Fireside with Tim Draper and Da Hongfei | Neo x DraperU Launchpad

I'm a proud limited partner of Draper Dragon Digital Asset Fund too.

Oh, good. Oh, oh, that was a— that, that I think is going to work out all right.

They, uh, yeah, yeah, they're doing all sorts of great things.

And the video for us, Sophia, I think we're on. Yeah, I think we're now live.

Yeah.

So now we are live. Hello everyone, thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Lily Zhao, I'm the director at NIO Global Development. Today I have the great honor to moderate this panel with the 2 legends, Tim Draper and Da Hongfei. So both are pioneers in their respective fields, and Tim's name is synonymous with the great American VC success, and Da's name is synonymous with the open-source blockchain innovation in China. So good morning, Tim.

Good morning. How are you?

Good morning, everyone.

And good evening, Da. So Tim, you are in California, right?

I'm in California. Where where are each of you, Da? Are you in China?

Yes, I'm in. I'm in Shanghai.

Oh, oh! Are you locked down?

No, not. I've never been locked down in Shanghai. Actually, I escaped from the lockdown. I visited other cities in China.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's great.

And I'm based.

Unfortunately, a lot of my colleagues. They have to stay at home for around— for a little more than 2 months.

Oh boy. Yeah, that would be very difficult.

That's a very unique experience.

Yeah.

And which I don't want to experience anytime soon.

No, ever.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I'm based in Zurich. Greetings from Zurich. And if Tim Ever visit Switzerland and do let me know, or to Shanghai. And now the lockdown is over, so—

Terrific.

Yeah, so these 2 do not need further introduction, so let's dive straight in. My very first question for you both is, who is Tim and Dan as a person? The public knows you as the iconic entrepreneurs with a global impact. So I'm curious, and as a person, what makes you tick? And what do you do for pleasure when you're not working? And how do you unwind and relax after a long working day? So let's start with Tim. Your day is so fresh.

Yeah, good. Well, um, I have, um, I just, I like working. And I think that's what keeps me going. I, and I had early success. I mean, it didn't look too good at the very beginning, but then I had some early success. And I think that gave me the confidence to keep pushing, pushing, pushing.

Yeah.

And then we started to have an impact that really did change communications in the world when we funded Hotmail. And that viral marketing that I came up with spread all over the world and made it so products could be spread everywhere. So I kind of felt like that empowered me to keep going and going and going and going. And I realized that— It can be pretty overwhelming.

Yeah.

If you don't balance your life a little bit, but I balance mine with my family. And in the summer and just before Christmas time, I usually paint. I will paint one thing in the summer and one thing Just before Christmas. So, uh, so those are— yeah, I don't know if anybody cares, anybody wants them, but people get them. They get my paintings.

Like, actually, it's not NFT.

Yes.

No, we have an NFT. Oh yeah, one, one of them, 2 of them are NFT. One's going up for auction, um, from this, the art I think it's art.com. Anyway, they're putting it up for auction, and that's going to go up in September. So yeah, it's a good one. It's fun. It's Bitcoin. It's 6 Californias. It says decentralize everything.

Okay, brilliant. Looking forward to seeing it in September. I cannot paint to save my life. So now you said painting, I really hope to see more painting from you, Tim.

Thank you. And we're talking about— while Dodd talks, I'll show you kind of what it looks like. Let's see. That's the Bitcoin part.

Yeah.

That, that's the Chinese part. They need to decentralize China. And then there's the American part. They need to decentralize America.

Yeah, yeah.

And there's the California part where I broke it into 6 pieces.

6 or 3?

Those 4 together and it's one big piece of art.

Ah, that's really beautiful. It's, it's not just meaningful but also visually beautiful. Thank you for sharing. And Da?

Yeah, that's a very— it's some real artwork from Tim. And last time I penned is in my primary school. I think I'm like— my lifestyle is like ordinary urban people in China. Besides work, I do enjoy my life. I like food, both from Michelin-star restaurant and also hawker stall. And I also like sports. I used to watch every event of UFC on TV or pay-per-view, but I didn't chase their events lately. For quite a while. And I also do sports. I enjoy wake surfing. I went to gym, and recently I also do frisbee, and it's really funny. So I'll say I have a lifestyle of a typical man in their 40s, maybe minus 5 or 8. Well, I tried. I managed to minus 5 or 8. Yeah, yeah, a little bit lagging.

