Buying abandoned houses to build a neighborhood.

0:00Aback home in the city of Philadelphia. Um, today we’re missing Onaji B. Shout out to that guy, we miss you. Um, but today we got our special guest, irrespectively, Sir Kiba Gato. Did I say this, uh, this last name correctly? This term? Gato?

0:13BYeah, yeah, Gato.

0:14AGato. And then we got Better Call Saul as well. I’m super excited about this episode. Uh, to introduce Kiba a little bit, I met Kiba back at Zoo Thailand, um, in 2024 following DEF CON. And I actually met you, I think briefly during DevCon through Amado and some of the BluntDAO people. But I really got to learn more about what you were up to and how to see you as a person in community, right? I felt like Zoo Thailand gave me the space to see a lot of builders in community. And I’m super grateful for you joining us. I think it was really a profound experience for me being at Zoo Thailand. I got to connect with people who kind of had found some success in this space and had a lot of context, but were also thinking about in the long tail, you know, where is this space going, right?

0:54CYeah.

0:54AAnd that’s kind of, in my experience, what the conversation around some of the pop-up cities was. Um, but yeah, man, welcome. How are you doing today? Hello. Pretty good.

1:03BYeah, it’s been a great day. Amazing weather. Finishing off talking to some friends. So what more can you ask for?

1:09AOh yeah. And to give kind of an update right now, I know you’re working on Zoo City Japan. Zoo City Japan is a collective of people, from what I understand, right, who are purchasing real estate in Japan and Nagano, Japan together. Um, in order to create space for nomads to kind of show up and come together in the, in this, in the state. I was gonna say the state of Japan, but the state of Nagano in Japan. Um, how long have you been doing that? Do you want to introduce yourself and speak a little bit to what you’re up to?

1:34BIntroduce myself? Yeah, that’s a whole nother thing. Um, but yeah, I guess my name is Kiba. I’ve been in crypto for about 9 years now. 10 years, 9 years, I think. And was like a software developer that worked at ConsenSys doing like full-stack web development and then got into DeFi, just like playing around. And then kind of went full-time DeFi actually like end or beginning, very beginning of like 2020. And then did the whole DeFi summer thing and then did DAOs and then got really tired of DAOs after many years of watching them not work. And then kind of quit crypto after doing my own startup, which was kind of like an on-chain lending protocol for DAOs to do basically take out like business loans on-chain.

1:34BAnd then I kind of saw crypto just like not being crypto anymore and not being punk or anarchist and not really caring about the values. So I kind of quit-ish. And that’s kind of when I went to Zuzulu and a bunch of other kind of like international communities and was just trying to like figure out what I wanted to do. Or just was kind of in this like hiatus sabbatical point in my life. And I kind of just saw all these recurring problems with those communities, which then kind of led me to starting Zoo City Japan. And so kind of the point of Zoo City Japan is kind of just like, I think it’s super dope to just live in Japan and they have all these super cheap houses.

1:34BAnd I’m like, hey guys, why don’t we just buy a bunch of houses? Because they’re super cheap and we can do that. And then we can like make a super dope neighborhood together. And so that’s kind of what we’re doing. The funny thing is that I kind of only started it because everyone kept telling me they wanted to buy a house after I told them I was buying a house. And I was like, okay, I’ll make like a thing for us to do together. And then nobody bought a house, which I think is really funny because now I’ve bought multiple houses and they’re like ridiculously cheap.

1:34BAnd it’s like an amazing neighborhood and like the city I’m in, like I love it. And Nagano is amazing. And so I can talk more about Zoo City, I guess, which is like the concept of it is just a of this pop-up city and network state thing. They’re like, what if we had our own area where we can do whatever we wanted to? And of the many problems that I saw among a lot of these communities all over the world, not just network states and not just pop-up cities, but also just like normal community co-living, is that no one actually like owns the land that they’re on or what they’re trying to do.

1:34BAnd that causes all these kind of like long-term kind of systemic problems where like you have to like pay rent to someone and then everyone’s like, well, how do we keep paying the rent? And like people are coming in and out. And so then it’s like, who’s on the lease and who’s responsible, and then like the responsible person leaves and everyone’s like, well, what do we do? And then it kind of ends, or like the responsible person just kind of crashes out and the network states that they’re like all trying to do this, like we’re talking to the government and like we’re going to get all this land and start our own city.

1:34BAnd like, it’s like these, like they’ve been talking for years about doing this and like no one’s actually done it right. And so I was like, well, why don’t we just buy all these super cheap houses in Japan? And the Japanese government is actually giving away houses for free if you wanted to, which is not what I’m doing. And then yeah, you just buy a bunch of land for super cheap and you just like live there and you do your thing and it’s a lot easier. So that’s basically what I’ve been doing. I’ve just been vibing out in rural Japan for the past about a year and a half now.

1:34BI technically don’t live here. I don’t have a visa, but I have like 3 houses now and I’m about to buy a grocery store to turn into a community space and they’re all within about a 5-minute walk of each other. And they’re about 70, 90 minutes away from Tokyo depending on if like you get picked up at the train station or you transfer. And it’s about 15 minutes away from the local train station walking. So it’s like kind of like pretty urban-ish. It’s not like a big city, but it is a city.

5:21AMm-hmm.

5:21BBut it’s also fairly rural where like I walk 5 minutes that way and there’s like rice fields and there’s like a volcano basically in my backyard that I can see every day. And so I think it’s like this pretty good mix and I’m really talking like this like lifestyle thing. thing with Zoo City Japan, which again, one of the many problems I saw with these things, especially pop-up cities, is it’s like very short-term, which is like cool. You get to meet all these people, right? Like me and you. But then you’re like, oh, let’s keep doing that. Or like, let’s do that again. And then it’s like this whole like logistical nightmare to make that happen again.

5:52AYeah.

5:53BLike, well, what if this was just our life? Like we could just live this way all the time. And so I’m really focused on the lifestyle aspect versus doing like these very kind of grandiose gatherings of people. I’m like, we are just super dope and doing dope stuff all the time, every day. And if you want to come do dope stuff, just come hang out. Um, and we live in Japan, we have amazing food, and we go to the onsen and like blah blah blah. Uh, so that’s kind of what we’re doing here, or what I’m doing here. Hell yeah, that’s awesome.

6:22AHow’s your Japanese?

6:24BIt’s getting better. It’s kind of funny, like the people that I’m with now, like, yeah, I did this event with them 6 months ago and they’re all Japanese. It’s like, I usually kind of end up in places where I’m the only foreigner for whatever reason, and my Japanese has always been like so-so. Like, I can like kind of say stuff and understand stuff, um, but then this time they’re like, dog, your Japanese is like so much better.

6:44AAnd then like --

6:45BOh, like, is it? Like, I actually -- I’ve never really studied Japanese. I took some classes like over 10 years ago, um, and I haven’t really been studying, like studying studying. I just talk to people all the time, but apparently I’m getting better according to this group of people that’s, I guess, been indexing me over time. Yeah.

