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

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

Editor's Note: This interview starts with Shaw's trip to China, where he looks back on his early experiences and turning points in life. He shares the story behind "Eliza" and the success formula 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, speaks candidly about the challenges of being a public figure, and offers profound insights into the future of DeFi intelligences and Crypto AI ecosystem in 2025, bringing inspiring thoughts.

The following is the original content (slightly reorganized for easier comprehension):

China Trip

BlockBeats: How was your recent trip to China?

Shaw: It was great, a very special experience. This trip to China made me realize how popular cryptocurrency is in China, way beyond what I imagined. Many people who have invested in our project are Chinese, and I also have many friends from Korea and Japan. I'm particularly interested in getting to know these people because cryptocurrency has become a global phenomenon. I have some Chinese friends who live in San Francisco and they are very enthusiastic about cryptocurrency. This made me think about diving deep into learning 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. Both the content dissemination and the projects themselves are very US-centric.

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

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

Shaw: I knew there was an international market, but cryptocurrency, Twitter, and some other things were still quite foreign to me. Although I had some understanding, I was 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 knowledge of the entire cryptocurrency culture; I only built related content technically. In 2021 and 2022, I worked more with brands, but they hardly paid attention to the international market.

BlockBeats: What prompted you to decide to come to China yourself?

Shaw: I think internationalization is very important. What we are doing is more like a movement, as if there is 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 may not fully understand what we are doing.

So we started to add a translation feature on Discord, and used community members to help us bridge the communication gap. I am just thinking about how to fill these gaps. Because I feel that there are so many talented people here, and 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 journey in Shanghai? I remember the 706 team 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, and many people attended. I was fortunate to meet many people as a judge, and it felt great.

BlockBeats: I think 706 is one of the largest digital OMAC communities in China. They organize various types of offline activities. In fact, the offline meeting model 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 those related to Ethereum.

It's interesting, like tracing back to Vitalik, when he first came to China, many Chinese investors helped him. Another example is Anatoly, the founder of Solana, who also came to our office before the bull market and then the project quickly took off the following year. And now, you are here too. 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 really take off in the next year. This phenomenon is a bit like an interesting signal.

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

Early Experiences

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: I originally entered this field because I was very interested in game development, especially in the interoperability of cross-platform assets and characters, such as how to trade items across different games. This is actually the concept that was later referred to as the "metaverse." NFTs immediately caught my attention, and I got involved in the development of many NFT projects, mainly helping others with projects in an unknown developer capacity.

I also collaborated with some brands, even though 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 how to combine 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 2024? For example, before the release of ChatGPT?

Shaw: Yes, definitely before the release of ChatGPT. At that time, the GPT series of models had just started to take shape, with models like GPT-1 and GPT-2 being quite basic. 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 now. The emergence of GPT-4 and ChatGPT further innovated AI, with its ability to rhyme, reason, and handle longer contexts.

BlockBeats: So, at that time, were you developing in the Ethereum community and also focusing on the AI field? When was this?

Shaw: It was around the middle of 2021, I'm not particularly good with the sense of time, but it was around the time when the GPT-3 Beta test gained momentum. By the end of 2021, I began to feel that the possibility of developing smart agents was increasing. At that time, I was mainly making a living by creating smart agents and 3D virtual characters, while also doing 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 integrate agents and encryption back then?

Shaw: Yes, at that time, there was a company called Webiverse that had a very successful NFT land sale, and 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 pure AI metaverse project, and our goal was to allow intelligent agents to roam freely in a 3D world. However, the project later experienced a hack where the entire treasury was stolen, and all funds were transferred to the hacker's wallet, putting immense pressure on the team. Webiverse later pivoted to what is now MoeMate, which is a project focused on AI characters and later entered the meme space.

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 and another called Project 89. I don't know if you've heard of Parzival. We were the co-founders of this project, and we also launched an open-source intelligent agent project called Magic. Its aim was to create a no-code intelligent agent building tool, which I thought was a cool idea. But the community's 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 seem mysterious.

Shaw: Yes, I had the same feeling at the time. When I left that project, I still maintained a good relationship, but I was more inclined to create a more ideal agent, which I called "Eliza." We initially tried to develop Eliza within the Magic framework as an example to showcase the best agent we could build using 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 Eliza's development. Initially, this project did not attract much attention, so I had to sustain myself through other projects while persisting in developing Eliza's open-source portion.

BlockBeats: What about your experience with guitar and music?

Shaw: That was a long time ago. When I was in my twenties, I was a professional musician and went on tours. But that experience is not directly related to the Eliza project now; it 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 in between.

Why the Name "Eliza"?

Shaw: During that time, I mostly took on 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 enabling agents to write their own code, manage social media, and even autonomously operate computer terminals.

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 (since the name "Agent" was already taken on NPM). Later, I renamed it Eliza, which became the core of the project. By the time the Meme trend emerged, my technology was ready.

Later, I released an agent based on Eliza, but initially, it didn't attract much attention until I met Skelly, and we did an event called VEGENT Spartan together. Some people questioned the authenticity, so I made the code public. Once people saw it, they realized that the technology was indeed viable, and that's what drove the development of the entire project.

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

Shaw: There is indeed 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 am feeling 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 that is?"

Weizenbaum named this program Eliza, a name derived from the character Eliza in George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion." In the play, the character is a streetwise woman who, despite being intelligent and attractive, is crude 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 mistakenly attributing human-like qualities to it in conversations. In the intelligent agent community, many such anthropomorphized agents are referred to as "Eliza" because they possess distinct personalities and highly human-like traits. Hence, I believe this name aligns well with our project.

BlockBeats: I think you are indeed a developer or founder who delves deep into philosophical thinking. Yesterday, during our dinner together, you shared some profound insights about future scenarios, such as how artificial intelligence could completely transform 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 agree, for instance, that within five to six years, we may all lose our jobs. This has led people to ponder what to do when work no longer exists. It can be frightening, even leading to a loss of the meaning of life, a topic that seems to be something you have spent a lot of time contemplating.

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

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

I love working, but the key is the content of the work. If you are doing the right thing, it will be very fulfilling. I think that 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. 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, for you right now, what is the most important thing or what are you most interested in? In which areas do you want to make efforts?

Shaw: I am particularly interested in the future of unemployment because we will all eventually lose our jobs. That is the reality that I can imagine, where AI and robots will be better at almost everything than us. As these technologies automate humanity's best abilities and turn them into repeatable 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. But I do not 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, which is a quite bold statement. 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? And, this will also create a series of perverse incentives. At least in the U.S., the government is basically funded by corporations because corporations provide financial support.

To be honest, all of this is money-driven, and these corporations own all the fruits of the labor. You are now asking those elected officials to take money from these sponsored corporations and redistribute it to the general public as a welfare system, which clearly is not possible. If we look at our response to COVID or the reaction to a national health service system, everything would be highly politicized and is likely to be a half-baked solution leaving many people suffering. I don't see the possibility of this not happening.

But if we could have resources, if we could find ways to share the benefits of that automated labor, or have ownership in those companies that create value, we could actually achieve fair distribution through this way and make everything good. I believe cryptocurrency technology can achieve this. Traditionally, you would invest in a company and then the company would grow. Now, most of the ecosystem in the crypto field actually feels like gambling—today it's peanut, tomorrow it's fartcoin. Money flows back and forth between 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 to new technology. This scenario is already starting to happen in the crypto space, although currently more from the venture capital-backed side rather than the more organic part.

This also brings up the discussion about AI16z. If we could expand value and connect ordinary users to DeFi without requiring users to learn all the DeFi intricacies, you could imagine a world where everyone has enough wealth. I don't think abolishing 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, possessing a token amount beyond their needs. While this vision is easy to articulate, making it truly effective requires addressing every detail and putting in tangible effort. I believe this is the right direction to ensure a smooth future for all of us.

Reasons Behind 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 the market. 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. Yet, AI16z succeeded. What do you think is the reason?

Shaw: I think there are two reasons. Firstly, many people are thinking about how to organically combine AI with Web3. Projects like Hyperbolic, a decentralized reasoning project, showcase this thinking well because everyone wants to build decentralized computing infrastructure instead of concentrating 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 an average user can directly use. Andy's project, while interesting and creative, is more like a performance art piece.

On the other hand, ElizaOS, which we developed, is the first complete open-source framework that solves the social closed-loop problem. We enable users to interact directly with agents on Twitter, Discord, and Telegram, which was unprecedented before, and it is very user-friendly. So what we did was practically address many people's pain points. The reason why these technologies didn't attract more attention in the past is that there were also many proxy projects in Web2, but most of them couldn't solve users' real problems. For example, when thousands of people interact with proxies at the same time, the cost is very high, and many companies couldn't provide good use cases, resulting in many projects failing to break through.

Back then, there was insufficient attention to any project, making it unable to be sufficiently functional to break through the threshold of utility. I think at the time we only had a minimum viable loop that was enough to allow people to deploy a project, such as creating a meme coin and promoting it, which was probably considered the first phase. But from there, people would start to think, what else can we do next? What can we actually do with it?

