Urbe Unplugged // Mihai Alisie @ AKASHA Core

Transcript

[Music] foreign begins a bit before discovering Bitcoin and due to health problems I was taken to a hospital with my father for physiotherapy this is happening in Romania and back then I found out that this physiotherapy hospital was about to be shut down because of some shady dealings behind the scenes and the owner of the actual property was the where this physiotherapy hospital was the

church and like for me that was such a an outrage that I felt like I have to do something because one of the nurse said that this is going to be shut down soon and I was very frustrated back then and I you know what can I do go outside with the signs no that's not gonna work and after some time I uh I I think after two days I got to the conclusion that my best chance at doing something about this is not actually doing it myself but spreading the information that this is taking place because this was done because people were not aware of what is going on so then I wrote this email where I was basically describing my situation that I was at this hospital

and this is going on and this is a good place in that City and I sent this to all the local news stations that I found all the local blog posts that are the local TV stations radio stations you name it and then the media started going there and asking questions hey are you closing this article why are you what's the plan why the patients that are going to be needed so in time like in about two weeks or so a local politician stood up it's like this is a good thing we have here capitalizing on the public abroad and uh basically he uh he was the the good guy there you know take my shut up and take my vote but the end result was that this Hospital continued to remain open for

another few years until a replacement hospital was built in operation or you know which is the normal way to do it not just shut down and if someone needs it goes to a different city so to me that really made me believe that change is real and it happens it's not only in Hollywood movies and that sometimes even if you feel small you can make a big impact so to me in some ways that's still one of The Proud moments in my life beyond like you know ethereum or getting into this space and by witnessing the power of like just spreading the information out there and people being aware of it uh I think to some way also explains why I was so drawn to start Bitcoin magazine together

with Italy after I discovered Bitcoin in 2011. so in 2011 around like mid 2011 uh it was super hard to kind of get the coherent uh you know like when I first saw it I was like God then this is like you know I called her so Roxanne is like wow check out this is again we use points of videos like what is bitcoin the first decentralized digital currency so uh well it sounded too good to be true so I was trying to just figure out is this for real or just another scam on the internet random internet camp and uh it took me a bit longer than expected to actually oh man this is for real you know I started eating the white paper going Bitcoin talk was like the main

forum and source of information back then and I saw the need for this coherent source of information for people to find out about Bitcoin in this thing that can really change the world so to say it sounds corny but really it does changes and it did change it looking back and that while I was trying to form this opinion about like what's up with this uh some of the Articles uh some of the best articles that I found on this topic were written by bitterly buttery and you know it's like God damn this you know this guy knows what he's talking about I I really like the way he wrote and uh I got in touch with him a bit later uh on like if he would be interested in

doing something like Bitcoin magazine together and you know the rest is it it was very open and then that that started and to us it really gave us a front row seat so to say at witnessing like this explosion of various businesses that you know many of them are no longer around but it did also I think allow us to see a bit like yes it's super big as an innovation but it also has its limitations like everything and uh until 2013 uh with vitrick we also started working on this project called igora like you know an electronic Agora where the idea was kind of like creating this WordPress type thing but for building your own Marketplace and uh it

was interesting because we were using like a Bitcoin multi-seek and trying to do a bunch of things back then but then we got also to the point like okay so we have this platform using crypto but what differentiates us from eBay or something else it's going to be a company there it's like like is it decentralized if it's going to be us so you know talking and there are some articles on Dio daos are not scary written by Victor magazines those were also part of the the conversations and trying to imagine how a new type of company doing this would look like and uh we met in a person after two years of already working together on the internet this was in 2013 and later on so I think it was October November 2013 I received

from him like the first draft of uh what did not have the name back then but of the interior white paper and you know when I read the ethereum and the white paper and the ideas there for me it was like this the the same feeling that I had when I was reading the Bitcoin white paper and convincing myself like God then this is real it's not some from the internet you know I saw like it it was something big and uh you know I immediately oh how can I help and so on and uh in this uh project as one of the poor earliest co-founders that vitalik you know like yeah let's do this I had the tassel to say I was spearheading the finding of the right

jurisdiction so you know people do not get in trouble for just contributing code and people were actually am I going to get in trouble because we are looking still now it's not that great either but back then it was a rather more dark than the gray we have today like blockchains and cryptocurrencies is not only about like the dark market and like what about the children you know now it's you have like Banks doing all sorts of stuff and cbdcs and all of this stuff that back then were not even imaginable to some of the banks and companies that are doing this stuff today and uh after this you know I went uh together with Lorenzo Roxana and a few others in Switzerland and it was a total

shot in the dark you know we were like and treated and worked for this project and you know we were looking at a number of jurisdictions we were looking at Netherlands Germany UK U.S kind of seemed like a bad idea since then so it dodged the bullet there uh Canada was another one I think Singapore was also another one so anyway we looked at a bunch of jurisdictions and I was like okay I'll go we'll see if Switzerland is a good place to do it and we were proactive there trying to outreach also to the local authorities and look we are trying to do this this is going to be like a platform this is going to be like this and they were actually receptive to the idea and they saw the opportunity in this and you know like the idea that was presented and like how I try to convey

this right so like imagine like this being like a crypto value and that's when the meme I coined that and that spread you know I sometimes go in in a coffee shop and so and I hear critical value said by some random at another table without and he was like that's it spread it took off it uh and then it didn't find its home we did that stuff that and you know like uh since uh E3 was like in its earliest Alpha version and you know like fattestness and all of that stuff super early my mind was already racing like wow man think about ideas and what smart contracts what the cool things like social networking and like how you can do all sorts of stuff but for the developers that were still

