture-backed project.

BlockBeats: I can really feel their strong interest in "crypto + AI" and that they are delving deep into research.

Shaw: They have been doing a lot of related things.

BlockBeats: GOAT, FARTCOIN, and a16Z are indeed showing strong interest in what will happen next.

Shaw: I think his $50,000 grant to Truth Around really caught everyone's attention, paving the way for all of us.

Jill: This feels a bit like passing the baton to a new generation. I'm not sure if that's an accurate way to put it because, you know, every era has its two cents to contribute.

Shaw: So I'm very interested in working with them, getting involved in the project they're currently driving. You know, in the U.S., DAOs aren't entirely legal. I like the idea of meme town because it's both fun and realistic. In fact, we're also planning to start implementing this concept next year. My favorite book is called "Foundation."

BlockBeats: Do they also have an Apple TV series?

Shaw: That's right, my favorite book is "Foundation." Reading the book enhances the experience a lot; it delves more into the human element. The book focuses more on sci-fi and structural content. The core idea of "Foundation" is that all these people see a massive change coming and want to ensure everyone benefits, so they leave the empire, go to a distant place, create a new society, eventually return to society, and establish a new empire. That's the story of "Foundation." And, I heard Elon Musk plans to name the first city on Mars Terminus, but I think we will beat him to it.

Jill: That's quite an interesting statement, are we going to beat them to it?

Shaw: What I mean is, we can accomplish all this on Earth, so we'll be much easier. What I'm trying to say is, currently, if you want to establish a DAO in the U.S., you have to go to the Cayman Islands and operate through the legal system of the Cayman Islands. These operations are actually workarounds to provide legal structure and protection for DAOs, but I really hope to bring all this back to the U.S.

Especially considering the new administration, we should legalize DAOs in the U.S., creating a true "American DAO," and ultimately should promote DAOs worldwide. However, the U.S. has been unclear in regulating these matters, and I hope to drive change in this area.

Especially in the crypto space, a16Z and Miles Jennings have created a new concept called Duna, which is a brand-new DAO structure that can be established within the state of Wyoming. Our idea is to create a town based on the Duna structure, and it will be non-profit.

Our goal is to provide a practical landing point for those passionate about Web3 and AI projects, allowing them to collaborate with like-minded individuals in a setting close to nature. Examples like Prospera's "Crypto City" serve as a good model, and our mission here is to drive the development of American DAOs to make them mainstream, eliminating the reliance on legal loopholes in places like the Cayman Islands or Seychelles. We aim to plant the flag back in America and show that this is beneficial for the U.S. and all of us.

BlockBeats: It seems like the situation has at least somewhat improved, and the outlook is slightly more optimistic. Especially with the election of Trump, the following government appears to be more crypto-friendly.

Shaw: I don't fully align with any political party in the U.S., but some of the people behind Trump, such as Naval, Elon Musk, and Marc Andreessen, resonate well with my beliefs. Currently, a former a16z partner is in charge of crypto policy, and they represent my interests. I hope to be involved to drive government-related efforts forward.

I believe that AI technology can enhance government efficiency and transparency, reducing bureaucracy. This is also why I want to be involved. Meanwhile, the current direction of the U.S. development is reassuring to me. Especially during the pandemic, many individuals were censored for their statements that were later proven to be true. Now, it seems like this situation is improving, providing hope.

Jill: Yes, I think one key point about this topic is very important for us, which is to remember the founding principle of this country—to provide freedom for anyone who wants to come here and contribute. This is not just about America or its people; it's about the dream where everyone has the opportunity, as long as they are honest individuals willing to strive for a better future together. I believe the true essence of the "American Dream" is inherently very international, especially in the current globalized context.

Shaw: Most countries have long histories, while America was established relatively recently. It was actually built by people from elsewhere. Despite past instances of xenophobia, America's history is fundamentally defined by great figures from other lands, making it a symbol of openness. This is the spirit we hope to continue and see.

Establishing the "DAO Town" in Wyoming

BlockBeats: After you plan to launch this DAO Town project, how do you intend to manage your time effectively? What aspects will you focus more on? How will you balance life and community?

Shaw: We need to complete things one by one in a certain order, which is why we say this is a next year thing, because we still need at least six months to really consolidate our foundation. And my responsibility is to find the right person to take on a leadership role. I will try to delegate leadership of different parts to others, and I hope this can be a career driven by many excellent leaders together. It's a big enough movement that covers many different parts, providing a broad space for participation for others, especially people from the international community. We don't have an office; it is entirely driven by people from around the world who have taken on the burden and responsibility.

As for the development team, a lot of work has now been decentralized. I have found the right people to be responsible for different projects, such as the pmerica project, the Spartan project, and the open-source codebase. Each project has a lead and their own development team support. Ultimately, everything should be fully self-sustaining, and the whole system should not depend on me. While I really hope to be involved forever, in the end, it should become strong enough that even if someone, for whatever reason, cannot continue to participate – which hopefully won't happen – it can still operate. I hope this project can outlast all of us and last forever.