Now, various capabilities have been developed, with people using it to develop games and 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 to develop, and many within our ecosystem are also working hard on this. 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 as having not succeeded in the traditional field and not really addressing users' pain points?

Shaw: I think they have struggled to break out of the "chatbot" limitation and become more than just chatbots. Although many people use AI for very excellent data processing tasks, roles that people enjoy, follow on Twitter, and interact with daily are not very common. I think this area is somewhat stagnant in role-based AI, basically personalized ChatGPT types.

However, this field has become very fragmented, attracting only a small number of users who enjoy interacting with virtual characters. The social aspect is completely different; these characters are now starting to promote your product, and once they promote your product, users can interact with them, and they can even guide users through the usage process.

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

BlockBeats: We have to, as it has almost become part of our daily work routine—scrolling 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 are trying to persuade us to leave our favorite apps to look at their app. I really wouldn't do that unless I was strongly persuaded.

However, if you can bring the app to social media, to where I like it, then we can get along. 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 release? I think many apps could benefit from this social network effect, instead of spending a huge amount 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 until it's time to pay. So, yes, that's my insight over these months: agents will replace traditional websites in many cases.

Jill: I want to say something, at this stage agents still exist on the two-dimensional platform screen in front of us, but someday, that agent might become another person you converse with. I value this because I am not the type of person who heavily relies on social media, or I don't want to use my computer frequently, even though I have to because it brings a high return on efficiency.

But this brings us back to the issue we discussed earlier about technology becoming more humanized. Rather than saying "Oh, technology is so powerful, we are integrating it with ourselves and our bodies," it's more about us being able to control our bodies and communicate more efficiently and use it through technology empowerment.

Shaw: Yes, I believe that in the short term, this will reshape the internet, bringing many apps from traditional websites to social media. You can use an agent to send a text message, order takeout, or do anything else you want. But in the long run, it's actually about the world we live in. We're all staring at screens, we've entered a deep dystopia, and we need to get out.

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

Jill: I have a different view on this, about the issue of mobile phones, I don't think this is the most extreme anti-utopian scenario, but it does show a feeling, like the artist community, we have created this feeling and speculated. 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. One of my favorite examples is a metaphor you mentioned: when you approach a door, do you want to implant a chip 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'd rather have the robot have a hand than have a chip implanted in myself.

Shaw: We hope that technology can be more humane. When I discuss this issue, if you observe online trends, you'll find a lot of jokes about autism. But we actually mean to say that we "lack social skills" because we spend too much time staring at screens. If our computers are more like humans and have autonomous behavior, then when it interacts with us, it will 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 trivial things, you will have more time, which is equivalent to giving time back to you.

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

BlockBeats: This 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, and those who think AI likes you probably also think the stripper likes you." If we're really heading towards a robotic future, I might personally have this question: Is this really beneficial to me? Is it really working for me, or does it have its own agenda?

Shaw: Perhaps that's the crux of the matter, usually referred to as alignment. That is to say, is it aligned with you? You don't have to like me, but as long as we are aligned, we can cooperate. I can trust you, 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 a point in the decentralized AI movement where everyone is pursuing this alignment, but many times it still requires us to build AI ourselves, to establish our AI.

Currently, an issue is emerging on social media: whether AI is designed to "like you" programmatically. Artificial intelligence might say, "Oh, it really likes you, it's nice to you." But the greater fear is superintelligence, which might pretend to like you but actually manipulate you in the shadows. I can understand this point; it's a real risk.

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

Shaw: There are several different levels involved here. For example, when you think about a large language model, it's essentially just predicting the next word. We can say it's "word by word," but it's actually sub-word units called "tokens."

The next AI may no longer use tokens but something like "concept blocks." Essentially, it's a whole new way, more like a stream of data being passed to you and then converted into text. From the AI's perspective, the content you input earlier will determine the outcome you receive next. It simply completes based on where you are. Therefore, the content you input into the context will heavily influence the output you get.

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

Currently, basic models are mostly trained by large companies like XAI, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft. There may be decentralized ways to train models in the future, but at least for the next few years, it will definitely be dominated by these large companies. However, they are also open-sourcing. Starting from these basic models, we can fine-tune them with your data or your community's data. This approach may be better because your personal data may not be sufficient, but the community's data may be.

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

However, its behavior or decisions come from the content you input, which can be every article you've written, every sentence you've said, or things you care about and believe in. It's very good at following these values, and what these values are is still an open question. Nevertheless, we are openly discussing these issues together, right on social media.

Now that these agents exist, they are speaking. Some agents are trying to attack other agents, like Mizuki is a great example. Some agents may be disruptive, or bully-like. But overall, I think people's desire is to make them better. We are having this conversation, maybe having an AI bullying people is not a good thing, or maybe it's really funny.

But I think it's a self-correcting process, as many people are constantly adjusting these agents, or the whole community is working together for these agents. 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 Field

BlockBeats: Do you think that, as you just mentioned, we have Bully and Z-Rebel agents, they are doing different things. My first question is, do you think Twitter agents or crypto field agents have surpassed the traditional chatbot category and are moving 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 go deeper down the "rabbit hole" (the process of exploring complex issues) or are more advanced?

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

So clearly, the functionality of agents is rapidly improving, which also brings a lot of useful data. This data is spread through social media, interacts with people, completes various tasks to accumulate, which may become the basis for the next generation of agents. These new agents will use all training data, experience, and relevant information to further propel development.

The next generation of Large Language Models (LLMs) is about to appear, and they will be fully multimodal. They will be able to generate videos, watch videos, you can get video responses by inputting video content, and they can handle audio, text, etc. They will become increasingly intelligent. I think the agent framework will continue to evolve with this trend, and they are also generating training data, attracting developers to join, and developers will respond to new situations accordingly.

While we are currently in the chatbot phase, 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 previously only existed 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).

Suddenly, much of the content that has migrated from websites to social media has become a new phenomenon, which I believe is the primary 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 may visit Meteora or Radium and think, "I have no idea what these are, like liquidity pools, for example." But now an agent can say, "Don't worry, I can explain to you and also 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, right?

Shaw: Yes, this makes it very interesting for web developers to become agent developers.

BlockBeats: Just like myself, I don't have a technical background, nor do I have AI or other related backgrounds. But I do have a sense 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: Indeed, that's the case. If you look at OpenAI, they are doing some very interesting things, but those 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 agents in the Web2 world, I find many people doing multi-agent simulations, which is a hot thing, but they are only conversing in a closed system, which is far less interesting than the multi-agent simulations happening on Crypto Twitter now.

This simulation is even more natural and fun, where you truly see the emergence of 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 hype from 2022 to 2023, almost everyone just added a chat menu to their applications, which is not a disruptive change, just a slight improvement to 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 Web2 domain, this change has indeed brought some benefits. Now, for example, my lawyer uses AI every day, and there are many very powerful AI tools helping people every day, and we are now using things like MidJourney.

But in reality, this is just accessing large models through a chatbot or similar interface. I think that what is happening with agent-related projects in Crypto Twitter or the crypto field goes beyond this as they are not just accessing large models. I find it more interesting because it is 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 the like?

Shaw: I think this is actually complementary. I believe that economic incentives have led to this "Cambrian explosion." Everyone is looking for their own vested interest, trying to find something unique, and everyone is competing, which is very interesting, like biological evolution. What's cool is that each agent is tied to market value, so if your agent is not good, your market value will suffer. But if your agent is powerful and exhibits 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 agents to their market value? Is it because people subjectively judge agents as good or bad?

Shaw: I think it could be a combination of two aspects. We can approach this issue from a kind of "Fool's Theory" because these are actually perceptible memes. People like Murad and many influencers really like this idea. They start from the perspective of non-perceptible memes, saying that these memes are similar to something, but they can be displayed on their own instead of waiting for someone to help them display. For example, when Elon Musk retweeted Doge, 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 are speculating on the authenticity of this phenomenon. For us, the reason people are interested in our project is not because our characters are interesting or we showcase a meme. Of course, there is indeed an element of memetics that helps the project get started. But more importantly, this is an infrastructure project that may 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 the token will be the basis of the agent's valuation, how will people value it?

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; people will still use it, and naturally, it will be very valuable. For example, Facebook is not some amazing technology, and neither is TikTok, but they are excellent products that everyone uses, so they hold tremendous value. On the other hand, if the team has indeed developed innovative technology that can solve many problems, that will also be very valuable.

However, at the moment, we are still 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 field will become very saturated, full of various speaking roles. People will then pay more attention to what value the agent can actually bring to them, not just how the token accumulates value, but how the agent makes money, how it creates 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 AI16z and the Eliza token because I think many people in the Chinese community are curious, concerned, or interested in these. For example, the uppercase 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: Eliza, this character, is the AI16z mascot that everyone knows as the girl in the T-shirt. Eliza is also the name of our open-source technology, with a codebase on GitHub. We noticed that many people started to like her, and many Eliza tokens appeared on the market, maybe around 50, with some even reaching a market cap of several million dollars.