kind of trying to get the early test I was like into this yeah it's gonna remind me one year later you know so it was maybe frustrating for them but it was also frustrating for me because we were not able to do this for another year so anyway like in 2015 after the ethereum blockchain was uh successfully launched and we had the Genesis uh that's when I you know considered in a way my duty as a literary co-founder for field the project was now live and you know to a certain extent for me like I think this was one of the most critical periods in the ethereum history because the ethereum chain was not up and running

and if there would have been something uh bad to I know someone like personal Victory or The Regulators would come and say whoa whoa whoa whoa what are you doing here you know like Libra try to do with DM or whatever they try to Rebrand or Novi and they had like three names or something uh and so we managed to get it out so it's like the the paste is out of the tube you know so it's like hard to put it back and uh for me like the especially in the networking ads and Akasha as a project was something that I really uh thought that you know we have now these new technologies at our fingertips and we still have like these

old problems that the world does work so to say and in the beginning this problem of like freedom of expression and censorship online was what are the biggest problems that we can now maybe solve or try to solve with this new technologies and this was the one that okay let's give it a try and uh since 2015 and officially announced on 2016 May 3rd WordPress Freedom Day uh we find ourselves continuing working on this vision and today was super cool to talk about what we are about to release now as a framework for people to build their own social platforms for their communities customizing their needs um and yeah for for me it was an incredible journey but I will say that

even if we talked a lot about technology uh I think maybe the thing that I treasured the most from this uh Journey are the people that I've met along the way and you know there are before stumbling into ethereum uh and you know like with People magazine and so on uh sometimes I had the feeling that I'm alone you know like here it goes that guy talking about Bitcoin herself rolling guys you know it's like you need also to find your people with which you can talk about the things that you're passionate about and within the ethereum community and like the way the meetups were organized and like even this event this Spirit of knowledge sharing and I know this

friendliness that you feel it's dead you know I was just looking at the it's it's magic it's hard to to put in words so what are the main challenges uh when it comes to decentralized social networks and why do I find it relevant and what draws me into it um so back in 2015 2016 I like social media in general was maybe not as turbulent as it is today so I think looking at this problem with the knowledge of what today was you know I think it's even more relevant and sometimes you know when you start the project for these years and especially in this space it's so easy to get lost because there are so many shiny

things that you can go after uh but in our case with Akasha from rather you know it was complex but in essence it was a simple idea about this communication you know and like borderless communication without The Gatekeepers that decide what can be communicated and what not continue to grow year by year in terms of like relevance seeing how the social media landscape changes it to today where you have this situation with the well I'm not sure if he's the richest man but at the time of the purchase of Twitter he had the richest person of the the world having this platform part like people are wondering is this good door

is this bad so I know like months after this takeover it's clearly a bad thing I mean in my opinion I might be subjective But ultimately it's it highlights how bad of a position we find ourselves when we are as a civilization as a society in the position where our freedom of expression and Collective memory as a society as an information-based Society is outsourcing the hands of a few corporations and especially when the these corporations are basically at the feet of one person you know you have like this uh I don't know Elon Musk as one example but you also have Mark Zuckerberg which is still the majority shareholder Ford Field what meta what is Facebook it's Facebook it's Instagram

it's uh What uh it's so many things you know the Kraken has many many legs so I think to some extent for me yeah uh social networking and also drawing a parallel with the initial story with like you know seeing that having people aware or making people aware of some of the problems that are important to them leads to change because they take action you know like in that case people were getting uproar you saw comments you saw people starting to ask questions uh you know things happen or things change when people care enough about them if they don't know about they don't care because they don't know so I think today we find ourselves in a similar situation with the state of social media and more

people caring about this thing because they you know maybe they worked in some way years to build that follower based on Twitter and how they just find themselves with their account deleted after 30 days because they did not sign up because the Pelon changed that without even saying anything to anyone two days ago so I think this type of uh was the under your feet when you consider the place where you talk with your people and your community as a public space and you find yourself that that wasn't actually a public space share the thing it's a very bad situation and to me uh I think humans in general are social creatures right I

mean we are smart as individuals but I think our strength comes when we come together and when you have powers and people that can't stand in the way of you getting together for whatever reason and you know I'm just gonna make a mentioned here that even Facebook and Twitter were used to organize protest revolutions take down regimes change initiate change the same tool that was initially saw in Harold as yes the power of the internet original the home of mind and the wary Giants of Steel are not welcome here what happened after give me the list of all the people that went at the protest all the people that

posted something against me and the tool that was initially envisioned that the tool that brings freedom and empowerment to people was turned against them and they got into trouble you know so I think that's not a good position to be in and I hope we with Akasha and I will say that all the projects in this space and blockchains and should focus on this uh bigger idea that it's not a competition Among Us it's in a way a competition with the establishment and the centralized powers that are continuing to do the same things that they've done for thousands of years and I hope now with these convergence of Technologies uh you know from like

Governors and imagining in ways in which you can organize resources distribute vote on them and all of this stuff will allow us it's almost like we don't realize but it's almost like we are building these puzzle pieces that allows us to you know come up with new ways of organizing and new societies so beyond just like you know sharing that photo or that Meme and so on I think the hidden part of the iceberg will be even more impactful because we now find ourselves in a situation where transitioning from web tool to web 3 where in web 2 it was this interactive stuff and you were able to uh you know move information and interactions at the

speed of light now we have also the ability to move resources at the speed of light and organize Collective actions in ways that are empowering communities to take a stand when it comes to like the important stuff not just the meat it can be an important meme also but and for me that's you know what I I think motivates to continue to do this and I find it like increasing in uh importance especially in the last few years