7:01CThat’s awesome. I think there’s so many cool, valuable things to touch on, but I really like that point that you made of the long-term mentality of like, okay, what -- we can always meet up and do these awesome in-person things, but if we’re gonna create something that’s sustainable, owning the land makes a big part of it. So that’s really interesting. I’d love to know a little bit more of like that real estate side of it, like what, what, like your, your story of like specifically buying the, you said 3, 3 houses.

7:34AMm-hmm.

7:34CUm, and just like how that went. Like I recently bought a house in the United States and it was honestly a lot more reasonable of a process than I thought it was going to be, but still had its own headaches.

7:49AMm-hmm.

7:49CCurious what it was like for you to purchase the houses there in Japan.

7:54BYeah, also surprisingly easy. So I’ll start with saying that I do like a lot of investing, and I did like stock market investing when I was like a teenager. And then I get -- that’s kind of like what convinced me to do crypto, I guess, is that I was already used to like investing and blah blah blah. But I always had a reason why I didn’t want to invest in real estate, right? Like multiple reasons. Like I had a thesis on like real estate is a bad investment, and so I actually never invested into real estate. But most people, like traditional normies or whatever that have salaries, like doing real estate is kind of the best investment they can make because it like whatever reduces their like long-term costs and expenses because they’re not paying rent and they have equity and blah, blah, blah.

7:54BSo for normal people, investing does make sense in terms of like this like passive thing. But as an investor, I feel like it doesn’t really make so much sense. So it’s very funny that I’m now doing a real estate thing after many years of intentionally avoiding it. And I found buying real estate in Japan was actually like surprisingly easy. I’m definitely not like a person that likes to go through processes and like do the thing. Like I’ve kind of never had a job actually and like all this other kind of stuff. And for me, I was like, that was it? Like easy, let me do that again.

7:54BAnd I bought 3 in like a year, basically like a year and a half, 4, like by the end of this year, I would’ve bought 4 properties within 2 years. So I found it to be fairly easy. It helps that I buy them all in cash. Like I don’t take out loans. Because they’re so cheap. So that definitely helps with it. And then also like this amazing real estate guy who we really kind of are vibing. Like, he’s one of, I think, a few actual businessmen in Japan where he’s like, no, like, let’s do a deal. Like, let’s get this done. And like, blah, blah, blah.

7:54BHe’s not like a salaryman and he’s not like -- He’s just kind of like doing their own thing, which is like super dope. And why I love rural Japan is there’s like a lot of people that are just like like me. They’re just like, oh, I bought a place and I’m just like doing a thing. He’s very much like, let’s make a deal. And like, I’ve got these clients and like, I can connect you to this person and whatever. So he’s definitely been super duper helpful on a lot of things. I’ve actually bought all my property through him. And yeah, what else? All property.

9:59AI don’t know.

10:00BIt’s been pretty fun fixing things as well because they’re all abandoned houses. Maybe I should like lead with some of the data and facts, but --

10:07AYeah.

10:07BThere’s currently now the number floating around is 9 million abandoned houses in Japan. It’s about 15% of like all the property in Japan is abandoned. Well, 15% of all houses. And as far as I can tell, they mostly only count the houses in that number, but there’s more commercial real estate and there’s like love hotels and hospitals and like all these other things that are abandoned too. So it’s maybe even more than 15% of all property. Um, and then in my particular area, Nagano, it’s the 3rd highest abandoned house rate in the country. So it’s almost 20% of all property or all houses are abandoned, which is pretty insane.

10:46AYeah.

10:46BUm, and then on top of that, Nagano is also the 4th biggest prefecture in Japan by land area.

10:52AOh, really? Yeah.

10:54BAnd it’s up in the mountains and it’s like very central Japan. Again, it only takes like an hour, 2 hours to get to Tokyo by train, by public transportation.

11:00ASo there’s no states in Japan, they’re prefectures? prefectures.

11:04BYeah, well, long, long history of all the things they’ve gone through. They’ve gone through a lot of different systems of whatever, land ownership and whatever, municipalities and etc. But yeah, they use prefectures, but they’re basically states. I don’t know, same thing as far as I’m aware. I don’t really know the difference. Um, but yeah, it’s like right next to Tokyo essentially. It’s like just 2 prefectures over. There’s only like 1 prefecture in between, but it’s just kind of like the borders. And then 20% of all the houses are abandoned. It’s pretty crazy. And it’s the 4th biggest prefecture. And so there’s just like a ton of land that just like nobody’s using and it’s up in the mountains and it’s super beautiful and they have like amazing air.

11:04BAnd then like Winter Olympics were here 30 years ago or something like that. So absolutely amazing place. And then also from like a real estate investment perspective, I think it’s like quite a unique opportunity, especially as Tokyo becomes more and more expensive and genuinely of most Japanese people don’t actually want to live in Tokyo. I did like a lot of user research when I got here and asked Japanese people, and I was like, do you want to live in Tokyo? Like, to my Tokyo friends that live there, I’m like, do you want to live here? Like, if you could live somewhere, like, would you stay here?

11:04BAnd they’re like, no, I would for sure go back home or go somewhere else. Um, and so I think as things get more and more expensive and wages are kind of increasing but not really, and now there’s inflation, and so I think Tokyo people are going to be very hard-pressed to kind of stay there when, A, they don’t want to be, and 2, like financially, they may not be able to even. Um, so I think Niagara has like a pretty ideal spot.

12:31AYeah. Interesting. I had a question. Um, so what’s, what’s the deal that all of this real estate is available? Like, what’s the why? Like, people -- I think I’ve heard people discuss it, but, uh, yeah, I’d love for you to explain, like, why is all this real estate available? Why aren’t people living in these homes?

12:45BYeah, I think there’s probably 3 or 4 big reasons why.

12:51AYeah.

12:52BThe main one that gets cited is just like depopulation and the fact that there’s not as many people being born and there’s just a bunch of old people dying, basically. And so then when there’s no new people and like the population’s going down, then there’s like houses that don’t get filled, right? And then there’s also the urbanization, which everyone’s moving to Tokyo because that’s where all the jobs are. And like, if you want to even start a business or like be an artist or anything, you kind of are forced to be in Tokyo essentially because it’s the only place where like economically you can like make enough money. And then I think there’s also just -- there was like this big real estate boom in the ’80s because a lot of different things. It was kind of actually America’s fault, of course. But basically, there was just like this massive real estate bubble. And one of the statistics is like the Imperial Palace, just the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, which is maybe like, I don’t know, 5 or 10 acres of land, was worth more than all of the real estate in California combined. Just as one --

13:49CWow.