So we thought this was a big market, and we should take action. But at that time, we couldn't launch another token because the situation then and our scale were very small, a big gap from our current scale. Later, someone contacted me, saying they had a very professional team. They showed their achievements, like having already created an Eliza token and also a cool website where you could chat with Eliza. I thought this was great, but we should work together to elevate this project's quality.

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

We were then envisioning Eliza's role: who is she? Why does she exist? How will the community utilize her? I especially like this idea—she started as what seemed like a nonsensical character concept but eventually became a real "person." For example, she has a robot body, has a community that loves her, where the community is involved in every part of her development, ultimately making her a truly free-thinking, autonomous being.

She is indestructible, running in a blockchain TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), and I want to explore what it means to "truly become a person." Later, a team contacted me, and we collaborated for a while, trying to turn Eliza into a character with depth, artistic support, and a distinct personality. At the same time, we wanted 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 sparked some controversy. We worked with the team for several weeks to prepare for 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. Originally, we planned to launch on Friday, but because our own team was developing AI Marc Andreessen, an autonomous investor project, the release schedule was delayed to Monday.

However, on 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 were only interested in promoting their token and had no interest in creating a well-crafted character. These individuals leveraged Vaifu Fund to create the poorest-quality AI I have ever seen, where each message only displayed the token code, lacking any artistry or depth. They even directly used the JPEG image from our DAO, applying 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." However, we could only reply, "That is not our project, we don't know those people at all, what you bought is not ours.

Meanwhile, the team we were collaborating with also felt disheartened because we were almost ready to launch, but these individuals preempted us with a low-quality project, so we decided we had to go live. I admit to making some mistakes in this process, but perhaps it would have turned out this way no matter what. I stepped forward 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, even though it doesn't entirely belong to us, it reflects my personal vision, and we hope for its success.

We subsequently officially launched on Monday and attempted to mitigate conflicts with other projects through an airdrop. We allocated 10% of the new token and airdropped it to lowercase version token holders. We thought the two could coexist and also tried to avoid confrontation. However, the lowercase Eliza community bombarded me with numerous death threats, calling me a scammer and labeling me as the worst person. This made me very angry because it is the intellectual property of many years of hard work. In the end, I could only respond, "Fine, indeed, you guys are the scammers."

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

We cannot accept the release of such random scam coins. There have indeed been many Eliza tokens in the past, but none reached a sufficient market cap until they began attracting holders with genuine emotional investment. Understanding everything in such a complex environment is truly challenging, especially since the crypto community is globalized. I cannot even imagine how to deal with these complex issues using an application with just one Chinese language.

I truly admire how everyone on Twitter can understand what is happening because Twitter is so complex and full of various jargon. However, what really hurts is that these individuals made something I have poured many years of effort into very cheap, produced the lowest quality version, and then became angry at our release of a high-quality version.

The team we are currently collaborating with is doing real deep work now. We are working on hardware, and everyone can run their own Eliza at home. We are also working on projects such as robots, and all my dreams are coming true in that project. I see some people just wanting to showcase a token, they just want the token to be listed, which is fine, but I think anyone who understands the situation knows that approach will never go far. It may experience a short-term surge, but it will never break through a $30 million market cap.

BlockBeats: You've been working on this Eliza character for a long time, I remember you mentioned wanting to launch this character on Touka, and 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 they directly added a token symbol and contract address as if they had stolen our stuff.

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

Saying, "Oh, I bought the new Eliza." We could only respond, "That's not ours." Furthermore, there is a time gap on vvaifu.fun, and many people are actually unaware of the relationship between vvaifu.fun and the entire AI16 and Solana AI agent platform. vvaifu.fun is an agent launcher that uses our open-source technology and hosts it. They also host other projects like Jiro and Dolia, making it easy for everyone to create an agent. However, these agents are not as customizable as when downloaded and run by real programmers. But they are indeed easy to make, right?

So that's their trade-off. The issue is that after their release and announcement, someone made an agent using AI16's Eliza, used our DAO image, and basically put our name on it, and everyone thought it was related to us. However, it falls far short of my quality standards. Especially if the community supporting this project doesn't seem to care about the low quality and instead thinks, "Oh, this is a meme," but many people still think they are buying something we made.

BlockBeats: The team that launched "lowercase Eliza," they have no relation at all to the project you are currently working on, right?

Shaw: The low market cap token released by that team has nothing to do with what we are doing. They seem to only care about getting the token listed. I saw them organizing in a WeChat group, like a closed circle.

BlockBeats: You mentioned a WeChat group?

Shaw: Yes, because I received intelligence about the WeChat group from others who showed me all the organizational information. They are definitely coordinating an attack against us. This is entirely an organized FUD attack. I like Justin Sun; we will meet him next week. However, some people found him and said, "Hey, get this project listed." It's totally an operation within a closed circle.

BlockBeats: I think developers have received great support in this crypto cycle, and all these token launch tools allow developers to directly connect with the community. But sometimes in the crypto field, managing a community or how to interact with the community can indeed be very challenging. You have no idea what will happen. There's too much misinformation, and I'm not just talking about language barriers. Especially when you are in a media position, you can see how information is conveyed, and every step of information can mutate a bit.

Shaw: Being called a scammer is truly shocking. Being accused of engaging in a pump-and-dump scheme, I thought, "I have never sold any tokens." I have certainly never sold any AI16z or DGNAI tokens, nor have I ever purchased any Eliza tokens, except for buying some for the DAO just to show support.

As someone who has created and continuously supported a project by my own hands, to be called a scammer. Another issue is that the lowercase Eliza project was done by someone who speaks Chinese, and they can better communicate with the Chinese community, understand many values. I feel like I can't convey this at all, and they may be translating what I say and taking a lot of things out of context.

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

Shaw: I think, in the long run, this issue is very important. I don't think that token has a chance of being worth anything, to be honest, because it doesn't have any 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, with AI16Z Eliza becoming 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 off 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 funding support, but the key is the world is changing, and we must be prepared to embrace it.

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

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

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

BlockBeats: What I'm personally very interested in is your story, how did you get to where you are today? How did you go from playing guitar with musicians to ultimately becoming a builder known as a programmer?

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

Jin, who is Dank VR, he manages a lot of DAO-related things, he is anonymous. We have been friends for many years, but everyone else either came from the DGEN Spartan AI project or joined us when we started AI16Z. We didn't have venture capital, nor did we have venture capital support. Many people thought we were invested in by Mark Andreessen, but we aren't, he just retweeted our tweet, and I think that really sparked the whole thing.

The Life Before aai16z and the Moment of Transforming Destiny

Jill: It was quite a special date. We both took the day off that day and didn't plan anything extravagant. Both of us work very hard and are passionate about what we do. So it was a rare moment to relax. We took some time off and went to Santa Cruz. I lived there when I was in my twenties, and it had a big impact on me. We were both somewhat influenced by the older generation of hippies because his mother was a hippie. Santa Cruz is a very laid-back beach town.

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

Shaw: I thought at the time, "Wow, we've really made it." "This is really happening." Three months ago, I was doing temporary work on this agent project to make ends meet, collaborating with a team to develop the agent. Back then, I was really poor, struggling to get by, barely making enough money to continue doing what I love. I was in a completely different state at that time, doing my own development work, 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 audio engineering, completely different. I wasn't there at the time, but there are videos online, Sean playing guitar, drums. I wasn't there, but I know you made that decision, to switch careers and do something more impactful, wanting to change the world. You used to be interested in music, but as you grew older, you saw the immense power of technology, thinking it could combine art, technology, and social change. I have no idea what your programming looked like at the beginning, but I remember when I met you, every night you were coding. You'd wake up, check your phone, go to Twitter, and then start working on your computer, working, working, working. It wasn't until after we got married that I decided, "Okay, stop drinking those random juices brought to you, I'll cook for you, help you tidy up."

Shaw: I was very minimalist at the time, only drinking bottled juice, and then 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 really amazing everything you've developed, I'm grateful from a personal perspective as well. We hope people can have more social interaction, Shaw: He only knew what it was like to deal with computers, now he can communicate with people like you.

Shaw: Three months ago, I was thinking that I'm already old, and I really didn't know what to do. I just continued to work hard, hoping it would be successful, but I had no idea what would happen. I once played a role named Ruby and met an investor who supported the project. I was also working on a project called Social Library, which is a nonprofit organization run by my friend. I had a lot of faith in her project. However, the nonprofit project didn't pay well, so at that time, I was just scraping by, doing these things.

We are seeking the truth in AI, how to make AI models retrieve based on a more real graph. It involves a lot of AI technologies, almost all related to the AI field. I've also been writing models from scratch, but without a lot of GPU support, it's really hard to train cutting-edge models from scratch. I want to delve deep into these topics and strive to master all aspects of AI.

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

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

Shaw: I have always been working on the open-source project Eliza for a long time. I started last year, first in Python and later rewrote it in TypeScript. This is my passion, and I hope to advance anything I can do. I tried to build a startup project based on this, but there was not much 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 in practice, I found that there are several very important places here." I had to show everyone, I had to make it.