Jill: There are lots of opportunities here, especially for those who are self-driven, seek independence, and aspire to achieve personal dreams. It's a great fit for those who want to start their own business.

BlockBeats: In fact, the entire DAO's servers, Twitter, Discord, and all role-related management are handled by others and Anons I trust. These Anons have shown their leadership through action. While I am indeed the face of this project, in my day-to-day work, my main task is to communicate with people, attract more contributors, and advocate for this project nationwide.

Shaw: I hope to speak up for AI on Twitter to avoid being banned, and I also hope to advocate for more support and legitimacy for AI in government and academia. I think Vitalik is a good role model; he created Ethereum, and even though the Ethereum Foundation has some issues, overall, it has brought together many talented individuals, allowing Vitalik to focus on speaking out for cryptocurrency, for a better world, and for what he truly believes in. I think this is also part of my role – not just participating in code writing as much as possible and leading the direction of the next version's development but also trusting others and empowering them to take on leadership roles.

BlockBeats: In the end, this is actually a bit similar to what Ethereum is trying to build — you want to create an ecosystem or infrastructure that can surpass any individual and last longer.

Shaw: Yes.

BlockBeats: But of course, now you are the spokesperson for the entire project. I find that people really take your words very seriously, almost interpreting them word for word. Sometimes, this can cause some small issues. For example, in the Chinese community, there was once a small controversy and dramatic scene caused by the "swarm" incident.

Truth and Lies: Reflections as a Public Figure

Shaw: Swarms?

BlockBeats: Yes, some people in the community would say, why would Shaw spread FUD and get angry, causing more controversy and drama. So have you ever thought about this: 'Oh, maybe I am a very influential public figure.'

Shaw: Actually, if I knew someone was lying to you, should I choose not to tell you in order to maintain my reputation, or should I tell you because I want you to know the truth? Would you prefer to know?

BlockBeats: I want to know; honesty is always the best policy.

Shaw: So, when I asked you this question, I did face a moral challenge. In the end, I decided to make a judgment based on my understanding of the developers of this project. I have actually had a few similar experiences before, such as knowing a developer of a project called Act One, and I said at the time, 'I think they will exit scam.' Sure enough, they did exit scam later. They sold off all the tokens, let the community self-destruct, and then disappeared without a trace. There were many complex factors involved. But in that case, I did know that developer. We even had a face-to-face meeting offline. That was a long time ago, and at that time, his attitude towards me was extremely bad and he behaved in an extremely crazy manner.

Shaw: I think he's gone mad, as if playing a very strange game.

Jill: I don't believe in him anymore.

Shaw: In fact, I used to be a member of his community. I joined because I hoped to have a place to co-create with others. I liked the open-source idea he advocated for, and I trusted him as a person. But over time, I began to see through his ways. I found that the code he wrote was fundamentally unworkable. He would even input research paper content into ChatGPT, generate some unusable code, and then rush to publish it before those researchers could, claiming the namespace and reaping the value of their research.

In academia, especially in the AI research field, it is common to publish papers first, gain recognition in various journals and conferences, and then open-source the code, usually with about a three-month delay. He took advantage of this time gap to preemptively release code versions based on these papers, even though these versions were actually non-functional. This behavior brought him fame but also drew opposition from many AI researchers. For example, some researchers from Princeton University and a notable AI researcher, Gwern, expressed that they had to flag all his published content because not only was it ineffective, but it also introduced a lot of noise to the community.

To be honest, Kai is still just a kid, probably around 19 years old. I don't want to be too harsh on him, considering I did many foolish things myself when I was 19. However, I do think his behavior is truly unbecoming. I knew about the Swarm technology he was promoting, so I gave it a try, only to discover that it simply didn't work. The functionalities he claimed were impossible to achieve. Therefore, when he joined this community, I felt a moral obligation to inform everyone of his true nature — he is an opportunist, indeed appropriating others' research. So, should I keep quiet and say nothing?

Perhaps, if I remain silent, I may spare myself some trouble. But I feel I have a responsibility to tell everyone what I know to be the truth. I'm not doing this out of jealousy because just the day before this happened, I made contributions to Zero Bro. I'm a Zero Bro contributor and support Zero Pie. I have always been an advocate for open-source projects, actively supporting many similar projects. But in this case, I happened to know what game that developer was playing. I knew that it might stir up more controversy, and some might be unhappy with me due to an emotional attachment to the tokens they hold, but it turned out that I was indeed right. Because he quickly issued a second type of token and did many other shady things.

I understand that this is a complex issue, but I have always believed that people should be honest and brave enough to speak the truth, even if it entails some risk. So, perhaps this is not the most politically correct "political choice," but I am not a political person.