13:49BImperial Palace. So like, that’s how expensive and like how big of a bubble the real estate boom was in the ’80s in Japan. And then it popped. And so all these people were investing and like going into land because they’re like, oh, well, like land is valuable and like we have all this money. And so like, let’s buy more land and build more houses and do stuff. And then that all collapsed essentially. And then everyone’s like, we’re not going to invest into this anymore and we don’t want the things. And then another big issue is inheritance where you have to pay -- I think it’s like close to 50% inheritance tax in Japan.

14:19AReally?

14:21BSomething like that. Yeah, I haven’t looked it up because it doesn’t apply to me.

14:24AYeah.

14:27BYeah, I mean, I’m an American.

14:28AYeah.

14:28BAnd I don’t have a residency here kind of intentionally. Yeah. And so basically, if someone dies and their kids are supposed to get the house, the kids are like, well, I don’t live there and I don’t want to go back because I have to be in Tokyo or wherever else I have my job. And so why am I going to take this house and pay all this money to get a property that I’m never going to go to again? Right. And then I have to pay the taxes on it going forward, the property taxes and the maintenance and etc., etc. And so apparently you used to be able to -- I think they are or have already like passed a law where you can’t do this anymore, but you could have like choose which assets you wanted to inherit.

14:28BAnd so they could be like, well, I’ll take the cash and I’ll take the stocks, but I’m not going to inherit the house and the property. And so there’s actually like property that’s owned by dead people still because the title never kind of got transferred, or just like the people that did inherit it just like don’t do anything with it. And they’re like, well, it’s my family’s place, then I’ll take it. But they’re not there and they don’t want it essentially. And they’re just like, it’s abandoned.

15:25AYeah. That makes a lot of sense. That’s interesting. And so the inheritance tax is like, it’s preventative. Like people can’t afford it. And so they don’t, they don’t like, they don’t want to spend that money. And so it keeps them from being able to like claim the land.

15:37BYeah. I mean, again, I haven’t really looked into it, but I imagine you have to like, yeah, pay some kind of cash amount to the government. And if you’re inheriting land, you either have to sell the land to pay the tax or you have to pay out of pocket. Like half the value of all the property to then get it back, right?

15:53AImagine half the value of all the property. That’s a scam.

15:55BSomething like that. Yeah. I mean, again, I haven’t looked into it, but I’ve heard that inheritance tax is really --

16:00AFrom hearsay. The hearsay I’m hearing sounds like scam, but that’s cool.

16:03BThat’s cool that you’re in there.

16:05AI’m curious why you said you intentionally haven’t pursued a residency there. Like, what’s that about?

16:09BUm, just like all the things basically. Uh, A, Man, there’s so many reasons why. Um, just like didn’t really make sense for me personally to go through all the effort to like paying the lawyers and like paying all the registration fees and you’re doing all the paperwork and like all this stuff to get like a full-time visa here because I’m still going to travel a couple months a year to do kind of like community building and like outreach and like BD and that kind of stuff. So, and if you’re a tourist, you can stay here 6 months a year already.

16:41AMm-hmm.

16:42BAnd so I would’ve been spending all this money and all this time and all this energy just to get like an extra 3 months a year, basically.

16:48AYeah.

16:48BWhich didn’t really make sense. And then I’m doing everything as like an American company at the moment, just because I have a company and like, it would seem like for me the easiest and simplest and like way that I understood how to do this properly. And also, yeah, maybe back to like the process of buying real estate. The interesting thing about Japan is that it’s one of like the only Asian countries where a foreigner can directly own land. Which is another reason why, yeah, I picked here is because you can own the land without any intermediary. You don’t need a Japanese person to buy the property for you or like be in the company or whatever.

16:48BLike, I own it directly. Well, actually my company owns it directly as an American entity without really needing to do any extra stuff. Like, there’s so much paperwork. It’s like pretty normal. Where was I going with that? Why I don’t live here? Yeah, I could do everything as an American. And then also there’s like this whole kind of like fascism thing going on at the moment, which I predicted before I bought my house, and I kind of knew was going to happen. I can send you guys a blog on that. I call it the Modern Meiji Restoration. Um, and I actually kind of agree with it, or like whatever.

16:48BI think it’s maybe like the right thing for them to do. Um, but they do absolutely fundamentally need immigrants because their population’s already dying, and like the economy collapsing because it’s not growing, and like there’s no one to do the jobs and blah blah blah. And so they literally need immigrants. It’s It’s like not even a question. Um, but being fascist, they’re like, we hate immigrants, even though immigrants are only like 3% of the population here. It’s crazy. Uh, but they blame everything on immigrants. It’s pretty funny. And so being a tourist is actually the best kind of foreigner you can be here because they really hate the people that try to live here.

18:29AMm-hmm.

18:30BYou’re kind of bad or whatever, you’re gaming the system or like you don’t belong or blah, blah, blah. But if you’re a tourist, there’s like, oh, tourists, you’re super cool, you’re hanging out, blah, blah, blah. And I don’t have to make -- I actually get tax-free on my sales and like all this other stuff. Um, and so I think being a tourist is like -- and especially an American tourist -- is kind of the ideal whatever, uh, role archetype to be in Japan at the moment. Um, because they’re increasing all the requirements for visas, they’re increasing the payments you need to have for visas, like all this other stuff, because they really don’t want foreigners.

18:30BSo I’m like, okay, if you guys don’t want foreigners, then I will -- I won’t be here. I’ll just be a tourist. And everyone’s fairly happy with that so far, including me. And so that’s the reason why. Yeah, also, I just really, I feel like, who did I say this to? Maybe I said it to Alaska or someone. But basically, I feel like I’m integrated into the society, but I’m not integrated into the system. And I really like that kind of balance where like, cool, I can speak Japanese, and I have all these Japanese friends. And like, I’m part of the community and I can like do all this stuff, right?

18:30BBut I don’t have to like be part of the system and like be obligated to do all these things and like conform the same way other people are, which I would have to do if I was whatever, a resident or had a visa.

19:51CThat’s interesting. I feel like we talked about a lot of different parts of living there. What about the financial side, the financial system of like you being there? Any like talks of the government talking more about crypto in any way, shape, or form? What have you seen? with like people accepting crypto there other than like you or a group of individuals? I’m kind of curious like what your culture, uh, what you’ve seen of the culture there specifically geared towards that financial side.

20:19BYeah, I would say they’re like not just like pro-crypto, but they’re not so anti-crypto like maybe in the West. Like in the West, someone’s like, if you say you work in crypto, everyone’s like, ah, you’re a scammer, and like you must be a bad person. And here they’re just like Yeah, that sounds like sketchy. I’m not gonna put my money into it. But like, they don’t necessarily care so much, and they maybe just see it as a technology and not like all this other political bullshit. Um, I don’t really see stablecoins, or like, most people don’t really use it. Um, that’s also due to taxes.

20:19BUp until, I think, this year, I think they passed the law. Maybe they’re just talking about it, but crypto also got taxed at 50%, all your capital gains. And then now they brought it -- well, I think you have to do like some kind of like specific crypto investment fund thing, and then it gets taxed like the normal 20%. Capital gains rate. So that was like one big reason why a lot of people don’t invest into crypto and why there’s like not a lot of crypto teams is because they couldn’t launch tokens because the teams would get taxed 50% on their own token, etc., etc. Um, so really people only use NFTs here.