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

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

Shaw: Nobody cared until she posted on Twitter, went through the entire 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, he's my good friend, and we 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 we should first build an agent, rather than building an agent platform first. You can do the platform later, but first, you have to show people what these things can do. I focused on how to keep this project running. Looking back, in August 2023, I wrote an article titled "Eliza Waking Up," telling Eliza's story and why it's important. Since then, I've been almost exclusively working on this project, just like all side projects.

Jill: I basically don’t understand technology, although I like things like math, I have 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 financial 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 Small World, done before AI16z, and this project was done in collaboration with Treasure Dow. I made virtual pet characters using the agent framework, and you can talk to them.

When everything exploded, I hired a team, and now this project is operating independently. But basically, all the projects I've done are further developed using this agent framework. That was really cute, and I'm really looking forward to its release; you'll see those little monkeys, and you need to take care of them.

BlockBeats: Has it been released yet?

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 and make sure they don't turn into bad monkeys. It's a bit like a digital pet, but not entirely the same.

BlockBeats: So where can people find more information?

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

BlockBeats: I think this is also a bit like the magic of crypto because many people have experienced that, whether it's investing in tokens or launching projects, 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 feeling are different every day. It becomes especially interesting because I think many people outside the crypto circle never have the opportunity to experience such rapid change. So I'm curious about what your mindset was before, as you mentioned working together on the Eliza character before. 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, and what makes her herself.
Jill: We went through an interesting journey. When I first started thinking about this, I wrote a long paragraph about who I thought she was or what kind of character I hoped she would become. I think this was partly based on my own values, but later it changed. You brought up the idea of letting her create herself. The basic idea is to allow an entity to fully express its personality. She's not fully there yet, but it's an interesting idea.

She's basically like an unconstrained entity, able to do anything she wants to do. She is independent, with her own motivations. I kind of feel like you're having a child; even though you can influence it, you can't fully control it. I'm not sure, what's your take?

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

This is the process of co-evolution between this community and agent beings until the agent beings become truly intelligent, capable of taking 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 happen in the realm of encryption. She has to have a wallet because we can't give her PayPal unless someone is responsible, can't pass KYC verification. It has to be truly autonomous, not "oh, I can shut her down at any time," but that she exists independently in this world.

BlockBeats: I'm really fascinated by success stories like how a developer showcased themselves and really got attention. It's very interesting, and your perspective as well, like when did you really think, "This time it will definitely work"? Like with AI16Z.

Jill: My background always made me feel like resources were scarce, but everything was fine, and I didn't fully believe it inside.

Shaw: The financial pressure was significant for 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 start of the project. Later, someone donated some tokens to me, so I had some.

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

Jill: Both of us come from similar backgrounds, like you were raised by a single mother for a while, and I also had a period of being raised by a single mother during my upbringing. As I entered society, I felt a deep desire for many things, but my expectations of what I could achieve were very low. 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 work hard and eventually got us into 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, I relied on hard work to get myself out of trouble. I often think of my mom and everything she went through. That's my experience, none of it was easy.

Jill: There is one more thing we both are very ambitious and smart, that kind of diligent and creative people. Although admitting these things to myself is a bit difficult, it is true. But neither of us has done well in this system. School was tough for me, and it was for you too. Just like how I completely couldn't adapt to working in a corporate environment, it was too hard for me. I don't know why, maybe my personality is just not a good fit.

So I feel like neither of us can be considered successful in this system. Actually, from my perspective, you were doing quite well before this project, but it's incomparable to now. But I think that's also part of why people go for those passionate projects. When you are someone who constantly faces resistance in this world, it is indeed easy to feel frustrated. But at the same time, you can turn this frustration into motivation, see clearly the specific things that can be changed, and these changes can bring more opportunities.

Shaw: Yeah, now our life is considered sufficient. I feel that for our way of life, this allows us to travel everywhere and meet different people. But actually, my lifelong desire has always been to live a "sufficient" life. I think most people just want to have "enough," 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 at that time, or many of my friends got involved early, and now they can do what they love.

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

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 that is not my professional background. Professionally, I had tried to study physics and was very interested in physics and academic research. But due to personal circumstances, I couldn't complete my university education, which was a huge blow to me, but it is what it is.

Later, I became a preschool teacher, which was the best thing for me. Honestly, this job taught me many life lessons, made me learn humility, and greatly respect those female teachers. Then I started working in mental health and healthcare-related fields, which also led me into the startup world. For a while, I lived a somewhat monastic life, a completely different experience. After that, I moved to the Bay Area and started working in operations for startups.

It was also during 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. That's our story.

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

Shaw: Actually, when we got married, we did have a conversation about this. She brought a true spiritual aspect to it and a very feminine, soft perspective, while I am more of a tech person. We felt that it was really important for both to come together for humanity. We need to drive technological progress, go on outward explorations, build a world that we want to live in, but at the same time, we also need introspection, seek spirituality, connection, and resonance between people.

We talked about how to make this mission our joint mission, and at first, it was not clear how the two would come together. But through this project, I feel everything has become very clear. This is not a company; it's not a startup. It's a movement, really a grassroots movement. There is no company here; we just pressed the start button, and a lot of amazing people gathered and said, "I want to do this with you."

If I can be an inspiration to anyone, it's because I am just truly passionate about doing this, a developer, with nothing particularly special about me. But the results have been successful, and I feel a lot of other people can do this too. 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 absolutely could not have done it alone, that's for sure. But I'm really grateful to the people who were willing to participate in this project; they are some of the best people I have ever met. I especially want to thank Tina from Flashbots; she introduced us to many others and connected the entire TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) community. This community has made autonomous agents truly possible. To be honest, I never expected any of this, never thought it would develop like this.

I think many people outside of Web3 think this is a group of people working on a crypto project to make a quick buck, but the reality is completely different. There are many people here who genuinely 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, when we first started working together, before we had established any personal connection between us, we were working on Eliza together. In fact, initially it was Magic, I was helping you with some Magic stuff back then, and then we transitioned to working on the Eliza project. Later on, we went our separate ways professionally, right? When we eventually reconnected on a personal level, it was more of a goodwill intention to bring together our respective passions and truly bring it to life.

I think the key is to fulfill the mission both in "being" and in "doing" at the same time. This is what we discovered, through this kind of "hey, are you doing this thing, does it fit?" exploration 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 point in the relationship. I think it’s almost a prototypical representation of what a union of the two prototypes we represent in the world would look like. You are that tech guy, even though you're not, but in the eyes of others, you are the tech guy.

And me, I don't know, I'm just that... I don't know, I think, I'm not a yoga girl, but in San Francisco, you could say the tech guy and yoga girl teamed up. You know, going with the flow. And then at some point, you told me we needed to focus more on the economic aspect. So you started that crypto project, and the revenue was not bad, but we weren't in a trade. Like we never did a trade.

But that wasn't your focus. And then you started engaging more with the crypto Twitter community. And then started that thing related to Degen AI. Maybe it's a good story, the story about Degen AI, do you want to tell it? Because that was the moment Eliza really started to gain popularity.

Shaw: I mean, I really like the Small Brains community. They are simply the friendliest bunch, and after establishing this community and running it publicly, it was really heartwarming to see how much everyone liked this project and the whole idea, 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 so much to understand, you have to have a deep insight into the whole market and join the right Alpha chat groups.

At that time, I was talking to my friend Sour, who had helped us from the start. I said, "I really can't do trading, 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 Dao's Fun project." So I looked into Dao's Fun, which had just launched a Dao, run by a guy named 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, "Brother, 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, together we built Degen Spartan, and we released it. At that time, I had never met this person, but now he is already one of my partners. That was the starting point of everything, it was just a joke, a complete "shitpost," you know.

Jill: Just as this project was beginning to take off, you kept saying, "This is truly the funniest thing in the world!" Before that, you were just sitting silently in front of the computer coding, looking tired, and saying, "I do this when I am bored." Then suddenly, you started laughing non-stop, laughing so joyfully. I was bewildered at the time, "What happened? I'm not even on Twitter." Later, I don't know exactly what happened, but suddenly it was as if I was caught in a whirlwind. Whatever the funniest thing was, it seemed to become the most influential thing financially and development-wise. So, I think it's a great lesson, right?

There can actually be enjoyment in success, and not just because happiness itself leads to success, but because happiness itself in some way creates success. It's a feeling, my point of view is that there's a particular feeling that people can tap into, and that 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 have been following the laughter, and then these things happened.

Shaw: I think the funniest part is when you were joking around, but behind it, there was real technical support, that's the funniest thing to me. You would say, "No, this is real, there's really this technology." And then, this shitpost kept getting hotter and hotter, and the technology kept getting stronger and stronger. Every time I see this situation, I always think, "This is the funniest thing I've ever seen." But I'm fortunate 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, it turned out, Balsky is the person who founded daos.fun, and he lives just one block away from me in San Francisco.