Yeah, yeah. So yes, it's always, you know, sports is always a good way to, you know, to keep ourselves relaxed and also healthy. Now, living in Switzerland, I don't even dare to say I'm sporty because here everyone is just, you know, the Swiss are very sporty.

Yeah, I also enjoy traveling, especially before the pandemic. I haven't been able to traveling overseas since the pandemic, except once. And the quarantine when I back to mainland China is really exhausting. Yeah.

So I— Yeah, I miss going to China. I've traveled a lot of other places, but I miss a lot going to China. I kind of wish the entrepreneurial spirit would come back China. I feel like it's been lost to this new government.

Yeah, I hope the whole situation will resolve soon. And I know, Tim, you invested in— you are a very early investor in Baidu, and he believes in Chinese entrepreneurs. I really appreciate that.

I loved going to China. Chinese During that entrepreneurial streak, I was the first Silicon Valley venture capitalist to discover Chinese entrepreneurs, and I think it really paid off. Baidu, Focus Media, and I could have backed Alibaba, and I could have backed Tencent, but I just didn't. I didn't bond with them as well as I should have. I think my Chinese was not as good and their English was not as good and I had a little difficulty. Rob and Lee spoke perfect English and that helped.

So one advice from Tim, yeah, for Chinese entrepreneurs, learn English.

Yeah, there's lots of unicorn opportunities still in China. So very good. And this week, you know, we are really excited to kick off this Draper University and NEO Launchpad programs to accelerate the NEO eco projects. So in this program, we have around 15 innovative startups. And to all the startup founders, what top advice would you give them in order to succeed? And what in your view is the most common reason startups fail and what can be done to prevent that? So let's start with Tim. This is more your area of expertise.

So here's what I've seen. Here's what I'll tell you a little bit more, maybe what we look for, which might help the entrepreneurs think about their own business. Since we're seed investors, we look for anything that I say to myself when the entrepreneur pitches me, I say to myself, could I start this business? And if the answer is yes, I won't fund it. I'm looking for a business that cannot be easily started, but that an entrepreneur is Completely, it's like it was meant to be. It's like they found their place in life. It has to have that kind of a feeling to it. So if you are starting a business and you don't feel like you found your place in life, rethink it, think it over. Because starting business is hard and I'm going to tell you that now because getting money is getting harder and harder and harder.

Yeah.

So you are going to go through a very difficult time. You have to totally love what you're doing. And then if you really love what you're doing and you, like, you can't help yourself from doing it, then you're on the right track. And you— and then the other thing is when you start the business, they don't always take off quickly. In fact, some of the best companies will go 15 years before they, they turn the corner and start up. So you, you have to really keep your head down. My son says, be the cockroach. The cockroach never dies. You have to be the cockroach and just keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. And then if you do, people will eventually recognize your genius. And so that I think might be the best advice today. In the middle of the boom time, you know, there was a, you know, there you could have started almost anything and gotten funding. But today I think it's going to be very difficult. So you got to know that what you're doing is the right thing. And we like to look for if you can get into an industry where the current incumbents are monopolies or oligopolies and they're providing bad service at a high cost. If you can find that kind of an industry, then going in there and getting a wedge into that industry is probably a good place to be. And I'll give you a few examples. Banking.

Hmm.

Bitcoin came in after banking, uh, was, was providing bad service at a high cost, and they had that big, um, crash in the financial market. Um, DAO came in with smart contracts. I think the legal, the legal world needs complete transformation, so NEO is going to be very good for that. Um, the drug business, those guys, it's an oligopoly and they provide the worst service at the highest cost. Um, you know, even in the U.S., this was the first year, or last year was the first year our longevity went down. First year. And I, I would give that, uh, I would blame the, uh, the drug companies for that. I think insurance companies need transforming. And so I think we're going to have great— if your business is going after one of those industries in some way, just getting a wedge into those industries, I think you've got a pretty good shot at being a unicorn.

Thank you for sharing this. As you mentioned, these incumbents, it's very hard for startups to compete with them, especially in the beginning. And now with technology, decentralized technologies, and that would help to scale the costs. And so let's really hope that, you know, the startups will, will have a chance to compete with these incumbents, you know, their services offered at less than, you know, desires at higher costs. So, Da, you want to comment on this?