I am someone who is relatively straightforward, sincere, and hopes that things will progress properly. But when a scammer enters your community, how should you respond? He is a well-known scammer in the Web2 AI field, so when he shifted to Web3, I felt that everyone had the right to know about his past. That's just the way things unfolded.

Similar to the Act 1 situation, I had worked with that developer before, even hired him. I tried to help him raise funds, but his behavior was erratic, both in speech and action, overly protective of a small portion of his code, and lied to me, claiming it was OpenAI's GPT model when it was not. These kinds of things happened a lot, and I just knew that this person would definitely exit scam. I pointed it out at the time, and sure enough, a week later, he exit scammed.

So I want to say that my intention was not to create any conflict. It's not a PvP confrontation for me; it's about protecting the community. I believe that as long as others are doing things in a legitimate way and they are adopting an open-source model, I would like to support them because this is not a competition. But if their code doesn't work properly, it will only make the situation worse rather than better. And I feel that he is just fostering a more "antagonistic" atmosphere. I don't know, what do you think?

BlockBeats: What is the current market value of Swarm? It might collapse after this, right?

Shaw: I think he will ultimately ruin himself, I don't need to say much more. I have already blacklisted him, which I consider a lesson learned. I have stated my opinion and indeed shared links, such as the Princeton researcher saying, "This person stole my research findings," or Gordon's review. I'm just letting everyone read these publicly available online historical records themselves, without completely believing my words. However, to be honest, many people do not like my approach.

BlockBeats: This indeed reflects the diversity of the crypto space and demonstrates its complexity. I believe that cryptocurrency has always had some very exciting and promising aspects, while also attracting many people to speculate, whether they truly like this industry or have other motives. In this process, many people's economic interests are tied to various things, and they are not familiar with each other, which can lead to a very chaotic situation. That is also why many people, especially in the Chinese community, often refer to cryptocurrency as a scam because there are indeed some scams, making it difficult to differentiate which projects are truly valuable.

Shaw: Generally speaking, people hate FUD because their funds are already invested. They don't want to see their money go down the drain, so sometimes they choose to ignore what is actually happening and are unwilling to face the truth of the problem. Or actively attack anyone who questions them. This makes people wonder, should we let speculators have their way? To be honest, I'm not sure what the right answer is, but my intuition and inclination are that we should always try to fight against these speculators.

BlockBeats: Yes, it is indeed interesting when people like you enter this field because frankness or daring to expose others' true colors is not common here. Sometimes, this does work against their projects. This dynamic did not seem common in the crypto community before or was not noticed. This situation has indeed become an example, showing why the crypto space has accumulated so much "trauma."

Shaw: I think we do need some form of a trust or reputation system so that individuals do not have to personally come forward to expose these issues. You know, this should not be a culture of exposure. I don't like publicly criticizing others, and this is a huge risk to everything we are doing. But the reason I do this is that I feel there is no mechanism here to distinguish trustworthy individuals.

BlockBeats: Have you heard about the gmAI incident? The person who discovered the Whales Market, he also did another project called gmAI. It turned out he was also a scammer and directly took away all the project's funds.

Shaw: I didn't know about that.

BlockBeats: It seems to be the same situation. No one came forward earlier to reveal that he was a scammer, and in the end, he took away a large amount of funds.

Shaw: I would say that the Eliza event did filter out those people I don't want to be involved in this project. Although saying that may sound harsh, those who can tolerate others stealing the fruits of our long-term efforts and turning them into a low-quality version are clearly not the partners we want. There are inherent issues with their motivation for participation. Today, the reason we can stand firm is that these unsuitable people have been eliminated, and I have been able to be my real self again because of it. As long as I remain sincere, if one day, I truly become a scammer or do anything wrong, I should take responsibility for it.

However, I believe that those who truly understand the value of the project and consistently adhere to it eventually receive substantial returns. They have enough faith and smartly remain unaffected by emotions. Ultimately, the reason we now have an excellent community is because those who were not a good fit have long been filtered out. Those who have persevered have all reaped generous rewards, which is a good thing for them.

Jill: I am not active on Twitter, so I cannot say exactly what the best practices for this platform are. However, I believe that in life, a crucial aspect of ethics and building trust is not shying away from necessary friction. Sometimes, doing the right thing may not feel pleasant, especially at the beginning. Hearing the truth or accepting the truth may also be uncomfortable, but to make progress, one must maintain an open mind and patiently face it.

A friend recently told me that we need to learn to distinguish whether a certain discomfort is due to real pain that needs to be avoided or if this pain is just a part of life. Sometimes, this pain is simply an inevitability of life, but we can grow from it. Of course, I cannot comment on everyone's individual situation, but I want to say that when you persist in speaking the truth in a certain situation, even if it may make some people uncomfortable, I respect and trust you.