20:19BI feel like it’s like the collectibles, right, which Japan is infamous for. Um, so there’s like a lot of NFT projects and also just the whole supporting artist stuff and culture and whatever. Uh, so NFTs are pretty good adoption. Apparently there’s like an NFT museum near Osaka, which I haven’t been to yet.

21:37AReally?

21:38BYeah, maybe it’s a digital art museum, but they have NFTs. But I’m pretty sure it’s like just an NFT.

21:43AI was in Osaka for like a week and I really didn’t -- I was kind of oblivious. I was like in not crypto land at all.

21:48BYeah, that’s cool. Yeah, Osaka’s trying to do stuff. Like, they have a digital asset exchange, uh, but it has like a million dollars in liquidity even though it’s backed by like 2 of the biggest banks in Japan. So like they really want to do crypto stuff, like a lot of Japan, but it’s like very top-down governmental things. And they actually have like a pretty good crypto framework. Like they actually delineate between like, this is like whatever kind of like crypto asset, like thing token that somebody made that’s like a DAO token or an Ethereum token or whatever, versus like a utility token, which is like actually used for things versus it being a stablecoin versus it being like a collectible NFT. And that’s also why NFTs got popular is because they didn’t fall into this other kind of crypto asset class. And so they got taxed differently, I think.

22:34AThat’s what I heard. Yeah.

22:35BYeah. So they have a pretty, I would say, comprehensive and well-adjusted crypto legal framework. But then all of the other things in terms of them understanding kind of what the stuff is and how you use it, but then they taxed it. And then there’s also just not a good startup culture in general. And Blah blah blah. So I think it’s like fairly not ambivalent, not optimistic. They’re definitely accepting of it, but they don’t accept it, if that makes sense.

23:09AYeah.

23:11BInteresting.

23:12AYeah. Have you been hitting the like the the monasteries or like the historic spots? So you can get like your your book stamped in Japan if you hit those like. They’re not called castles, but like, forgive me.

23:24BWell, there are castles. Let me see, I have my passport somewhere. I did stamp my passport, which I know is illegal, but whatever.

23:29AThat’s fun though.

23:31BBut I go to like a lot of temples and shrines.

23:33ALike, yeah, that’s the word I’m looking for. Shrines. I’m like, I’m not --

23:36BYeah, yeah, the jingas. Yeah, yeah. So there’s a temple around the corner from my house. There’s probably like 10 or 20 temples in my town, in my city. Probably, yeah, way more shrines. There’s like a really dope shrine up in the mountains that has like a waterfall that’s super sick. I go to and show my friends sometimes. And then recently I’ve been like, yeah, kind of becoming homies with a couple different Zen Buddhist temples. And so last September during my pop-up city, and then again this March, again during our pop-up city, we got -- well, I got invited, and then I bring my friends to like the Zen Buddhist meditation retreat thing. It’s like about 24 hours long. It starts like afternoon one day and it goes kind of into the afternoon the next day. And that’s like super dope. It’s almost like church. is kind of the feeling that I get. It’s like a bunch of people come from around different regions, like some of them even come from Tokyo or Osaka or whatever. Um, I found out this time that apparently like the monk guy that leads it is apparently kind of famous and he has like actually a couple different temples and this is just like one of their temples.

24:37COoh.

24:38BUm, so they’re super dope and like, yeah, I like hanging out with them and definitely very insightful, wise, whatever. Definitely learned a lot from them. And then I found this other Zen Buddhist temple a month and a half ago now, and they’re really cool. They actually have it as like a community center, and so people just like -- a lot of people from the local area just kind of hang out there and use it as like their community space, which really drew me to it, I guess, the first time. Well, drew it to me the second time. I went there the first time because I heard there was a party, and it turned out it was like a high school graduation party, and I was like, that was interesting.

24:38BAnd it was honestly Fucking the 18-year-old DJs were amazing, a lot better than a lot of the DJs I’ve seen at like Berlin or whatever. But then I was talking to a bunch of people then, they’re like, oh yeah, I just like live 10 minutes away. And that was like maybe half the people I talked to, they were like, oh yeah, I like live here, this is my neighborhood. And I was like, oh, that’s like pretty cool that you guys are just hanging out here. And so I’ve been going back there, I’ve been there like 3 times in the past month or something. And then yeah, I don’t know, always going to temples and shrines basically.

25:40AThat’s cool. So how much do you know about Pop-Up Cities?

25:45CNot a lot, to be honest with you. So, uh, Kiba, for reference, I came in in 2023, like 3 months after the bottom of the bear there, uh, post-NFTs, with like 3 or 4 years into like wanting to work with the musicians and think about like how independent artists could get paid. And, uh, blockchain was such a great solution for that, but NFTs weren’t -- were so like negatively seen sentiment-wise. So I was just kind of joining a bunch of on-chain music groups and communities, diving in there. And I think there’s so much -- there was one thing you touched on at the very beginning in your intro that I kind of got a chance to see.

25:45CI was very lucky. I was in Oregon, Portland, Oregon for that period of time for a couple years. And I joined the Regenerate community as well. After I was kind of like finding all these music communities, that’s how I learned more about DAOs, PDXDAO, and what they were trying to do to, like you said, pay the rent. Someone bought the land, gave a community center, a coworking center to them for the ability to, you know, give a year and a half runway of like, okay, like, you’re good, figure it out over the span of a year and a half. It didn’t happen. It kind of kept on getting delayed and delayed and delayed.

25:45CAnd then eventually, you know, the owner moved on.

27:02BRight.

27:02CAnd I think that like really And then PDXDAO kind of closed down and the people who were super active made a smaller DAO that was like less of a DAO because they didn’t wanna do a DAO, but they wanted to still do a lot of this Ethereum localism stuff. And I think still bring that value, but not have to then have some of those challenges that a DAO leads to, right? So I’m very curious more about the pop-up cities, ’cause I’ve heard like very small various things, but like give me a reference for how you guys met and the Zoo Thailand, I think is what you guys said, right?

27:34ATell me more about that.

27:35CYeah.

27:35ABut I invite you actually to go further back and like, you were at Zuzalu, you said? I’d love for you to tell people like my mom who doesn’t know what the fuck a network state is or anything like that. Like, what is that? Where’d that come from?

27:48BYeah. Yeah, I only went to Zuzalu for a week because again, like, I was like leaving crypto and I thought it was like a crypto thing because I heard about it from my crypto friends because I was in crypto. And then I saw that there was this company called Synbio Beta who I was following because I’m interested in like Yeah, biohacking and gene engineering and stuff like that. And they were presenting there and I was like, oh, these guys are like super legit and they’re not crypto, so maybe I should check it out. So I went for just the last week, which was basically like the party week, like the chill hangout.