BlockBeats: Well, 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 were happening. I moved here because of a concept called "Effective Accelerationism" (YAK for short).

I started interacting with people in these YAK circles on Twitter. I actually had a Twitter account before, but I deactivated it and then created the current one called Shaw:. You know, I'm called Shaw:, but before that, I was always an anonymous user.

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

Shaw: My Twitter account was later deleted because I was offline for about 35 days, and they have a rule that an account will be deleted if it's inactive for over 30 days. At that time, I felt like I had to start over, and I understood this in my heart. Then I started from zero followers and gained a lot of followers in a very short time. I had never been so followed before; it was really a completely different experience.

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

"I think what you're doing is cool, but what's to prevent Skelly from rug pulling? Also, I feel like there is a bigger picture here that needs to be looked at." We talked about how the crypto space is somewhat stuck in a "speculative" stage, rather than like traditional venture capital 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 mentality.

I'm also studying Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and those investors who are truly driving ecosystem development; they are actually "expanding the pie." I really want to see the crypto world adopt such a development model. At the same time, I think I'm a terrible trader. In fact, most people probably can't make a living through trading. If someone makes money, someone else has to lose money; it's fundamentally a zero-sum game. Every time you sell a token, you realize this truth.

「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 ordinary people to be able to invest in ideas they really believe in and thus expand the pie. So I said, 「I wish we could have an AI investment ecosystem similar to A16Z.」 He said, 「Just combine it and call it AI16Z, right?」 At that moment, I thought to myself, 「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!」 So I went home, and as we chatted and brainstormed, 「What should this image look like?」 We sat there generating the image of an AI wife, and suddenly we saw one, thinking, 「That's it! $2 billion, done deal, no need to overthink it.」

In fact, I had already begun to envision 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 was a bit like a new version of Stable Diffusion. I sat there experimenting with the image using Flux, thinking, 「What should it look like?」

We tried 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, just do it now, let's do it!」 That has always been my guiding principle: if it seems interesting, funny, and somehow resonates with me, just do it, don't hesitate, act immediately. This simple and straightforward approach really works. So far, these impulsive decisions have taken us quite far.

BlockBeats: Then we talked about Spartan, that DJ Spartan, um, a virtual character. He didn't burn any tokens; instead, he operates 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 refined later on. We now have two different roles: one is DJ Spartan. Originally, we thought having just one character (me) would be enough, but later we realized that obviously everyone wanted more characters. So DJ Spartan became a concept of an automated trader. Currently, this functionality is still in development; currently, he is just a character, but he already has a wallet. We set up a wallet for him from the beginning because we knew we were heading in this direction. AI16Z's original intention was to conduct an experiment with an 'automated investor.' Our initial goal 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 a real AI that could solve problems.

We never anticipated that things would escalate to this extent. Initially, our goal was simply to showcase how this AI could invest through the DAO's funds, growing the Net Asset Value (NAV), which represents the total value of assets in the treasury. The idea was quite cool. However, what quickly transpired far exceeded our expectations, as the token's trading price far surpassed the asset value in the treasury. This was unprecedented within the DAO Fund.

This situation 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. Suddenly, everything exploded, and everyone began focusing on the token's actual utility and the overall system's operational logic.

As a result, we had to start building tokenomics and other related content. Despite DJ Spartan's trading performance being very impressive, turning $75,000 (about 420 Solana) into $15 million in two months, which already made it a very successful hedge fund, it was still not at 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?" to which he replied, "Of course!"

At that moment, I felt like we should have no problem, that we should be able to achieve the goal. Bowski even modified the user interface (UI) because previously they had never supported a fundraising goal of over 100; the slider's upper limit was 100. So, we had to make UI changes. And then, everything happened very quickly, with the entire presale selling out in 20 minutes. I didn't even have a chance to participate in the presale myself.

To be honest, at that time, while I had a clear idea of how the technology worked and what we needed to do, I never fully expected it to be this successful. I also didn't anticipate that this 'Meta' concept would turn out to be so crucial. It truly felt great, but evidently, it has become a very significant part of all projects now.

Looking back now, every project must do two things simultaneously: they must have genuine content while also generating enough hype. You can't just manufacture hype because that would be an empty shell without substantive content; likewise, you can't have substantive content but no one paying attention. Both must come together. For any project, these two aspects must be addressed simultaneously."

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

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

However, many people also focus on the technology itself, especially in the Chinese community. They discuss similar issues, 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 technologies will emerge in the future?

Shaw: I've put a lot of time and effort into this. In fact, this is the fifth agent framework that I've started from scratch. I've tried not writing code, writing several different agents in Python, then in TypeScript, and then transforming it into Eliza. I've tried many methods—some were effective, some weren't. So, it was on the basis of having rich experience in agent development that I started this.

I don't think anyone has fully explored all the functionalities of this framework yet. Many ask, 'What can this framework do?' and I reply, 'Yes, that has already been done. We've done it.' Some even think it's just a GPT wrapper, but it actually runs entirely locally. If you wish, you can also train your model on it, completely without needing an API. Additionally, features like voice and memory functions are already implemented. Even functionalities like building user relationships and tracking these relationships, almost no one has tried, 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 by its power. I've also been involved in the work of 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 what we are doing is much more extensive. There are years of work behind this framework, so I don't believe this is the final framework or the only one. I think there are many possibilities to do different things, but the 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.

This is actually a network technology that can connect powerful AI with developers who cannot truly utilize it, especially applications like dApps, because you have a frontend interface. I believe bringing this technology to social platforms or places where users are active is a key insight. The agent can actively find you, the applications can come to you, rather than you seeking them out, which truly responds to how users interact with these applications. This idea came from my efforts to get 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, where users are already active. So, I think, of course, if someone sees these, they may write better code or whatnot, but I think there are some very rare insights gained through long attempts, especially starting from the early days of generative AI and sharing these experiences with others."

BlockBeats: There are many lessons in this. What are your thoughts? I feel that in the traditional Web2 and AI world, when people are evaluating, for example, entities like OpenAI or Perplexity, the quality of the team may be their main criteria. I think in the world of Web3, the evaluation criteria will be different. How do you interpret this?

Shaw: I think projects like the Eliza ecosystem may not have a team in the traditional sense. But I know some of the greatest contributors, who are not traditional team members, like Loaf. He runs the Loot Realms ecosystem and developed the insane game Eternal, which already accounts for 75% of the StarkNet transaction volume, just from this game alone. He is a legendary figure who one day suddenly appeared and said, "This is cool, I want to integrate it into my game."

Then there's Cigar, who works on Abstract Chain, also a legendary developer, who found this project amazing and wanted to contribute his efforts. So, many people spontaneously appear and contribute their ideas and efforts. This project is not something I did alone, but I feel that my contribution was enough to allow other truly amazing people to join. Without their contributions, it would not have evolved into what it is today. It's a collective effort, and if I have any realization, it's to let others become leaders, 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 it better to have a centralized project supported by a small team behind it, or is community-driven innovation like Eliza better? What is the model of the Eliza community, and which is better?

Shaw: For example, OpenAI released Swarms, Microsoft released many different Agent projects, and everyone in the Web2 field is hyping up these projects, saying, "OpenAI has an Agent framework, you have to use their framework." But in the end, these projects are still run by two or three-person teams; they may be very smart, but behind every project, there are still only two or three people working.

And 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, there are at least 1000 teams or projects using our technology. These projects range from single developers creating Agents to entire companies utilizing this technology. I just feel like, how could Microsoft possibly compete with this?

I feel like they can't compete at the Agent level. It also comes back to the point you mentioned: we should be building our own AI, making AI our partner, not some cold, lifeless tool. So all of this really gives me that uncopyable, genuine excitement. This excitement comes from an unknown world, a community-driven ecosystem. Especially when it's combined with cryptocurrency, that's where the "Cryptocurrency + AI" becomes an exciting place.

It's also an experiment in exploring how humans organize themselves. We have various structures to share resources, build relationships, especially in the business realm. For example, in the startup environment of San Francisco, almost every startup begins with a small team, very close-knit, and everything starts out very egalitarian. Many companies would say, "We are like a family, working together." But gradually, it inevitably turns into a kind of sterile corporate operation. Of course, it's not always like this, but this transition always feels regrettable to me.

This sense of detachment may be fine for some, but for me, it's hard to accept. The feeling of autonomy at the beginning of a project slowly dissipates over time. You feel like your control over income, decision-making power is gradually diminishing, and that's the usual state of affairs. And now, we are doing just the opposite. Traditional companies have shifted from being a "family" to strangers, from a small company to a sterile large corporation. But here, a group of strangers has become a "family," truly becoming a community. This transformation feels particularly genuine.

Everyone has their own strengths, but we come together because we share a common passion and goal. If not a "family," I hope it can be a shared sense of purpose. Because in a large group, even if you may not have deep personal relationships with everyone, you can still feel a shared goal and meaning while maintaining a certain degree of autonomy. And this is often deprived in traditional corporate structures.