Shaw: Yes, I believe that we all make mistakes, but we need to acknowledge them, grow from them, learn to apologize, and face them honestly. If I make a mistake, such as mishandling information in communication or lacking sufficient caution in certain matters, I will strive to correct it. Nevertheless, I always believe that having a strong ethical compass is paramount. If you understand yourself and know that you are doing the right thing, even amidst various criticisms on the Internet, you can still sleep peacefully. I think this is very important. I also hope to live in a world where everyone is more honest and more willing to say, "This is not right."

BlockBeats: This is somewhat like squeezing out the bubble during the process to prevent it from eventually becoming a huge bubble. It's also good to let the bubble dissipate and come to an end.

Shaw: We did make some mistakes in the early stages, and we learned a lot from them. However, I think these lessons are more on a strategic level, such as how to better deal with similar situations, rather than a change in my core values. From start to finish, I have always been true to my ethical standards. Even though some accuse me of running a scam or engaging in unethical practices, I believe many people react this way because they have encountered too many similar situations in the past, and everyone is somewhat "traumatized." However, these accusations are completely contrary to how I conduct myself.

Shaw: I really didn't do this for those reasons. I don't have anyone else's wallet either.

BlockBeats: If another scammer started a new project, would you still come forward to expose them?

Shaw: In fact, I don't know many of those kinds of people. The reason I spoke out was entirely because I had intersected with those people, had worked with them before, seen how they are. I remember him just like I truly knew him. You know? He even tried to hire me, but at that time, I thought to myself, "Dude, I'd rather not." You know if I didn't have full confidence in my own judgment, I wouldn't have done that.

The main reason is that I don't want a good person to get into trouble, nor do I want to spread FUD about someone. If the other party is trustworthy, I am willing to give them a chance. But in that situation, I had no doubt at all. I tried to run his code and found it to be useless. Maybe his swarms project could work, but the other projects were just not viable.

People can say whatever they want, but as a programmer, I have tested it, and the code doesn't work. To be honest, if his code could run smoothly, I could overlook other issues. I really hope this industry can have more people who understand both development and trading. I think if there were fewer people like that, there would be fewer situations like this.

Skelly and AI Pool Controversy Explained

BlockBeats: Additionally, the community has recently been discussing another topic related to "Skelly." This thing, I think he did something really cool. Do you know what happened? He messed it up.

Shaw: He created a completely autonomous agent that comes with a wallet, can autonomously deploy tokens, and is completely out of his control. Although this project was his idea, Skelly and I co-founded DGEN Spartan, and he was a partner of AI 16c from the beginning. He did mention this project to me, and I gave some advice, but the autonomous part was mainly done by him and the Fala Network team.

It was entirely his genius idea, indeed a very cool project. However, none of us can control this thing. His idea was to see what would happen. This was just an experiment, but the results were crazy—there were even millions of dollars invested. Now everyone is trying to crack it or attack it, but the security of this project is very strong. Today's launch event had some minor issues, such as the airdrop not being fully completed, and some complicated parts, but overall, it went quite smoothly.

The issue is that someone misused Twitter's advanced account system yellow verification badge, leading to his account being deleted. These scammers created an account with a similar name, such as using two "y"s to spell "Skellyy," and then reported his account for impersonation. The scammers switched accounts and reported him, his account was deleted, and we couldn't prove they were the impersonators. Because when you try to say "they impersonated who," his original account name no longer appears. They fully exploited X's advanced system, deleted his account, then posted scams under all our posts, even blocked me so I couldn't expose their identity. I contacted X's team and asked many people for help, but progress is slow, especially now during Christmas, making it even more difficult.

Now that his account has been deleted, he can only create a small account with no followers to claim "I am Skelly himself," but no one will believe because there is no original account, making self-proving almost impossible. Although his launch was successful in many ways, his account was deleted just before the launch, so I think this may have caused a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). But I haven't looked closely at what FUD is currently circulating in the community.

BlockBeats: I think there's actually not much FUD at the moment, maybe just a bit of confusion. And then someone mentioned the address issue, saying to transfer all SOL to Coinbase. Is this also part of FUD?

Shaw: It feels a bit crazy, especially the part about the liquidity pool, you know, the last time I checked, the token's trading volume was about 60 million, with liquidity of about 30 million. This is the opposite of our token; our liquidity is only 4 million, but the overall scale is much larger, so this is indeed a very interesting experiment.

BlockBeats: Yes, I think the key is still his Twitter account issue.

Shaw: This is really bad; they were actually able to abuse the system.

BlockBeats: X is totally at fault here; to be honest, hackers in the crypto space are indeed very creative.

Shaw: Yeah, they even DM'd me, saying, "Hey, do you want to get Skelly's account back?" At that time, I was like, "Forget it!" Anyway, you can't get it back, enough is enough.

BlockBeats: Lately, there have been too many stories about people getting hacked and funds being stolen. For example, those fake Zoom meeting links, as well as various impersonation and social engineering tactics. But this time is even more outrageous; they didn't actually hack his account but directly exploited X's vulnerability to take action.