27:48BAnd I’m pretty happy I only went for that actually. But basically the concept of Zozulu was like Vitalik is just like this polymath genius and he has like all these different interests and different people he talks to. And he was like, well, why can’t I just have all the same people having the same conversations as I am? And so he brought together kind of all the top whatever, researchers, thinkers, et cetera, builders in crypto and AI and government policymaking and longevity biotech. And there was this rationalist group, and that was mostly it. I think that’s kind of like the main groups. And the idea was just like, what if we have this 2-month-long, not a conference, not long-term co-living, But we have this like extended period where we can actually kind of like get to know each other better and like have this better format for community building versus just showing up for like a week or for like a conference, for example.

27:48BAnd it’s a lot easier to manage than like long-term co-living where you guys like have to all decide that you all want to live together and you have to find the perfect spot that everyone agrees to and blah, blah, blah. So the idea was really just kind of like innovating on this kind of like community building And like, not even community building necessarily, but also just like a way for people to interact with each other essentially. And I personally think that that was like the main innovation of it, of the pop-up cities was like, yeah, like the lifestyle design and like how can we like innovate on these like social technologies, whether it’s like the routines that we have together or like how exactly do we like live together in groups and et cetera, et cetera.

27:48BAnd so for me, that’s what a pop-up city is. It’s like an experiment in living. And then more recently, the contemporary pop-up city, in my opinion, is more of like an organized group trip where you kind of just like go somewhere to hang out with some cool people, which is also super dope. And I enjoy that to an extent, but it does get kind of old after you’ve done it a few times. And so yeah, that’s kind of what I would say pop-up cities are.

30:21CGive me your like best and worst place you, you went, like whether it be like environment, accommodations, it could not even be like the people or the event, right? Like just like vibes, pure vibes, like best and worst places you went for however long.

30:36BThis guy’s funny. Yeah, I would say definitely. Well, in general, like not just pop-up cities or Zulu.

30:41CYeah, I mean, you could do general first, but I’m also curious pop-up cities like specifically.

30:48BWell, definitely best in general is Japan. Just Japanese people are super great, like in so many different ways, and it’s just like an amazing country. And I’ve been to like, I’m pretty sure like 30-ish countries in the past 8 years of nomading and like hundreds of cities. So I feel like I have like a fairly good index of like what’s good and what’s not.

31:07AMm-hmm.

31:08BAnd then in terms of pop-up cities, definitely the original Zuzulio was by far the best. In terms of like vibes and like the people and like the content and everything and the energy. And personally, I’d say like the only Zuzulu was the original Zuzulu. And after Zuzulu, it’s just like just pop-up cities basically, off-brand pop-up cities essentially. And then the worst one I went to, it wasn’t like the worst in general, but it was in Honduras and there was just like no drinking water and like there was like sandflies on the beach. Well, it’s not there’s no drinking water, there’s like no potable water in the pipes, right? Like you have to like import all your water and stuff like that.

31:49AOkay.

31:50BAnd I was like, yeah, I don’t know why someone would choose to live here personally. Like, that’s just not -- like, if I had to pick a place, I wouldn’t have picked here. And also it was like on this island that was like a cruise ship island and it was very Americanized and there was like fully just like an American grocery store. That was our closest grocery store was basically -- I felt like I was in America essentially. And like it was actually more expensive than America even though tourists. There’s like all these tourists, and I was like, yeah, man, I would, I would not have picked here personally. Yeah, the actual pop-up city was great, but like the context --

32:20CYeah, yeah, that’s why I asked that. That’s cool, good to know, right? Like, um, that’s interesting.

32:26AThat’s all. You’re so funny. I like that question. Yeah, I like, I like your answer a lot too. I’m very humored by the no portable water American grocery store. And cruise ship arrival. I guess they have all their shit on the boat.

32:40BVery similar. The other like worst place that wasn’t a pop-up city was in general was like Guatemala. I went to like, uh, what was that, Lake Atitlán? And it was kind of similar-ish vibes. It was just like, at least the people that I was interacting with were just like a bunch of Western hippie people. And they’re like, no, it’s like a magical place and there’s like a volcano. And I’m like, this is like a terrible place. Like, why would you want to come here? And you’re spending so much money. Like, there’s no way that you would would think that. And they’re like, no, but you don’t get it, it’s so magical, it’s like the spiritual energy. And I’m like, no, like, people literally, like, they dump the sewage, like, people’s shit water goes into the lake. And I’m like, you can’t -- like, I’m like, okay, if you guys think that this place is magical, go for it, but I’m not coming back.

33:24AYeah, my index is not rating this magical.

33:26BYeah, I mean, it is a super dope place, but like, in terms of like living there, like wanting to physically be there I wouldn’t, but I would look at pictures for sure. Yeah.

33:34AThat’s sick. And I’m curious, like, now you’ve run your pop-up city twice, like your, like your, I guess, right event, I’ll call it. How has it been for you to actually be the one stewarding and actually being responsible for all the logistics from the grocery availability to the housing to the water to the infrastructure? You know, people are looking at you for everything they have a complaint about. I assert you’re the, you’re the face of their complaint. Yeah.

33:59BSo I definitely like saw all the stress and like logistical nightmare of other pop-up cities and I intentionally didn’t do that. So I took like a very much like hands-off-ish approach where I’m just like, again, like I’m just gonna be here and you guys can like come and hang out. And I did like set up like kind of programming and like things to do. Like we went to the Zen Buddhist meditation retreat and whatever. But I very much kind of like pushed it out. I’m like, if you guys wanna come, cool. Here’s different hotels you can stay at and like this and that and whatever. And we’re all in the same city and I like printed some cards and like I did like the basics to like make sure that the group had cohesion, I guess. But I didn’t like set up programming and do all this other stuff. So it wasn’t like a minute by minute there’s like something happening and like blah, blah, blah. Which personally I’m like super happy with. Also because I’m kind of like done-ish with Zuzulu, or like at least the people.

34:45AYeah.

34:46BI find them to not necessarily be in a community mindset or spirit. And so I don’t know, I was kind of just like, if you guys want to come, you can come.

34:55CMm-hmm.

34:56BAnd that was kind of it, which I’m super happy I did because I think it was the right decision for me personally, even if it wasn’t whatever great for everybody. Well, it was great for everybody for sure. Like the experience was great, but like in the long-term outcomes of everything, if I put in more effort, would Zuzulu be better? Who knows? But yeah, what else?

35:19AHmm.

35:19BWhat else about the logistics and how it went? No, I feel like it went pretty well, mostly because I did the bare minimum. But that’s because I saw like the hell that other people went through and I’m like, yeah, I’m not going to do that. Especially if I’m considering like this is like a lifestyle-based thing. Like, why am I going to make my life hell for a bunch of other people for no reason?