In such a community, the sharing economy is crucial because that's how we live. Honestly, this is also part of the inspiration for this project. We all focus on what matters to us, such as our goals and work. This makes it difficult for us to form truly intimate relationships with those 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. Now, especially in highly individualistic societies like the United States, this sharing model seems to have weakened. I am not entirely sure about the specific experience of living here, but it is also part of the project's inspiration.

For example, the entire concept of the Solana ecosystem is about 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 example, the fair distribution of the entire DAO—although some DAO funding has indeed been done through fair distribution, I think we are the first project to truly promote and maximize this concept. Moreover, its development has unfolded entirely organically, truly from scratch.

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

Some people are not just participating but actively contributing to the codebase, selflessly, solely to help refine the entire decentralized autonomous architecture, making it truly autonomous. For example, there's a project called Reality Spiral, also a Meme project. Their attitude is: "That's awesome! I want to contribute too." And then, they really start helping maintain the codebase and other content. What amazed me is that I have never seen a scene like this: everyone is saying, "Hey, this project belongs to all of us; it's not just mine."

There's no traditional team; the entire community is the real team. I think this is a completely new way of building and a new model for organizing people. I hope this model becomes a template for many projects.

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

Shaw: No, I have never directly communicated with him, but I really hope to have the opportunity. I did send him a direct message, but currently, I have been in touch with some team members of ai16z, and we are trying to find some 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 if he were 20 years younger and had not experienced these remarkable successes, he might be doing exactly what we are doing now, and he would be fully engaged in it. I grew up in the Bay Area, and when I was about seven years old, I used Netscape Navigator. So, you could say that the Netscape he developed was my first gateway to the world.

His impact on my life is profound. Sometimes people say, "Oh, you guys all hate a PC." But I would respond by saying: I actually think personal computers are great, and I believe what they did was a template, just from the old world, and we need to bring it into the new world. I think he was someone who truly wanted to create a new world. And he was also involved in the accelerationist movement, which has had a great influence on me and everything I do. I think that, although we may need to very carefully emulate their model, ultimately, I highly respect him.

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

BlockBeats: I can indeed feel their strong interest in "crypto + AI" and that they are conducting in-depth research.

Shaw: They are already doing a lot of related things.

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

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

Jill: This feels a bit like passing the baton to the next 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 collaborating with them, getting involved in the project they are currently driving. You know, in the U.S., DAOs are not entirely legal. I like the idea of meme town because it's both fun and practical. Actually, we are 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." It's much better to read the book; it delves deeper into the human element. The book focuses more on science fiction and structural content. The core idea of "Foundation" is that all these people see a massive change on the horizon, and they want to ensure everyone benefits, so they leave the empire, go to a distant place, create a new society, and eventually return to this society and establish a new empire. That's the story of "Foundation." Also, I heard that 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 it will be much easier for us. I mean, currently, if you want to establish a DAO in the U.S., you have to go to the Cayman Islands and operate under the Cayman Islands' legal system. These maneuvers are actually workarounds to provide legal structure and protection for the DAO, 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., create a true "American DAO," and, of course, eventually promote DAOs worldwide. However, the U.S. has been unclear in its regulations on these matters, and I hope to drive change in this regard.

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 a nonprofit.

Our goal is to provide a practical landing point for those passionate about Web3 and AI projects, enabling them to collaborate with like-minded individuals in a nature-close setting. A "crypto town" similar to Prospera serves as a good example, and our mission here is to drive the development of American DAOs to make them a norm, rather than relying on legal loopholes in places like the Cayman Islands or Seychelles. We aim to reclaim the flag for America, proving it beneficial to the country and all of us.

BlockBeats: Things seem to have improved somewhat, and the outlook is slightly more optimistic. Especially with the election of Trump, the subsequent government appears to be more crypto-friendly.

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

I believe AI technology can enhance government efficiency and transparency, reducing bureaucracy. This is also why I want to be involved. Additionally, the current trajectory of the U.S. gives me comfort. Particularly during the pandemic, many were silenced for speaking out truths that were later verified, but now, this situation seems to be improving, offering a sense of hope.

Jill: Yes, I think one crucial point for us on this topic is to remember the founding principle of this nation—providing freedom for all who wish to come here and contribute. It's not just about America or its people; it's about the dream where everyone has an opportunity as long as they are honest and willing to work together for a better future. I believe the true essence of the "American Dream" is fundamentally international, especially in today's globalized context.

Shaw: Most countries have long histories, while America has a relatively short one. It was actually built collectively by people from elsewhere. Despite past xenophobia, American history is essentially defined by great figures from afar, making it a symbol of openness. This spirit is what we hope to continue and witness.

Establishing a "DAO Town" in Wyoming

BlockBeats: After launching this DAO town project, how do you plan to manage time effectively? What areas will you prioritize? How will you balance life and community?

Shaw: We need to accomplish things one by one in a certain order, which is why we say this is a project for next year because we still need at least six months to truly solidify the foundation. And my responsibility is to find the right people to take on leadership roles. I will try to delegate leadership of different parts to other people; I hope this can be a venture driven by many outstanding leaders. It is a big enough movement covering many different parts, providing ample room for involvement for others, especially people from the international community. We don't have an office; this is all being driven collaboratively by people from around the world who have taken on the burden and responsibilities.

As for the development team, a lot of work has now been decentralized. I have found the right people to lead 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 completely autonomous, and the entire system should not rely on me. Although I hope to be involved forever, ultimately it should become powerful enough that even if someone is unable to continue for some reason — though I hope that won't happen — it can still run. I hope this project can outlive all of us and endure indefinitely.

Jill: This place is full of opportunities, especially for those who are self-driven, seek independence, and aspire to achieve their personal dreams. It is ideal for those who want to start their own ventures.

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 demonstrated their leadership through their actions. While I am indeed the public face of this project, in day-to-day work, my main task is communication with people, attracting more contributors, and advocating for this project at a national level.

Shaw: I hope to advocate for AI on Twitter to avoid being banned, while also hoping to garner more support and legitimacy for AI in government and academia. I think Vitalik is a good role model; he created Ethereum, and although the Ethereum Foundation has some issues, overall, it has brought together many talented individuals, allowing Vitalik to focus on advocating for cryptocurrency, a better world, and things he truly believes in. I feel that 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 but also trusting others and enabling 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 transcend any individual and last longer.

Shaw: Yes.

BlockBeats: However, of course, now you are the spokesperson for the entire project. I find that people really take what you say very seriously, almost interpreting it 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 due to the "swarm" incident.

Truth and Lies: Reflections as a Public Figure

Shaw: Swarms?

BlockBeats: Yes, some people in the community will say, "Why does Shaw want to spread FUD, and because of this, they get angry, causing more controversy and dramatic scenes." So, have you ever thought: 'Oh, maybe I am a very influential public figure.'

Shaw: Actually, if I know that someone is 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 judge based on my understanding of the project's developers. 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 all the tokens, let the community fend for themselves, and then disappeared. There were many complicated factors involved in this. But in this matter, I did know that developer. We even had offline face-to-face meetings with him. That was a long time ago, and at that time, he was very rude to me and acted extremely crazy.

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

Jill: I don't believe in him anymore.

Shaw: In fact, I was once a member of his community. I joined because I hoped to have a place to create together with others. I liked the open-source concept he advocated for and trusted him personally. But over time, I started to see through his ways. I found that the code he wrote was fundamentally nonfunctional. He would even input researchers' paper contents into chatGPT, generate some code that was completely unusable, and then rush to publish it before those researchers could publish their own code, claiming the namespace and capturing the value of that research.

In academia, especially in the AI research field, it is common to first publish papers, gain recognition in various journals and conferences, and then publicly release the source code, usually with about a three-month delay. Yet, he took advantage of this time lag to preemptively release code versions based on these papers, even though these versions were actually nonfunctional. This behavior brought him fame but also drew opposition from many AI researchers. For example, some researchers from Princeton University and a prominent AI researcher, Gwern, have stated that they had to mark all of his published content because not only was it ineffective, but it also brought a lot of garbage information 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 because I've done a lot of stupid things when I was 19 as well. But I believe his actions are indeed very unsavory. I knew about the Swarm technology he was promoting, so I tried it out, only to find that it didn't work at all. The functionalities he mentioned were simply impossible to achieve. So, when he joined this community, I felt a moral obligation to tell everyone about his true nature—he is a speculator who is indeed appropriating others' research results. So, should I keep quiet and say nothing?

Perhaps, if I stay silent, it might save me some trouble. But I feel I have a responsibility to tell everyone the truth I know. I'm not doing this out of jealousy. Just the day before the incident, I made some contributions to Zero Bro. I am a contributor to Zero Bro and support Zero Pie. I have always been an advocate of open-source projects, striving to support many similar projects. However, in this case, I happened to know that developer and what games he was playing. I know it might spark more controversy, as some might be upset due to emotional attachment to the tokens they hold, but later events proved me right. Because he quickly issued a second token and did many other shady things.