Yeah, I think I can give some advice to the crypto entrepreneurs. And there's one very important advice I'd like to give, which is please attach great attention to cybersecurity. What sets crypto business apart from traditional business is that if you got hacked, if your token got stolen, in a great chance, the police, the FBI will not help you, and the asset of your company, of your customers, will be lost. So, um, Hire developers with a good security sense. Educate your existing developers and your operation team. And second, you need to do a full audit before you launch your product. And please find an audit company with good reputation, not some, some company that you just pay them, they write an audit report for you. And certainly, um, you should, you should not rush. You should give some time to your smart contract, your product, and start small. Do not accept too much money before your smart contract get published, be tested in the open market. So these are advices I'd like to give to the crypto entrepreneurs.

Thank you very much for sharing this. This is really valuable and it also reflects NEO's approach. We have always placed security development first. So now, you know, in our joint program, we have 15 innovative startups. And so this is a great piece of advice for them. And in terms, back to this, our joint program, that was the driver behind NIO's offering this learning opportunity to the eco-projects. And also, Tim, in terms of this joint program, as compared to Draper University's other programs? You know, what's the main differentiator? And ultimately, what outcomes do you both hope to achieve offering this program to the eco projects?

Neo, you go ahead.

Okay, I think the short answer is The time has come.

Yeah.

We've, we've, we had been building the new version of NEO, which is called NEO N3, for a couple of years. And we launched the mainnet of N3 last year in August. So it's almost 1 year since the mainnet launched. And I After 1 year, we are confident to say that new N3 is really secure and it's stable. And we've finished all the functionalities we've written in the white paper. And also we have a fully functional set of toolchains for the developers to use. So we think it's time to do some introduce to the market, to let the developers know that there is a new breed of smart contract platform that is completely different from Ethereum, and for them to learn the new smart contract system and to build on top of new.

What are a few of the things that are new in N3 that the developers should be aware of?

Yeah, we have a lot of new features, including a built-in oracle. So oracle is a module that can communicate with outside of the NEO blockchain itself. It can exchange information between conventional website, let's call it Web2 applications, with Web3 applications. So basically it connects the traditional internet to the Web3 internet. So that's, that's one feature. And we also have a built-in decentralized storage for NEO, so developers can store their NFT image video, maybe a scan of the artwork in a decentralized way. They do not need to learn how to use IPFS or other solutions. They can do it just all in one.

Terrific. So at Draper University, We train heroes. And I think groups like Neo team up with us because they know that we have had great success with training heroes. Entrepreneurs need more than just to know how to do a pitch or How to— how a Series A financing works and all the blocking and tackling of a financial business. Entrepreneurs need to know that they've got to be resilient, that they have to love their customer, that they have to be willing to try things that That might be embarrassing. They need to think about and imagine a world and then lead the world to it. And that is not an easy task. And so we create heroes and we do very unusual— we have very unusual curriculum usually in the hero training. And we always seem to have, no matter what, whether it's hero training or a Neo class or a class with Koreans or whatever it is, we always put our spin on it and put the spirit of entrepreneurship in people and get them to Have a willingness to try things. We say, I will fail and fail again until I succeed. And that puts into people's heads, hey, this isn't going to be easy. We are going to probably fail the first couple of times and eventually we'll get there. But we're going to try whatever it takes. And that's, I think that's— Basically what we're trying to put into people's heads. We, we like to take the people through what is the problem you're solving, or what is the problem you really care about? How are you going to solve that problem? What's your product or service going to do for that problem? And then how do you make money with that product or service? Because nobody does anybody favors if they don't make money. And then how do you distribute that product or service? How do you get the world to care about it? We take them through that thinking and then we take them through this like physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual voyage. And so that's why Draper University is so unique. We now have 8 8 unicorns that have come out of Draper University, and we're only 10 years old.

Fantastic, thank you very much for sharing. So, you know, what we see, you know, often the case for tech projects, they have really strong technical competence, but in terms of the business and commercial awareness, that's where we need to provide further support. And, and that's, that's what way— what we are, you know, uh, really, um, you know, what NEO can provide is a lot of technical resources and competence. Now we also providing this, uh, business and commercial aspect. So speaking of entrepreneurship in the blockchain space in particular, do you both see, um, whether there are any success factors that that are unique to Web3 entrepreneurs, Web3 startups as compared to Web2 ones?

Dai, you wanna take that first?