35:36AAnd so everybody’s there to vibe anyway. Yeah. Okay. And I guess outside logistics would have been some of the emergent vibes. I know when I talked to you last year, you told me you’re trying to buy like a school. Like an old school building or a science laboratory, something like that.

35:51BYeah, where this government was, like the local city government was putting up a school for sale. It’s kind of a funny story. You would appreciate this. I probably shouldn’t say it in public, but I won’t say the whole thing in public. But I did propose to the government to buy it. And it was kind of funny because there was like a public auction for like, I don’t know, something like 9 months, like a whole whatever. public proposal process. And then I didn’t find out about it because I -- yeah, when did I move there? I moved there like December 2024, and then like the -- maybe the process started like March 2025 or February 2025.

36:27AMm-hmm.

36:28BAnd then it ended in like, uh, September, like during my pop-up city basically. And so I had spent that year kind of just like getting used to my town and like moving into my house and like doing all this other stuff. And then I was like, oh, there’s a super dope opportunity, but I didn’t know about it because I didn’t know. But it turns out nobody had bid on this school for 9 months. And then I go into City Hall and I’m like, oh, hey, is this like still possible? And they’re like, oh, actually, like, we transferred it to this other department because nobody wanted it.

36:28BAnd like, we’ll introduce you. And then I’d actually already met those people before because they’re kind of like the real estate tourism business development department of City Hall. And so I already knew the people that were now responsible for like kind of the process. And then As soon as I was like, oh hey, could I buy this? And then like they’re like, oh, actually there’s 3 other people that want to buy it now that we like reopened this process for you. So like they closed the process down, 9 months public auction, nobody bid on it. I walk into City Hall, I’m like, okay, can I buy this?

36:28BAnd they’re like, okay, we’ll start the process again. And then they’re like, all of a sudden there’s these 3 other Japanese companies that want to buy it. And so, uh, of course I didn’t get it because I’m sure it’s like local politics and someone sold it to their friend or whatever. And kind of the only thing that upsets me about not getting it, which I’m totally happy having not gotten it because there’s like asbestos in the walls and like the foundation is broken and like the rebar in the foundation is rusted and it would’ve cost like hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix this place.

36:28BSo I’m very much happy to not have to deal with that. But the person that did buy it, as far as I’m aware, like hasn’t actually used it yet and it’s been 3 months and they haven’t like cleaned it up or anything as far as I can tell, having like walked past it. And it’s like right in the center of all the properties that I bought. So I walk past there like at least like, well, every other week maybe. And so I feel like I would tell if like something was happening, and I feel like nothing’s really happening there, which that kind of upsets me that like they were trying to -- well, they weren’t trying, obviously, I guess.

36:28BBut like, I guess the purpose, I think, of selling it was that somebody would use it, and whoever bought it hasn’t used it. And so that kind of gets me miffed. Um, but the good thing is like I wrote this whole 16-page document in Japanese and I about like Zoo City Japan and like what we’re doing. And it kind of introduced Zozulu and public goods. And actually, the guy that is hosting this pop-up city that I’m at right now, he did like a bunch of public goods research. You might know him, Shinya from Fractured Ventures. Well, he was at Fractured Ventures. Now he’s doing his own thing.

36:28BBut yeah, he came by and he was the one that kind of talked to the government for me because my Japanese isn’t that good to like negotiate with the government. And so he explained like, what are public goods and like, why do we want to build this school as like a public goods for Zuzulu and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

39:03AThat’s sick.

39:04BSo yeah, I feel like it was like a pretty good process to go through even though we didn’t get it because we just have like a lot more documentation and information and relationships and whatever. And then there’s a hospital that I’ve now found, an abandoned hospital, which is also in the middle of all my properties. There’s just so much abandoned property, it’s kind of crazy. And it’s probably like a 4,000 square meter, which to Americans, I think that’s about 40,000 square feet. My calculations could be off, but there’s like a 40,000 square foot hospital that is currently abandoned, decommissioned, like right in the middle of my neighborhood. And so that’s kind of like my new major project target. And I’ve kind of been asking around about it to whatever -- I call it information mining. Basically, I’m just like constantly talking to people and I’m like, cool, what else can I learn? It’s been a pretty fun process. So there’s like a lot going on with the larger scale real estate acquisition stuff, but it’s a lot, lot harder because it’s people in power basically, and they don’t like foreigners again.

40:03CYeah.

40:03BAnd also I’m like a new guy in town and they’re like, can we trust you? And I’m like, I’m just trying to vibe out and like do cool stuff and like bring people to your town and like make everything better. But they’re like, you’re just a foreigner and like we don’t know you. And I’m like, okay, I get that. But also it’d be great if I could help you.

40:17AYeah.

40:19BYeah.

40:20AWhat’s it called? So are you at a pop -- you’re at a pop-up city now? Where are you now?

40:24BRight now I’m in Saga. It’s like very far southwest of Japan. And it’s this thing called Koo Village, which they’re actually in 5 days presenting on the ZooZone Town Hall.

40:39AWhat’s that?

40:42BYeah, I don’t know. It’s like a newsletter for Zoosloo. But like in 5 days, they’re gonna be presenting there if you want to find out more. can hear it from the guy himself. But basically, yeah, kind of how I mentioned before, it’s kind of like a Japanese cypherpunk, like self-sovereignty community kind of thing. They don’t like really have a website or public information yet, and it’s usually like a kind of private curated, whatever, select group of people. I think this time it’s only 20 or 30 people that are here or will be here. It’s still like before it starts, it’s like the pre-week.

41:13AMm-hmm.

41:15BThey’re really focused on like Local infrastructure, essentially. Like last time, this guy he set up like a he took an old laptop, Mac laptop, and set up a server, and we like left it there at like the local community hall. And like now there’s just like the server that’s kind of connected to this VPS, VPS, VPN. I think it’s a VPS service. And then now I’m getting like laptops and like buying a bunch of old hardware from the thrift stores here. Well, in Nagano. And then now I want to connect it to like that kind of VPS service. And so we can have like this distributed network of like local computers across Japan that are all kind of like connected together. And last time we like helped build a well and like we built a sauna and all this other stuff. And then this time we’re building a sauna and we’ve kind of just been like farming bamboo shoots because right now it’s kind of like bamboo season, I guess. And what other local things are we doing? We’re just also just kind of like fixing the houses and other things, but we haven’t actually started yet. It’s still the pre-week where we’re like preparing for the event, I guess. Yeah. That’s cool.

42:18AThat’s super cool.

42:19BIt’s pretty fun. It’s pretty chill. Yeah, really enjoying it. Real Japan vibes. You’re just like in the middle of nowhere. It’s just like all forest and it’s great.

42:30AYeah. So has your information mining been primarily in Japanese?

42:34BYeah, it has to be for the most part.

42:36AYeah. That’s what I thought. Yeah, so I’m sure your index has gone up.