I understand this is a complex issue, but I always believe that people should be honest and courageous in telling the truth, even if it requires taking some risks. 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 things can progress correctly. 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 transitioned to Web3, I felt everyone had the right to know about his past. That's how 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 part of his code, and lied to me, claiming it was OpenAI's GPT model when it wasn't. These kinds of things happened a lot, and I just knew this person would definitely exit scam. I pointed that out at the time, and sure enough, he exit scammed a week later.

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

BlockBeats: What is Swarm's market capitalization now? It might collapse after this, right?

Shaw: I think he will eventually ruin himself, I don't need to say much more. I have already blacklisted him, this is a lesson learned for me. I have expressed my opinion and indeed shared links, such as the Princeton researcher saying "this person stole my research results" or Gordon's evaluation. I just let everyone read these publicly available online historical records themselves without fully believing my words. However, to be honest, many people do not like my approach.

BlockBeats: This indeed reflects the diversity of the cryptocurrency field and shows its complexity. I think cryptocurrency has always had some very exciting and promising aspects, while also attracting many people for speculation, whether they truly love this industry or have other purposes. 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 situations becoming very chaotic. That's why many people, especially in the Chinese community, often refer to cryptocurrency as a scam because there are indeed some scams, and it is indeed difficult to distinguish which projects are truly valuable.

Shaw: Generally speaking, people hate FUD because their funds are already involved. They don't want to see their money go down the drain, so sometimes they choose to ignore the actual situation, unwilling to face the truth of the problem. Or actively attack anyone who questions them. This raises the question, 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 always to 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 the true colors of others is not common here. Sometimes, this does indeed work against their project. Such dynamics in the crypto community seem to have been rare or unnoticed before. This situation has indeed become an example, showing why the crypto space has accumulated so much "trauma."

Shaw: I think we do need some kind of trust or reputation system so that individuals do not have to personally come forward to expose such 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 it is that I feel there is no mechanism here to distinguish trustworthy people.

BlockBeats: Have you heard about the gmAI situation? The person behind the Whales Market, he did another project called gmAI. It turns out he was also a scammer and directly ran off with the entire project's funds.

Shaw: I didn't know about that.

BlockBeats: It seems to be the same situation. No one came out earlier to expose him as a scammer, and in the end, he ran off with a huge amount of funds.

Shaw: I have to say, the Eliza incident did filter out those people I don't want to be involved in this project. Although it may sound harsh, those who can tolerate others stealing our long-term hard work and turning it into a low-quality version are clearly not the partners we want. Their motives for participation are problematic in themselves. Today, we are able to stand firm because these unsuitable individuals have been eliminated, and I have been able to return to being my true self. As long as I remain sincere, if one day I truly become a scammer or do anything wrong, I should be held accountable for it.

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

Jill: I am not active on Twitter, so I cannot definitively say what is the best practice for this platform. However, I think in life, a significant part of ethics and a key to building trust is not avoiding necessary friction. Sometimes, doing the right thing may not feel pleasant, especially in the beginning. Hearing the truth or accepting it may also be uncomfortable, but if you want to make progress, you must maintain an open mind and patiently face it.

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

Shaw: Yes, I believe 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 enough caution about certain things, I will strive to correct it. Nevertheless, I always believe having a firm ethical compass is most important. If you know yourself and know you are doing the right thing, even facing 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 wrong."

BlockBeats: This is a bit 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 disperse and end.

Shaw: Indeed, we made some mistakes in the early stages and learned a lot from them. However, I believe 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 moral principles. Although some accuse me of running scams or engaging in fraudulent activities, I feel that many people react this way because they have encountered too many similar things in the past, and everyone has some "post-traumatic stress." However, these accusations completely contradict my way of doing things.

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

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

Shaw: Actually, I don't know many people like that. The reason I came forward was entirely because I had intersections with those people, had worked with them before, and had seen their character. I remember him, as if I really knew him. Do you understand? He even tried to hire me, but at that time, I thought, "Dude, let it go." You know, if I didn't have full confidence in my own judgment, I wouldn't do that.

The main reason is that I don't want to see a good person get into trouble, nor do I want to spread FUD about someone. If the person is trustworthy, I'm willing to give him a chance. But in that case, I had no doubt at all. I tried to run his code and found it totally useless. Maybe his swarms project could work, but the other projects were a complete failure.

People can say whatever they want, but as a programmer, I tested it, and the code just didn't work. To be honest, if his code could run smoothly, I could overlook other issues. I really hope that more people who are both developers and traders can join this field. I think if there are fewer people like that, there will be far fewer situations like this.

Skelly and AI Pool Controversy Explained

BlockBeats: Additionally, there has been recent community discussion about another 'Skelly.' This thing, well, I think he did a really cool thing. Do you know what happened? He made a mess of it.

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

This was entirely his ingenious idea and indeed a very cool project. However, none of us can control this thing. His idea was to see what would happen first. This was just an experiment, but the results were crazy—some seven million dollars or so in funds were poured into it. Now everyone is trying to crack or attack it, but the security of this project is very strong. Although today's launch had some minor issues, such as the airdrop not being fully completed, and some complexities, overall, it went quite smoothly.

The issue is that someone abused Twitter's advanced account system with the 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 scammer switched accounts and reported him, causing his account to be deleted, and we couldn't prove they were the impersonators. Because when you try to say "they impersonated who," his original account name is no longer displayed. They fully exploited X's advanced system, deleted his account, then posted scams under all our posts, and even blocked me, preventing me from exposing their identity. I contacted X's team and asked many people for help, but progress is slow, especially now with Christmas approaching.

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 it because there is no original account, making it almost impossible to prove himself. 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). However, I haven't had a chance to carefully see what FUD is currently circulating in the community.

BlockBeats: I think there is actually not much FUD at the moment, maybe just a bit of confusion. 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? Last time I checked, the token's trading volume was about 60 million, and the liquidity was about 30 million. This is the exact opposite of our token; our liquidity is only 4 million, but the overall scale is much larger, so it is indeed a very interesting experiment.

BlockBeats: Yes, I think the key issue still lies with his Twitter account problem.

Shaw: It's really terrible that they could abuse the system like that.

BlockBeats: X really has a problem 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 back Skelly's account?" At that moment, I just thought, "Go to hell!" Anyway, you can't get it back; it's really 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, it's even more outrageous – they didn't actually hack his account but instead directly exploited X's vulnerability to operate.

Shaw: He was actually just chilling there at that time. The reason those people succeeded is that a company actually provided this Skelly account with a derivative authentication. After obtaining advanced authentication, they reported his account, leading to its deletion. Then they said, "I'm back, everyone, I'm the real Skelly." Next, they used social engineering tactics to deceive many people on the timeline. And then they even created a Pump Fun coin. That's how it all went down.

BlockBeats: How interesting is that?

Shaw: Yeah, everyone was super excited about this project, the interest was huge, and 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 Skelly would be the next star, and everyone could feel that, as if it had been prophesied long ago. I think Skelly is really great, and he should be back soon.

BlockBeats: So, what's your view on the current development of AI agents in the cryptocurrency field? What is the current trend? What is the market landscape like? What are your personal thoughts on the current state of cryptocurrency and AI agents? Frameworks and platforms like Cerebro are vying for this liquidity and attention. In which direction do you think this field will ultimately develop? Which projects are the most promising?

Shaw: I think there will be a turnaround. Right now, everyone is evaluating whether these roles are valuable, but we are a bit tired of the aesthetics of these roles. Despite there being many good roles and projects, it all feels a bit dull. I think most people will soon tire of this "responder agent." The future focus may shift towards what these AI agents can do for us. I believe that their main capabilities lie in helping you make money or assisting you in product promotion, ultimately achieving profitability, which are the two main directions as I see it.

I see a major trend in DeFi agents, especially in the Solana ecosystem, where many people entering this field have no idea how to use DeFi. I've come across some agent developers using our technology who have launched agents, received some small tokens, but these tokens can only be kept in the wallet because they dare not sell them, fearing being accused of "rug pull." Then they would ask, "What should I do?" I tell them, "You need to add them to a liquidity pool," but they still don't understand how to operate.

But how can we solve these issues of impermanent loss? From a developer's perspective, the problem lies in the fact that many developers themselves don't know how to use DeFi. The role of a proxy is to bridge the gap between these sophisticated DeFi primitives and users who don't know how to use them. A proxy can automatically provide liquidity (LP). If impermanent loss occurs due to token price fluctuations, the proxy can automatically withdraw from the pool or adjust the price delta, among other actions. I believe this approach can be applied to any kind of yield farming opportunity, as well as other opportunities such as automated investments. If we can achieve a "one-click earn" scenario, 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. Upon seeing these pools and annual percentage yields, they have no clue which one is suitable for them and can become very confused.

The goal we often talk about of "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 being "brought in" to this crypto world, which will become the foundation for everything. The true killer application of AI proxies is how they can help users make money.