Shaw: He was actually relaxing at that time. The reason those people succeeded is because a certain company gave this Skelly account an affiliated authentication. After obtaining advanced authentication, they reported his account, leading to its deletion. Then they said, "I'm back, everyone, I am the real Skelly." Next, they used social engineering tactics to deceive many people on the timeline. Then they even created a Pump Fun coin. That's how it all unfolded.

BlockBeats: How intriguing!

Shaw: Yeah, everyone was very optimistic about this project, the interest was significant, to the extent that some even tried to sabotage it. I hope he can recover his account because if he does, he will definitely be the star of today. Last week Bowsky even said that Skelly would be the next star, and everyone could feel it as if it had been prophesied long ago. I think Skelly is really great, and he should be back soon.

BlockBeats: So, what is your view on the current development of AI agents in the cryptocurrency field? What are the current trends? What is the market landscape like? Personally, what are your thoughts on the current situation of cryptocurrency and AI agents? Frameworks and platforms like Cerebro are competing for this portion of liquidity and attention. In which direction do you think this field will ultimately evolve? Which projects hold the most promise?

Shaw: I think there will be a turnaround. Right now, everyone is assessing the value of these roles, but we are somewhat tired of the aesthetics of these roles. Despite many good characters and projects, they all seem a bit dull. Most people will soon tire of this "responder agent." The future focus may shift to what these AI agents can do for us. I believe their main capabilities will be to help you make money or assist you in promoting products, ultimately achieving profitability, which I see as the two main directions.

I see a major trend in DeFi agents, especially in the Solana ecosystem as many entering this field have no idea how to use DeFi. I've interacted with some agent developers using our technology; they launched agents, received some small tokens, but these tokens can only be held in wallets because they are afraid to sell them, fearing being accused of "rug pull." Then they ask, "What should I do?" I tell them, "You need to add them to a liquidity pool," but they still don't know how to proceed.

But how can we solve these liquidity issues? From a developer's perspective, the problem lies in the fact that many developers themselves do not know how to use DeFi. The role of a proxy is to bridge the gap between these sophisticated DeFi building blocks and users who do not understand how to use them. A proxy can automatically provide liquidity (LP), automatically withdraw from pools in case of impermanent loss due to token price fluctuations, or adjust price spreads, among other functions. I believe this approach is applicable to any type of yield farming opportunity, as well as to other opportunities such as automated investing. If we can achieve a "one-click earn" mechanism, it would be a significant breakthrough.

When many people use DeFi platforms like Radium, Meteor, or others, they often have no idea where to start and may even feel intimidated. When they see these pools and annual percentage yields, they have no idea which one is suitable for them and may feel very confused.

The goal we often talk about, "bringing the next billion users into the crypto world," I believe the more realistic scenario is that there may be a billion people who know nothing about crypto, they are just passively "brought into" this crypto world, which will be the foundation supporting everything. The true killer application of AI proxies is how they can help users earn money.

DeFi Proxies in 2025

BlockBeats: Do you know what they will look like in the future? For example, in January next year, what will an interesting DeFi proxy look like?

Shaw: We are developing a proxy in partnership with Orca, which is an automated robot that can automatically manage Orca's liquidity pools. You just need to deposit your tokens, and if the pool does not exist, it will automatically create a new one; if the pool already exists, it will add the tokens to the existing pool. Next, it will continuously monitor these pools, and if it detects a situation that may cause impermanent loss, such as token price divergence, it will automatically withdraw funds from the pool. Because most people are concerned about impermanent loss. You can also programmatically control the token's price spread or adjust the token pairing.

BlockBeats: So the first use case is liquidity management to avoid impermanent loss.

Shaw: Yes, that is the perfect use case. I think it is the simplest but there are also many other DeFi products. So you can extend this approach to other DeFi products, such as yield farming.

BlockBeats: This is very interesting, it's like another DeFi summer.

Shaw: This will be a new DeFi summer because the reason there hasn't been a DeFi summer is that there haven't been enough people who understand how to use DeFi. But the DeFi infrastructure is already there, waiting to be leveraged.

It has already developed very maturely, it's just that for those who don't understand finance, it still feels a bit vague and scary. If you look at the information on these websites, they seem crazy, talking about "revolutionizing finance," but you just want to know how it works, you know?

There are many things that I myself don't quite understand, even though I have delved into it. And I have to tell you, we don't sell tokens, relying entirely on the returns and rewards from the liquidity pool. It (the AI agent) is responsible for managing everything. Yes, that's exactly it. But imagine if we had a robot running things automatically, we might make more because right now we can't monitor it 24/7 and do everything.

Jill: I totally agree with your view, the issue is more about the interface and complexity rather than the actual operation itself.