42:40BThat’s sick. Yeah, I mean, I only -- the problem is I don’t study, I just practice is what I say. It’s like I’m always just talking to people and like if I don’t know a word or like if I hear a word a couple of times in like a week or something, I’ll be like, okay, and you look up in the dictionary, like I will study from the dictionary. But then whenever I like pull the dictionary, like I ask people about a certain word, they’re like, yeah, we don’t use that, even though that was like the first word that came up. which obviously like dictionary isn’t the best. I guess I kind of -- T-ish a little bit, but not really actually, because again, I don’t really study. Uh, so I mostly just like learn from talking to people and like hearing things and seeing things and I’m like, oh, I’ll reuse that. Um, so I definitely need to have like more of like a cognitive meta structure for acquiring the Japanese language versus just learning on the fly.

43:28AYeah. I think people just appreciate that they know what you’re saying and that you know what they’re saying. I don’t think they really care, but maybe you’re saying you’d learn faster.

43:35BI would learn faster and also I would be more understandable and also understand people more, which right now I think I’ve like -- I definitely understand people a lot now, um, in terms of like being used to hearing the Japanese language and like the structure and the cadence and like whatever. And especially because I talk to like a lot of ojichans, like the old guys Especially like in the bar, that’s like my favorite place to information mine.

44:01AYeah.

44:01BI’ll just like go to a bar and like just talk to people until like 2 AM. And a lot of times, especially in like a rural town like mine, it’s all old guys. And so they have this like very -- it’s not -- it’s an accent, but it’s not like a regional accent. It’s just like how old guys talk, which is like a very distinctive Japanese thing, which they also then layer on like the regional accents on top of that. And then I, I can understand like drunk Ojiichan at 2 o’clock in the morning when I’m drunk. And so I feel like my comprehension level has definitely gone up a lot, but I don’t have a good vocabulary is like the main thing now where like I just don’t know a lot of words. And that’s kind of the main thing, but I can also read and write to an extent. And so being able to do that also helps.

44:44AYeah.

44:44BDamn, that’s good.

44:48AWhat’s it called? Go ahead, Zoh.

44:50CI was just gonna say, I think integrating with the culture sometimes is the best way to learn a language. Uh, yeah, a lot of things you’re saying about Japan I’ve seen in like, uh, in India, because I, I got a chance to go for the first time, uh, back to, you know, my -- the village where my mom grew up. Uh, you know, I haven’t been there in 8 years, but I went a few months ago, and there were just like -- when we were walking around, just like hearing about how many abandoned places there were and different reasons why and some of those things. So there’s a lot of relatability, but I’m just kind of curious on, on where you kind of -- you said you’ve had the 2 pop-up cities. Where do you kind of see it going? What are your plans for like kind of the next few and, and where you want to bring -- what, what do you want to do next? Uh, you bought 3. You said you, you’re kind of planning to hopefully get this hospital space. Like, what do you want to do with it? Like, where do you want to go from there with these events?

45:45BYeah, I mean, I think the ideal situation is keep doing what we’re still doing. It seems to be working pretty well, at least for me. Um, and like, but actual tangible things, um, the goal of Zoo City is like kind of make our own city, but I kind of think making your own city is like very impractical as like a whatever first step. And so we’re kind of sitting on top of an existing city, which is this Comerose City. And so the first step is to kind of create our own neighborhood, and that’s kind of been what I’m targeting. So that’s why all my properties are within like a 5-minute walk of each other.

45:45BIt’s like I kind of wanted to go to this one neighborhood where there’s, I think, at least 20%, if not closer to 50%, of all the houses are abandoned. And so just, yeah, acquiring more land. And it’s like a super dope neighborhood, and the more I research it and like learn about it, the more I’m like, wow, this was like a great thing to like kind of stumble across and just kind of have decided to go, you know, full-on like investing into and just like committing my whole life to. And then the more I learned about it, I was like, oh, that was a good decision, even though I didn’t know any of this before.

45:45BUm, so yeah, the reason why I say that, I guess, is because I, I’m also acquiring this grocery store that’s closing down.

46:59AMm-hmm.

47:00BIt’s still actually currently a grocery store. It’s not quite abandoned yet, but I think it would’ve been abandoned if I didn’t buy it. And so in July, I kind of take that over and we’ll turn it into like a community and event space and vibe space. And that’s right off of this kind of historical street called Hokoku Kaido, which apparently has been around for like hundreds of years. And that’s like the next step is actually creating our own community space where, A, just like coworking, because like again, small town, so there’s like not a lot of places where you can work and like the cafe that’s like my favorite place and where my kind of best friend in town works at or like is a part owner in is closed 2 days a week.

47:00BSo kind of having our own space is like important just from like a work productivity perspective. And then having our own space in terms of like just being our own community and wanting to just like be comfortable and like be in a place where we don’t have to worry about, you know, outsiders and like we can just kind of do whatever we want to and play whatever music we want to and blah, blah, blah. That’s also super important. And so that’s kind of like the next, next step is creating like our community space. And then long-term, long-term, kind of the idea is to create this kind of like Brooklyn 2.0 in Japan.

47:00BAnd so I kind of -- my thesis is that like Japanese culture and like American Black culture are the 2 strongest cultures in the whole world. Like everybody loves them and like it’s always copying off of them and like riffing off of them and whatever. And there’s a lot of Japanese people that like try to be Black and like there’s like a whole Japanese Rasta diaspora. I don’t exactly know how to call it. It’s not quite a community because they kind of exist independently. But when I’m going into like all these different rural areas, I oftentimes run across these Japanese Rastas who have like dreadlocks and like they smoke weed and like do all this like cool stuff.

47:00BAnd then in Tokyo, there’s obviously like this whole whatever, like we’re gangster and like we have braids and whatever kind of whack Japanese people trying to be Black. Um, but never in my life have I really ever seen like Black people try to be Japanese. Like Black people like watch anime and they do this stuff, but how often have you ever seen like 2 Black people speaking in Japanese to each other?

49:07AMm-hmm.

49:07BBut for sure there’s like Japanese guys being like, yo dude, my homie, whatever. Um, so I think it’d be super interesting if we actually have this like very intentional kind of fusion between Black culture and Japanese culture and kind of see all the things that come out of that, whether it’s like food or fashion or music or architecture and design. I think there’s like a really interesting design space between these kind of two cultures.

49:33AYeah.

49:33BAnd so then creating this neighborhood as that kind of cultural innovation hub where me and like, I’m trying to bring a bunch of my friends like that I grew up with from New York and Brooklyn Brooklyn. Um, and then I have like other friends that sure maybe aren’t New York, but they’re still super dope. Um, as a New Yorker being like super like, oh, you’re not from New York, whatever. Uh, and then like bringing them to Japan and like teaching them about Japanese culture. And I guess that’s like one of the things I guess about the pop-up cities, like going back to your other question about like logistics or the hard parts. The hard part was really just like being with foreigners in Japan. I totally understand Japanese racism now, or xenophobia.

50:09AMm-hmm.