Yeah, I'll go first. Yeah. I think sometimes people will be confused by the word Web3. It seems like Web2 is the next version of Web1 and Web3 is the next version of Web2, but they are different. They're really completely different things. My understanding of Web 1.0 is it's the original form of internet. It's an information portal. It's one way the website delivers information to the reader, to the consumer. And Web 2.0 is the platform, the marketplace where creators and consumers are organized in a, in a big marketplace by the, by the owner of the, by the company, internet company behind the platform. And, um, regarding to Web3, it's doing both Web1 and Web2 but in a decentralized way, um, in a, um, um, how to say, revolutionized protocol which use a token as the governance stake instead of relying on the, the law, the business law of certain jurisdiction. Because Web1 and Web2 are built within certain jurisdiction and in their framework of a legal framework, but Web3 Web3 is building above all the legal framework. It is organized, governed by the token, by the law of code itself. So to be a Web3 entrepreneur, you have to be more than a traditional conventional entrepreneur. You have to be more than a businessman. You have to be more than a good engineer. You need to be a visionary. You need to think out of the box. You, you need to believe the power of decentralization. And sometimes, because it is so different— Web3 is so different from conventional business model— sometimes you even have to be like a rebel, a deviant. You need to be really unorthodox.

Thank you very much, Da, for the sharing. Tim?

I like Da's description of Web3. It's because some people call Web3, they're really just thinking of VR or AR. They aren't thinking of the decentralized part of it. And so it's very— it's a confusing and difficult concept to think Web3. Web3 could mean whatever happens over the next 5 years, and then there'll be Web4, but we won't— it'll be something entirely different. I think Da hit on the strongest point, which is decentralization. You saw my painting at the beginning of this session. It says decentralize everything. I have a t-shirt that says decentralize everything. And for people to really understand decentralization, they have to realize how bad centralization is. And the way you think about— you can think about centralization is Putin in Russia has centralized power. He—I mean, the Russians didn't want to go to war with Ukraine. He just decided they were going to go to war with Ukraine, so they went to war with Ukraine. The Ukrainians didn't want war, but that was centralized control. When you have centralized control, bad decisions get made. And you know, I hate to pick on China, but. But President Xi has done the same thing. He has centralized control instead of decentralizing control. And he made some very bad decisions. I mean, the idea of the lockdown, you know, that was not healthy. The idea of the— I mean, it shut down supply chains for millions of people. I think more people are going to die from that than from the disease. I think his decision to ban cryptocurrencies, I think, was not a healthy decision because cryptocurrencies are going to be the future. They're going to dominate the future. So I think centralized control is not healthy. Well, what we have now is we have this new decentralization technology. The blockchain is decentralized. So you will— that allows currencies to be decentralized. It allows assets and the, um, and the records of assets to be decentralized. It allows contracts to be decentralized, and it allows people to make decentralized decisions. So it's much more like a democracy Um, I, I'm not sure what the word is going to be because it's like if you have a lot of Neo, you'll have more influence. Um, if you have a little Neo, you'll have a little influence, but all of the people who have Neo will have influence on how Neo evolves, and I think that's incredibly healthy. And I think it's going to be amazing because I don't think it's just going to be currencies or assets or whatever that gets transformed at banking. I think you're going to see the transformation of how we do business, how we do contracts, so many things because the records are going to be kept perfectly. They're going to be decentralized so nobody can mess with it. And that's going to be a much better world. And that's why these centralized governments are freaking out because they're losing control over their people. But what they don't understand is the freer their people, the better their people. If you create freedom and trust in a country, that country thrives. It becomes a huge success. And if you have command and control at the top, that's bad for people. So I believe in this decentralization well beyond just the idea that it can do a few new things.

Right.

I believe in it as like an anthropological leap where humans are going to take a leap, great leap forward with decentralization. Suddenly we're going to have trust throughout the system. We're going to have freedom around the world, geographic borders between us. Look, we're— you're in Geneva and you're in Shanghai and I'm in California. Um, I don't feel that there's any, um, separation between us. I don't see any reason for geographic borders keeping us from communicating with each other. And I think that, that, you know, if you want to nail down what decentralization does, it connects the entire world.

Mm-hmm.