I understand what you mean, it is indeed quite scary when you first encounter it, feeling like you don't understand at all. You know, I have some understanding myself, can chat with you about these, but most of the time I still do it myself, watch some YouTube videos, learn how to operate. Indeed, at the beginning, it's very confusing, don't know what those terms mean, everything feels very complex. But I think it can actually be made simpler.

Like we said before, I'm helping my mom set up a wallet. Actually, I hope the operation can be simpler, just like being a cashier. In fact, my mom has also entered the cryptocurrency market and has become a trader. My mom is probably in her 60s.

BlockBeats: Both of your moms are traders?

Shaw: I just wish my mom could have an agent that could help her earn money directly. Because around 2015, I bought a lot of Ethereum at a very low price, it's been sitting there now, although it's good, those assets could actually help you make more money. By leaving them there, you are actually wasting a lot of value.

This is indeed a problem, I think DeFi will become very important. For example, when I think of "generative money," I can imagine the concept of autonomous investors or autonomous DeFi agents in some communities. The top members of the community can trade for everyone, while others put tokens into the liquidity pool for pairing operations, and the entire community benefits together. Rather than being a PvP trade where they are against each other, it's more of a collaborative win-win model.

Shaw: This brings us back to the topic we were just discussing. I'm really concerned that UBI may not be smoothly implemented. I'm also worried that in a situation where automation leads to unemployment, the government may not be able to provide sufficient support. DeFi proxies and the entire DeFi ecosystem are indeed one of the ways to ensure that everything progresses smoothly.

Jill: This point is indeed very important. This is not to say that the government providing UBI (Universal Basic Income) is the "enemy," but rather a problem of the entire system. If we look at it as a mathematical equation, our incentive mechanisms are not truly aligned. The institutions we have for governing society have indeed played a role for a long time, but their efficiency is now unable to keep pace with the world's development, address contemporary issues, or truly meet people's needs.

Shaw: This is not anyone's fault; we are not against anyone. We just hope that everyone can have enough resources.

Jill: So, I want a new "mathematical equation," which is a new incentive structure. This may not be the most perfect way to describe it, but this is my summary.

Shaw: I think this is actually a good thing for the government because it can relieve them of the pressure of solving these problems alone, especially when their system is not suited to address these issues.

Jill: For example, if the IRS could operate really efficiently, I believe they would also feel much more at ease. This is a holistic way of thinking. I don't know, maybe we will become completely different.

Shaw: You know, the government is very good at building roads, streets, and doing urban planning, but when it comes to dealing with rapidly changing events, or situations like AI that rapidly and drastically change everything, the government is not that good. I think in this regard, we really need to take the initiative and solve it ourselves.

BlockBeats: This gives me a different perspective. I have always thought UBI is the solution, and I didn't know there were other ways. However, this is indeed an interesting point of view.

Shaw: I have always referred to it as "Community Income" (CI), which is somewhat different. It is not universal, not basic, not provided by the government, but achieved by you and the community together. This method cannot help everyone at once, but it can first help those around you. Once these communities stabilize, you can bring in friends and family as well.

I often think that we need to "put on our own oxygen masks" first, make sure we have enough resources and are okay ourselves, before taking care of our family to ensure they are okay too; then friends, followed by strangers on the street and those unknown, gradually expanding until everyone has enough resources.

Jill: I think this mindset allows us to look at issues from different angles, especially in a place like the United States, where the homeless issue is indeed very serious and shocking.

Then I wonder, how can we help these people? The root cause behind this issue is complex, but I think one aspect of it is that people have not established a healthy economic connection with family and community. This is a complex problem that needs to be addressed. However, I believe that this approach might be a hopeful way to help address similar issues.

BlockBeats: That's right, indeed. So in this case, what is the key factor in determining which community or platform can operate? For example, on an operational level, how does a project or platform like DeFi perform to determine its success?

Shaw: That's the best part; there will be a lot of competition, everyone is vying for who can create the best DeFi platform or the best automated investor, and so on. So our goal is not to make the best DeFi or the best automated investor, but to first make one, and then others can imitate and compete to see who can do better, thereby creating competition. Competition is an essential mechanism to drive rapid development, right? The market is like market intelligence, actually, I think the market itself is like AGI.

The market will take these ideas and raw elements, continuously improve them, and get better and better. Just like Ethereum proposed more powerful functionality than Bitcoin, next you will see all these raw elements also being similarly improved. We just want to open up this space and let others join, compete, and develop in this field.

Jill: We are not just trying to do well for ourselves; of course, we want to do well, but more importantly, we want to drive the whole movement forward, helping it take root and grow in the digital ecosystem.

Shaw: Moreover, if you are a selfish person, don't you want to walk the streets of San Francisco without seeing homeless people everywhere? I think our selfishness is often short-sighted. If we can look at our selfishness from a slightly longer-term perspective, we will understand that even if you don't care about those people, you also want to walk on the street peacefully, without being begged, and you don't want to be surrounded by drug users. Such an environment would be better.