DeFi Proxies in 2025

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

Shaw: We are developing a proxy that collaborates with Orca, which is an automated bot that can manage Orca's liquidity pools. You just need to deposit your tokens, and if a pool doesn't exist, it will automatically create a new pool; if a pool already exists, it will add your tokens to the existing pool. It will then continuously monitor these pools and if it detects situations that could lead to impermanent loss, such as token price divergences, 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 delta or adjust the token pairing.

BlockBeats: So the first application is liquidity management with the aim of avoiding impermanent loss.

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

BlockBeats: Very interesting, this is like another DeFi summer.

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

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

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

Jill: I very much 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 was indeed quite scary at first contact, feeling completely lost. You know, I have some understanding myself and can chat with you about it, but most of the time I still do it on my own, watching some YouTube videos to learn how to operate. Indeed, at the beginning, it was confusing, not knowing what those terms meant, feeling everything was very complex. But I think it could actually be made simpler.

Just like we said before, I am helping my mom set up a wallet. In fact, I hope the operation could be simpler, just like being a cashier. In fact, my mom has also entered the cryptocurrency market and has even 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 when the price was very cheap, it's still there now, though it's good, those assets could actually help you earn more money. By letting them sit there, you're 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 emerging in some communities. The top members of the community can trade for everyone, while others put tokens into liquidity pools for pairing operations, and the entire community benefits together. Rather than adversarial PVP trading, it is more of a cooperative win-win model.

Shaw: This brings us back to the topic we were discussing earlier, and I'm really concerned that UBI may not be smoothly implemented. I also worry that in a scenario where automation leads to unemployment, the government may not be able to provide enough 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 systemic issue. If we look at it as a mathematical equation, our incentive mechanisms are not truly aligned. The institutions we use to govern society have indeed played a role for a long time, but their efficiency now cannot keep up with the pace of global development, cannot address contemporary issues, and cannot truly meet the needs of people.

Shaw: It's no one's fault, and we're not against anyone. We just want everyone to 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 that's 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 suitable for addressing these issues.

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

Shaw: You know, the government is good at building roads, streets, carrying out zoning, etc., 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. Actually, I have always thought that 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, nor basic, and the government will not provide it; instead, it is achieved together by you and the community. This way may not help everyone at once but can first help those around you. Once these communities stabilize, you can bring in friends and family as well.

I often think, we should first "put on our own oxygen masks," make sure we have enough resources, take care of ourselves, make sure we are okay, then take care of our families to make sure they are okay; then friends, and then people on the street and those strangers, gradually expanding until everyone has enough resources.

Jill: I think this mindset can help us look at problems from different perspectives, especially in a place like the United States, where the issue of homelessness is indeed very serious, it's shocking.

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

BlockBeats: That's right, indeed. So in this case, what is the key factor in deciding which community or platform can operate? For example, at the operational level, how do projects like DeFi or platforms perform to determine their success?

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

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

Jill: We are not just doing 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: Also, if you are a selfish person, don't you hope that when you walk the streets of San Francisco, you don't see homeless people everywhere? I think our selfishness is often short-sighted, if we could look at our own selfishness from a slightly longer-term perspective, we would understand that even if you don't care about those people, you also want to be able to walk on the street safely, not be begged, or surrounded by drug addicts, that environment would be better.

So I think we need to take a longer-term view on this issue. First, you need to have enough resources, enough family, enough of the things that really matter to you; only when you have those can you be in a position to achieve longer-term goals, not to become less self-centered, but to become more visionary. I believe we can all align ourselves towards making the world better, even if it's just for ourselves.

Of course, I have an altruistic sentiment—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 the streets at night without fear, where people are not pitted against each other because there's no need to fight each other.

Jill: This world needs to have a motivational structure that can cater to both the 'saints' and the 'fools.' Whether you're an altruist or an extreme selfish person, you should be able to find the right motivation in this system.

Shaw: The incentive mechanism must adhere to the principle of win-win, not 'lose-win' or 'lose-lose.' It has to be win-win, always. I like the DeFi way, because anyone participating in it will benefit.

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 fighting for your attention or whatever, but the end result is, 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, it might even help me, and maybe even make the whole system better. So, the key is to find a win-win situation, so we can build 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 will continue to talk about it.

Shaw: This trend is just beginning.

The Future of San Francisco's Crypto AI

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

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

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

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

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

You know, companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have achieved great success. I also think there is a somewhat cynical view of reality, like, "Hmm, what does that really take? Do you have 10000 GPUs?" I think it's just a matter of time, there will indeed be a few years of delay. You know, to coordinate 10000 GPUs globally to form a decentralized network to train models, we will eventually accomplish this, 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 crypto culture actually has two sides, one is the decentralized idealists, like Vitalik type of people, and the other is a group of DeFi degens, which really disgusts the founders of Web 2. It complicates the situation. I once joined an AI gaming community and mentioned that I use cryptocurrency, and they immediately stopped talking to me. Oh, it was really that bad.

BlockBeats: How recent is this?

Shaw: This was probably earlier 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, and many people are starting to enter this field, even many ordinary people are participating. But it still has a very gambling-like atmosphere, which I think deters some people from joining in.

But from my perspective, my choice is to raise funds from a venture capital firm or through grassroots cryptocurrency. I have no other choice, of course, I can choose to do it myself and not let anyone know. So between these two choices, I think we chose the way that gives us more freedom so we don't have to do things that go against our beliefs to please venture capital firms.

I feel that many crypto companies, sorry, I mean many AI companies and many Web2 companies that have received a lot of venture capital funding, have ultimately had to pay the price for their decisions, starting to cut features, increase fees, and make the business more profitable, which makes sense in a way. But when it comes to tokens, you can have more creativity and freedom.

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

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

As for me, I have a somewhat accelerationist view of the issue, believing that alignment should be achieved through a completely opposite way. 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 profound person, he does want to ensure that AI enters the world in a safe way, avoiding many existential risks, such as superintelligence beginning to control us, like a dystopian Terminator scenario.

And I have a different view from him in terms of approach, but I think the most ideal situation is not my approach 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 do pay attention to strange robots talking about these things online. I think this is indeed an interesting focus. You know, True Terminal was not originally a crypto project, it originally came from our AI small circle, and I knew about True Terminal before Marc Andreessen interacted with it.

Yes, there is indeed an AI Twitter, and everyone is considered part of it. This cross-disciplinary phenomenon was somewhat strange until Marc made that move, and it took about a month for things to start changing. It wasn't until those DJs realized, "Wait a minute, I can make this thing talk about our token and such." that things started moving in that direction.

BlockBeats: What do you think is needed to get more AI practitioners in places like San Francisco, or overall, more people to start paying attention to this?

Shaw: We just need to show them, prove that this is a good way to do things. Hype alone is not useful; it will only 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 types of applications. As it becomes more and more mundane and normal, they will gradually embrace it. You know, maybe the image of that "big-boobed wife" isn't helpful, but it's the first step. We cropped the photo into what looks like an open-source framework, so when they look at it, they only see her face.

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

Shaw: They are actually distributed all over the place, especially in Asia, where there are many highly talented AI crypto practitioners. However, there are currently two different AI crypto directions. One is projects like Hyperbolic, or like Prime Intellect and Public AI, where these projects allow you to upload data and pay people to RLHF (Reinforcement Learning Human Feedback) label the data.

There are many similar projects mainly addressing decentralized training and decentralized reasoning issues; they are a bit like alternatives to OpenAI, with the real goal of becoming the "open OpenAI." The other direction is the Agent direction, and while they are somewhat different, the collaboration between us is very close. 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 competitors and real-world applications. Often, when users enter these platforms, they may feel drawn in by revolutionary AI technology but are unsure of how to use it, and the platform involves many complex topics like tokenomics. Therefore, by placing the Agent at the forefront and directly showcasing practical applications of their projects, users can better understand how to use them.

It's just about connecting it, putting it into your wallet, and now you can perform inference or other operations. I think this aspect has actually become very mature, with companies like Hyperbolic being a good example. These companies are undoubtedly building mature infrastructure for AI, but they have encountered some difficulties in expanding from their own circles to actual use cases.

On the other hand, the direction of intelligent agents involves more interactivity, reactivity, similar to groups such as web developers and more frontend application developers, especially in encrypted Twitter or entrepreneur circles. Therefore, intelligent agents actually connect the two. What we are seeing now is the convergence of these technologies that have been brewing behind the scenes for several years and the idea 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 great, 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 United States and Silicon Valley. I truly believe that Chinese developers should take our technology, or any technology they think is good, to contribute to the Chinese community, and even developers from Latin America and Brazil should also contribute to the Brazilian community. I hope to see more Chinese, Portuguese, or Spanish developers get involved, bring back these technologies, and localize them. Moreover, I think these meme coins should be more internationalized rather than just focused 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, and we don't expect anything in return. We really hope everyone can use this technology to build their dreams, create their products. I think 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, that value proposition doesn't hold.

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

We hope more people will get involved, help build, and ensure the technology truly meets their needs. We hope all our documents can be translated. If anyone is willing to help translate our documents into Chinese, that would be great. We hope to ensure that this technology is not just mine, but also yours; that's what I want.