And I think the internet was the first part of that because we were able to communicate wherever we were for free across borders. And those geographic borders meant less and less and less. They were dissolving in front of us. And it was just when Bitcoin showed up and we had a currency that was also borderless that some of these centralized control governments started to get nervous. And the US is actually kind of trying to balance this. They're sort of centralized and sort of decentralized. And I think they've got to go back to being a free country. and decentralized. And if they do, they'll be able to benefit from all this. But if they don't, you know, I met with the people who work with the president of El Salvador, and he's decided to make cryptocurrency a major part of his country. And I was jealous of that country because they are so far ahead of the other countries in the way their consumers are thinking that they're gonna be able to innovate well beyond what is happening in China or the US because China and the US have all these regulations. I think we've got a really interesting opportunity and the world is gonna go through a major overhaul and people really need to get on board and say, hey, this is gonna be great. And so I'm excited that we've got 15 NEOs. Startups out there doing different things because they're going to help decentralize the world. They're going to make smart contracts smarter. They're going to do some great. So I'm glad you're out there.

Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Let me let me add a few things. I don't necessarily agree with every everything you you you just said, especially the Chinese policy part. But I do agree. That decentralized— decentralization will be a, let's say, a leap of faith for the human being. And we are shifting from the traditional ways to organize the society, to collaborate, to a new kind of model we've never seen before. And it will bring a tremendous change to the human society.

Yeah, you know, the best way for me to think about it is Korea. Korea was separated from North and South Korea. The North Koreans had government control and the people all had to do exactly what the government said, and they operated on a Marxist communist socialist Policy, and then South Korea was was a free, open society. It had it was a democracy. It was a free market. It was a capitalistic system, and and we've had that experiment for seventy years, and now seventy years later, the average South Korean makes four hundred and sixty. times what the average North Korean makes. And the average South Korean is now 4 inches taller than the average North Korean. I think that's pretty good, a pretty good experiment that's been pretty controlled between people who were the same. And they basically decided, I mean, if If that's not a clear picture for people that capitalism, freedom, decentralization, and trust are important, you know, I think that they need to go visit North Korea and get their lunch of 24 grains of kernels of corn. That's what the government doles out. They count out 24 grains of corn and they say, here's your lunch. I think you want a free country and China has seen the freedom and thrived in it. And the Chinese clearly, there were some amazing, great entrepreneurs in China. And now I think they've got too much government control and they need to lighten up.

Yeah.

And in the US too, by the way, US is totally government controlled. They're starting to tell us what we can say. They're telling us they're stopping startups before they start, and they're using 80-year-old laws to try to regulate the crypto world. And I think the US is making a series of bad mistakes there too.

Decentralization is, you know, it's definitely a technical enabler. But there are so many human elements in it. For the technology to really trickle down in every sector, it really takes time. It's probably a very incremental journey. This is super interesting, but let's move on to our startups. Now I really want to take this opportunity to ask more questions for the startups. For You know, we're now in a bear market, and for the startups and for the entrepreneurs, developers building in such a phase, what advice would you give to them?

Dai, you want to start?

Yeah. I think first of all, the entrepreneur should strengthen their belief. They have to believe what they do. They have to believe in crypto, in decentralization. If they have any doubts, they should talk to they should talk to people in this industry and to to really find out what what's what's their doubt and to iron things out. So first of all, there is belief, and second is, um, they should build instead of talk. I saw many crypto startups, they attend a lot of conferences, meetings, um, seminars. I think it's a, it's a good time for them to, to settle down, to Um, to really build this, the things they, they described in their white paper. Um, and, uh, sir, and third, um, I think they should, uh, they should get fund— get funding as soon as possible, uh, instead of waiting for a higher valuation. Um, time is money, but sometimes Money is also time. They should get money very get money soon, and only well-funded projects teams can survive the winter of crypto.