So I think we need to think more long-term on this issue. First, you need to have enough resources, enough family, enough of the things that truly matter to you. Only when you have these, you have the ability to achieve longer-term goals, not to become less selfish, but to become more visionary. I believe we can all align towards making the world a better place, even if it's just for ourselves.

Of course, I have a sense of altruism—I want everyone to do better, to have enough resources. But to be honest, I just want to live in that world too. I want to live in a world where you can walk on the streets at night without fear, where people are no longer pitted against each other because there's no need for that conflict.

Jill: This world needs an incentive structure that can adapt to the needs of both the "saints" and the "madmen." Whether you're an altruist or an extremely selfish person, you should be able to find the right motivation in this system.

Shaw: The incentive mechanism must adhere to the win-win principle, not "win-lose" or "lose-lose." It must be win-win, always. I like the way DeFi functions because anyone participating benefits from it.

You know, the cool thing about DeFi and liquidity pools is that our tokens need a lot of liquidity, but right now, they're just sitting quietly in our wallets. We know there are people with liquidity, they're just afraid to provide liquidity (LP). And all these platforms are vying for your attention or something else, but the end result is that we all benefit.

It doesn't matter if you take away my bot, start providing liquidity, or begin automated investing; it doesn't affect me. In fact, this might actually help me, and it might even make the entire system better. So, the key is to find a win-win situation so we can establish a new social structure.

BlockBeats: Let's see what happens next, I really have a strong feeling that this topic will become very hot next year, and I'll continue to talk about it.

Shaw: This trend is just beginning.

The Future of San Francisco Crypto AI

BlockBeats: The final topic is about where you live—San Francisco. Because a lot of AI things are happening there. Oh, and what about Web3? Is AI in cryptocurrency all related to that?

Shaw: But the narrative around AI has recently taken center stage, lasting for about a year and a half to two years, with a huge amount of capital invested. You could go to an event and almost every night meet a hundred AI founders, at least it was like that last summer, it was really crazy and very inspiring. It felt like magic at the time. And there were a lot of crazy parties, all the AI founders going together, there was even a DJ, it was truly a great event.

I think during that time, there was indeed a special atmosphere, with many people quietly saying, "Yes, I'm also involved in cryptocurrency, but don't tell my VC." But now, this situation has become more and more normal. However, I still think there is a lot of negative sentiment in this field.

BlockBeats: Are you saying that you are now focusing on the combination of cryptocurrency and AI?

Shaw: Yes, I think that many times, the combination of AI and cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly important.

You know, companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have achieved tremendous success. I also think there is a kind of realistic cynicism point of view, like, "Well, what does that really take? Do you have 10,000 GPUs?" I think this is just a matter of time, there will indeed be a few years of delay. You know, coordinating 10,000 GPUs globally to form a decentralized network to train models, eventually we will achieve it, but it takes some time.

But I think there are many reasons for this, and many people have a negative preconceived view of cryptocurrency and crypto culture. Because there are actually two types of crypto culture, one is the decentralized idealists, like Vitalik kind of people, and the other is a bunch of DeFi gamblers, which really disgusts the founders of Web 2. It has made the situation very complicated. I once joined an AI gaming community, and when I mentioned that I use cryptocurrency, they immediately stopped talking to me. Oh, it's really that bad.

BlockBeats: How recent is this?

Shaw: This was probably at the beginning of this year.

BlockBeats: It's a bit better now.

Shaw: I think the situation is rapidly returning to normal now, especially I think Phantom has become very popular, a lot of people are starting to enter this field, many ordinary people are participating. But it still has a gambling-like atmosphere, which I think scares some people away.

But from my point of view, my choice is to raise funds from a venture capital firm, or through grassroots cryptocurrency. I have no other choice, of course I could choose to do it myself, even without letting anyone know. So between these two choices, I think we chose the one that would give us more freedom, so we wouldn't have to do things that go against what we believe to please the venture capital firm.

I feel that many crypto companies, sorry, I mean many AI companies and many Web2 companies that have raised a lot of venture capital, ultimately have had to pay the price for their decisions, start cutting features, increase fees, make the business more profitable, which makes sense in some ways. But when it comes to tokens, you can be more creative and have more freedom.

BlockBeats: Makes sense, so will people discuss projects like True Terminal, GOAT, Far Coin, and CCD? Will they talk about these?

Shaw: Of course, I think many people have talked about projects like True Terminal, GOAT, Far Coin, and CCD. Especially True Terminal, which is also very interesting because Andy and Janice have always been the faces of this project, coming from the AI alignment field. I understand, they are very focused on AI safety and AI alignment concepts.

While I have a somewhat accelerationist perspective on the issue, believing alignment should be achieved through a completely different approach. I don't think alignment will come from those large labs under government pressure, so we have somewhat different views on this point, but we both want to ensure the smooth development of this technology. I think Andy is a very insightful person who really wants to make sure AI enters the world in a safe way, avoiding many existential risks, such as superintelligence starting to control us, like a dystopian Terminator scenario.