50:11BThey actually are just xenophobic. It’s pretty funny. And so I’ve only ever really been with Japanese people in Japan until I try to kind of bring over Zuzulu people. And Zuzulu people are super dope in the global context. But then I was like trying to introduce them to Japan or hang out with them in Japan. And I’m like, man, you guys just like don’t get being Japanese. You’re like doing everything wrong. Like, it’s kind of super annoying hanging out with you guys, even though I’d like love hanging out with you guys. Like, hanging out with you guys in Japan is super annoying because you guys just don’t get it. Or like you aren’t whatever part of it. And so I think really teaching people how to be Japanese is also super important because there’s this whole spirituality and like cultural like mindset that really influences who Japanese people are and like what Japan is that I’m constantly learning more about every day. And the more I learn about it, the more I’m like, man, like this is the right thing for sure. Like there’s no other thing that I can think of that I would want to be or act or think Basically, how would you characterize it?

51:07ALike, I felt you’ve kind of given us like a silhouette, but like, how would you actually characterize like what you’re talking about?

51:13BUh, I think it really is Shintoism. So I’ll put it into a word. Uh, Shintoism is like the whatever indigenous spirituality of Japan, and I’ve been doing some research on Twitter. I’m definitely not an expert, but like apparently Shintoism is like -- you’ve heard of like whatever, uh, judo, right? Like the do in judo. is like the way, the path. And Shinto, Shin is like gods, and so To is like the path. Like, it’s like the way of the gods essentially is what their spirituality is called. And so it’s not like a name. It’s not like Buddhism or Christianity or Islam or like -- it’s just like there are gods and like we believe that everything is a god and like that everything should be appreciated whether it’s like a rock or a plant or a person or like the rain.

51:58ASignify it all.

52:00BYeah, exactly. And then I think like basically everything comes from that and the fact that like they kind of like really respect and like see everything as something that’s worth appreciating no matter like what it is, whether it’s like an animate object or inanimate object or it’s a concept or whatever. I think there’s just like super deep profound appreciation and respect for things and then everything kind of comes from that. So, like, things like -- you can see that in art, for example, like wabi-sabi, if you’ve heard of that, is like this kind of aesthetic, I guess, is the way to put it, where like mal -- it’s not even malformed because, yeah, that’s not wabi-sabi, but there’s like imperfections in things. But again, that’s kind of mal -- like, it’s not a bad thing. Imperfect and like malformed, like, that has like this negative connotation to it, but wabi-sabi is just the recognition that nothing is perfect, right? And like everything like kind of goes in its own way. And so, and we should appreciate those kind of small individualities or whatever that belongs in everything. And that’s kind of like one maybe aspect or like one kind of like tangible visual way to see this kind of Shinto ideology.

53:14AYeah.

53:15COkay, still, yeah, I like it a lot. I think it’s a, it’s a good way to live. It’s a good spirituality-like mentality, right?

53:24BYep, it’s a good way to live. Yeah, that’s the thing, just live your life the best way possible in honor of the universe and everybody else.

53:32AI like that. You know, I, um, I know we’re coming up on the hour. Um, this is Let’s Talk About ETH, and I want to hear, and as short as you want to go, like, what’s your take on where we’re at as an ecosystem when you look at ETH, and are we fulfilling on what you believe this, uh, this network set out to accomplish?

53:48BUm, I guess so. I mean, in terms of being a world computer, I think ETH is definitely the best world computer. Yeah, probably. Uh, and in terms of like whatever, like programmatic money, ETH is -- yeah, definitely is still also the best way to program money. So I think like If you like look at the catchphrases, ETH is definitely accomplishing its mission. In terms of crypto anarchy, I’m not like so sure because we definitely a I guess you could just say pussied out and everyone’s like well we don’t want to get sued and like whatever kind of post DeFi summer it was really NFTs was like the start of the downfall of everything but like everyone’s like well we don’t want to get sued and like so we’re gonna like listen to the regulators and do lobbying instead of just being punk and just saying, tell everyone fuck you and we’re gonna do this.

53:48BAnd then from there you start to get like way more regulation, and it’s more the people that like are asking for regulation and then complying with the regulation, which is exactly not the point of a blockchain. And so then you get the thing now where like, sure, like there’s like Trump Coin, and like basically like if you look at the top 100 cryptocurrencies now, something like half of them are either like real-world assets, tokenized assets, which are just like regulated off-chain things that aren’t even really tokens. You’re like buying someone else’s custody, which is then not your keys, not your coins, right? Or they’re like a stablecoin, or they’re like some corporate token essentially.

53:48BAnd so, and then the rest, maybe like 25%, are like, like pre-existing shitcoins like Ripple and whatever. So I would say in terms of like actual crypto anarchy, I think we’re losing the fight. But that’s why I’m back to the physical world and kind of out of the crypto space. Yeah.

55:35CGreat answer.

55:36AExcellent.

55:36CGreat answer. Yeah, I like that. I like that take.

55:39APlus one. The, the last thing, yeah, I am -- I’ve been doing like video journalism. I don’t know if you’ve seen me. I’ve been trying to be like Channel 5 News but on like, uh, pilot version, I guess. Um, and I’m curious, we’ve, we’ve done like a couple of video journalism bounties on this platform. Pixlr didn’t We’ve given out like a couple hundred dollars. Shout out to Kenny and the platform, um, and had people in different countries going out asking questions. So I’m curious, what’s a question you want to ask people around the world?

56:08BAround the world? I don’t know. I’m kind of not thinking about other people at the moment. What would I want to know about other people? What do I think other people should ask themselves? I guess, why are you here? That’s kind of basic, but I guess so. Yeah, why are you here?

56:33AI like that. I think it’s grounding. You say it’s basic, I say it’s grounding. Let’s center the people. I like that. Okay, I’m taking it back to the drawing board. That’s what I have to say. All right, uh, Zaul, do you have any closing remarks? Or Keeble, you have anything else you want to say? I don’t want to, I don’t want to hold you over the hour too much.

56:52CNo, I’m just super excited to have chatted here. It was great to dive in a little bit more. There’s definitely a lot of parallels with something that, things that you’re doing that I kind of in a more rural area that we’ve, I started to live here in Maine, uh, kind of want to get into. So definitely want to continue chatting. There’s some cool things that you’re, you’re doing and I’m excited to tap in more. So. Uh, thanks, Maceo, for, for bringing Kiba on. And, uh, yeah, it was a pleasure chatting.

57:22BSick. Yeah. Last thing is, if you guys have a recording of this, if you could send it to me, then I can upload it to my YouTube just because I couldn’t get the streaming set up in time.

57:31AYeah. Yeah, definitely.

57:33BSick.

57:33AYeah.

57:34BWell, thanks for inviting me. Super fun. Talk to you guys again soon, maybe. Especially you, Maceo. Yeah.

57:40AYeah, I like that. Definitely.

57:42BI’m good.

57:43CAwesome. Appreciate it. Appreciate anyone who’s