Yeah, I would I would agree with Da on all of that. I would also say. Create a love for your customer. Really emotionally attach yourself to your customer and figure out who that customer is and what they're getting out of it. I ran into so many cryptocurrency companies, so many ICO opportunities that I turned down. Probably was wrong in many cases. But the reason I turned them down was they showed how they were going to raise the money in their ICO, but then they never told me how an end customer— why an end customer would want to buy into their currency, why they would want to use their currency. And that was a really important question that I was asking them. And I think That they, they really have to, I mean, all of you entrepreneurs out there that are listening, I think you should really pay attention to who it is that's going to be buying your service and what they're going to be doing with it and how you can make their life better. Whether you make it much easier for them or it happens automatically in the background. Or whatever. It is a— the best entrepreneurs in the world, Robin Li, you know, the Nicholas Zennström at Skype, the Elon Musk, all of them showed a real love for customers. And they really said, you know, I remember Nicholas Zennström saying, well, we are going to delight our customers. And Robin Li used the exact same word. We're going to delight our customers. And Elon said, you know, inside of him was, I'm not only going to delight my customers, but I am going to save the world with my products. And I think that if you feel that way, I can come, I can save the world with this product, or this product is going to really make a big impact, then you care. You will care about it a lot. And I think that's how you, you know, the difference between a unicorn and a trillion-dollar company is, is the idea that you're going to go in there and you're going to save the world.

Thank you both.

You won't sleep. Elon won't sleep until he's done everything he needs to do.

That's great insight and advice for entrepreneurs. So, you know, believe in your vision regardless of, you know, boom or bear market. Believe in that. And this really also reflects in NIO's vision and approach. And then focus on your customers and then change the world. So really great tips. Now our time is running out, and one more question, last question. So now looking into the future, what do you think, when do you think mass adoption will happen? Mass adoption of blockchain technology and digital assets. I know no one is talking about mass adoption in the bear market, but for believers, whether it's bear market or bull market, and we are actively working towards that. And another question is, how does mass adoption look like to you, you know, seen from different angles? So, Da, do you want to start first?

Yeah, I'll go first. I remember, Tim, I remember you predicted that Bitcoin will will pass $10,000 before 2017. And you predicted in 2014, and it did exactly in 2017. And you also predicted Bitcoin will hit how much? $250,000 in 2023.

Yeah, either the end of this year or early next year. That's my prediction.

Okay, so we are around a year away. Yeah, let's let's wait and see. But we are in a bear market now. I don't have I I don't have a crystal ball, but I know I I just checked before this before this seminar that U.S., EU, and China is three of the biggest. Economic area in the world, and each of them represent around 16% of the global GDP in a purchasing power standard. So I think if crypto becomes mainstream, I think it yet have list represent, let's say, five percent of the global total GDP. So that will be around five trillion because it is around one hundred trillion US dollars last year. So the crypto, the the economic output of crypto industry will be around. $5 trillion. And today the total market cap of crypto is just around $1 trillion. So we have a long, long way to go. If I have to guess, I would say it will take at least 5 to 10 years for crypto to become mainstream.

So, um, yeah, that's probably about right. The things that, um, that I'm thinking about are, um, are a couple of things. One is that, um, women used to be only 1 out of every 14 Bitcoin wallets, and now it's about 1 out of every 6. And women control 80% of retail spending. And when retailers realize with things like OpenNode and Lightning Network, when they start realizing that they can— when the retailers start realizing that they can save 2% every time somebody swipes a credit card, that 2% goes straight to their bottom line, they're going to all want to accept Bitcoin, maybe NEO and others. And I think that that moment will happen. And then when the consumer realizes that they can buy their food, their clothing, and their shelter all in Bitcoin, people aren't going to want to hold on to fiat currencies. And I think if it hits 5%, It's going to hit 95%, and people will bail out on their currencies super fast. They're going to be getting rid of their dollars and their renminbi and their naira and their pesos as fast as they possibly can and buying into Bitcoin and other cryptos because they're just better currencies. The cryptocurrencies are just And that will happen super fast, but it has to hit its inflection point. And I think that inflection point is coming, and it really is relying on, you know, great engineers like Da and his team and other great engineers who are building out the entire economic system. Once it's built out, it's easier to pay in Bitcoin and you save money in paying in Bitcoin, everybody's going to use Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. So I feel like it's coming. And usually the investor leads the consumer by about 6 months. And so I think the investor will see it fairly soon. You know, maybe 6 months, maybe a year from now. And the consumer will see it about 2 years from now. And then, uh, and then it'll be— you're not going to want to hold on to any of your, your fiat currency because it, it will disappear in value. It'll be like the Confederate money after the, the war, or, or the, uh, Greek drachma after they went to the euro. Or, or the— in India where they had to run on the currency recently. I, I think it'll be a very different world. So that's exciting. And I think it's going to be, um, it's going to be really, uh— I think once Bitcoin goes through, goes to $250,000, I think it's going to go blowing through it. And I think other cryptocurrencies are going to do very well, particularly the ones like NEO that have great support, good engineering behind them, good technology, good security, uh, and, and people have great confidence in them. So I, I always talk about trust and freedom. They're both two sides of the same coin according to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, this guru who has 500 million followers. Trust freedom. You can't have freedom without trust. You can't have trust without freedom. Um, but if you build trust into a great cryptocurrency, people will follow. This is going to be a really exciting time.