And I view the issue from a different methodological perspective, but I think the most ideal situation is not my method or his, but the result of these different approaches clashing and colliding with each other. So there have been discussions about True Terminal, especially in the Web 2.0 field, although they don't care about Far Coin or Echo,

But they are indeed interested in things like there's a strange robot online talking about these matters. I think this is indeed a very interesting focus. You know, True Terminal was not originally a crypto project, it originally came from our AI small circle, I knew about True Terminal before Marc Andreessen interacted with it.

Yes, there is indeed an AI Twitter, and everyone is kind of a part of it. This cross-pollination thing was kind of weird until Marc made that move, and it took about a month for the shift to happen. It wasn’t until those DJs realized, “Wait a minute, I can get this thing to talk about our token and stuff.” That’s when things started to move in that direction.

BlockBeats: What conditions do you think are needed to get more AI practitioners in places like San Francisco or more generally, more people to pay attention to this?

Shaw: We just need to show them, prove that it’s a good way to do things. Hype alone won’t work; it will just turn them off. What really attracts them is capability—these things can do useful stuff, oh, this is actually a useful framework for building new kinds of apps. As it becomes more and more commonplace and normal, they will gradually accept it. You know, maybe not that ‘big-boobed wife’ image will help, but that is the first step. We cropped the photo to look like an open-source framework, so when they look at it, they just see her face.

BlockBeats: Are AI practitioners in the crypto space all concentrated in San Francisco?

Shaw: They are actually distributed all over, especially in Asia, where there are many talented AI crypto practitioners. Currently, there are two distinct AI crypto directions. One is projects like Hyperbolic or Prime Intellect and Public AI, which allow you to upload data and pay people to perform RLHF (Reinforcement Learning Human Feedback) data annotations.

There are many similar projects primarily tackling the issue of decentralized training and decentralized reasoning; they are kind of like alternatives to OpenAI, with the real aim of becoming the ‘open OpenAI.’ The other direction is the Agent direction, and although they are somewhat different, there is a very close collaboration between us. We are working with other decentralized AI and Web3 AI companies because we provide a front-end interface to help users interact more easily with their products. Many companies have great solutions, but users often do not know how to use them.

So, the Agent here acts as a bridge, sitting between decentralized platforms like ChatGPT or OpenAI alternatives and actual applications. Many times, when users enter these platforms, they may feel drawn by the revolutionary AI tech but not know how to use it, and the platforms involve a lot of complex tokenomics and such. Therefore, by putting the Agent in the front end, directly showcasing the practical applications of their projects, users can better understand how to use them.

It's just about connecting it, putting it in your wallet, and now you can do reasoning or other operations. I think this aspect has actually matured a lot, and companies like Hyperbolic are a good example of this. These companies are undoubtedly building mature infrastructure for AI, but they have encountered some difficulties in expanding from their own circles to real-world applications.

On the other hand, the direction of intelligent agents is more about interactivity, reactivity, involving groups like web developers and more frontend application developers, especially in the encrypted Twitter or entrepreneur circles. Therefore, intelligent agents actually bridge these two aspects. What we are seeing now is the combination of technologies that have been brewing behind the scenes for several years and the realization of "Oh, cool, I can now promote it through social media." Yes, intelligent agents are actually promoting their products, saying, "Hey, it's nice, it looks good, yes."

BlockBeats: After this trip to China, what message do you hope to convey? What do you want to say to the Chinese developer community?

Shaw: I mean, I really hope to break through the excessive focus on San Francisco, to break through the focus on the US and Silicon Valley. I sincerely believe that Chinese developers should get our technology, or any technology they think is good, to contribute to the Chinese community, and even developers from Latin America, Brazil, should also contribute to the Brazilian community. I hope to see more Chinese, Portuguese, or Spanish-speaking developers participating and bringing these technologies back to their home countries for localization. Moreover, I believe these meme coins should be more internationalized rather than focused solely on one place. I really hope to see everyone pick up these technologies to build a new generation of applications.

What we offer is completely free and open source, we don't seek anything in return. We truly hope that everyone can use this technology to build their dreams and create their products. My key insight is that the competition is not the framework itself, the competition is not the open-source technology itself because it is already free, this value proposition doesn't hold.

You should use it to build applications without needing to tell others that you're using it. Although, of course, I hope you can tell others. You also don't have to give back contributions, although we welcome that, but most importantly, use it to reshape the internet, to build a new generation of applications. Additionally, we really hope to have more contributors, especially from China and other regions.

We hope that more people will join in to help build and ensure the technology truly meets the needs. We hope that all our documentation can be translated. If someone is willing to help translate our documentation into Chinese, that would be great. We hope to ensure that this technology is not just mine, but it can also be yours. That's what I want.

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