Thank you so much. Yeah.

Great being on your show. Thank you. And to you entrepreneurs, go get them. Take chances. Do great things. And do things that you didn't think were possible but might take a little longer. Always worth it to think 5, 10, 15 years out because that 5, 10, or 15 years comes faster than you think.

Thank you so much, Tim and Da, for this sharing, insightful sharing, and especially on the last point, on a positive note. Yes, we're living in very exciting times, and now looking forward to, you know, what's happening in the next couple of years. And we are running out of time. Thank you so much, and we still have some questions from the audience, so please stay just for for a few more minutes. And, uh, let's check the questions, team. I saw some. Yes, yes. So we have Alex Walker, a question for Da. Are you going to be doing more public talks now that, in your view, NEO technically is ready? Uh, what are your plans to spread the word of NEO further than existing NEO Yeah, that's a, that's a very good question.

I'm not locked down in Shanghai, but the pandemic just prevented me from traveling globally. But I intend to spend most of my second half of this year outside of China. Maybe in some in Singapore, U.S., and probably Dubai to to to be more able to connect directly connect with the crypto community. So yes, so the answer is yes. I'm ready to to show up more for new and also new is is not just ready. It is I'll say it is quite mature. Because we have been running the N3 version for a year and it's very well polished.

Thank you. Next question from Dylan. I would be curious to learn if Draper University offers different type of support or help to blockchain projects versus other tech products that go through the university. So, Tim?

Yeah, each time we run a class, it's different because, as you know, technology moves forward. And, and it was back in, I think, 20— I think we started the university in 2013, and in our first class, all we were talking about was Bitcoin. And other universities took about 5 years to figure it out. We are always evolving. So each time we have a new class, it's going to be a little different. Each time we, we bring in another cryptocurrency, it's going to be a little different. And so we do evolve our classes. So it doesn't— One thing is very clear. We do not have anything that's standard except the pledge. Our Draper University pledge stays the same all the way through. But the rest of it is— will evolve. And so you'll hopefully pick up some very interesting pieces as you go. And maybe pick up some real human personal resilience as you go through. But I can't be sure exactly what it is you will learn.

Yeah, so very adaptable to the market needs and development. Yeah, and yes, we have time for maybe one more question. Is there a plan to incentivize these NEO eco projects to interact with NeoVerse to give holders some perks? That's from Neo Dashboard.

Yeah, I think this question is for me. Yeah, the answer is yes. We have a fund called Neo Eco Fund, or in short, it's called Neo Eco. Neo Eco will be funding projects, not just metaverse or NFT projects, but all sorts of projects which are beneficial to Neo ecosystem. They don't necessarily need to be building or solely building on of Neo. As long as they're beneficial to Neo ecosystem, the Neo Eco Fund will be, will be pleasure to fund them. And also metaverse will be a— will play a very important role in the future of Neo. So if you have some project that are beneficial to Neo ecosystem, especially in the metaverse, sector, please contact us. Visit new.org and you will find all the contact information of New Eco Fund.

Yeah, great. Maybe there's some co-investment opportunities with Draper Ventures.

And also, if you have a blockchain or crypto project that is not related to New, please go to Tim, go to Sure, yeah, I'm Tim at draper.vc.

So if you need— if you've got a really interesting project, please send it to me. We'd be happy to look for funding.

Yeah, excellent. On this very positive note, we have to conclude this really enjoyable and insightful chat. Thank you so much, Tim and Da, for sharing your insights and wisdom for your time. And also thank you everyone who joined us online, and thank you very much. Hope to see you guys all next time. As mentioned, if you have any questions regarding Neil or Draper University, please join our respective community and ask your questions, and we'd love to see you all, uh, interact on this. So thank you also for the organizers for making this happened, uh, our teams, uh, behind the scenes. Thank you, everyone.

Terrific. Nice. Thank you, Lily. And Lily, good job.

Yeah, thank you. You strengthened my belief.