Unlocking Freedom: Bitcoin, Psychedelics, BCIs & Longevity - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2024

amazing amazing amazing thank you guys all for coming here I feel like the last panel went a little bit overboard um so you know there's a quite a few people kind of Shifting in and out so we'll make the most of the time that we kind of have Christian thank you so much for being here thanks for having me when people look at this kind of title they think a lot of things right how is Bitcoin psychedelics bcis longevity how are these all interrelated well like when we talked about it like it's first of all it's like what I'm investing in but like people always ask like what sort of the common denominator and when I look at Bitcoin I think most people here in the audience hopefully will agree that um Bitcoin is kind of a a way freedom in many ways but one big thing is freedom of governments like I think we all uh Libertarians uh at our core and if you look for example for psychedelics and by the way the disc claimer is like it's all about medical use so background is um um I'm working on and I had the idea 10 years ago to bring so-called psychedelics like magic mushrooms LSD DMT which is Cally called iasa back into the medical world so we're not talking about recreational use that's the disclaimer in Singapore but as medical treatment for mental health issues but if you look at them for a broader audience in the potential future once they medically approved again what they really give you is also Freedom mostly from your ego so one of the way psychedelics work while you have a session colloquially called a trip your ego which is your sense of self and you would maybe think that's all you have is reduced or with some psychedelics really shut down to zero and interestingly something else is in our brain the question is is it fully the brain because some people would call it Soul some people would call it subconsciousness but there is something more there than what you feel every day normally your ego uh which is a much sort of wiser much more sort of gentle part of yourself which helps people with mental health issues to overcome them but I can I think can help every person down the road to sort of lead a very happy life but simply if it's said Freedom it frees you from the tyranny of the so that's the psychedelics but if you look at longevity it's very simple uh because I'm a Libertarian I think the ultimate freedom is that we hopefully and most people here are in an age where I think I can say that within our lifetime will be able to decide our own time of death because we're going to have the opportunity and optionality to live very long so I founded two big biotech companies where we really work on novel treatment so nothing you can do today there's a lot of things you can do today to live a healthy lifestyle to make the most out of your body now but nothing which is there today will make you live to 200 but I do believe that within the next 10 20 years we're going to find new Medical Treatments which gradually it's not going to be a jump from 85 to 200 but which gradually will push life expectancy so that somewh what I believe in the next 10 15 years we're going to have this one magic year where we win more than one year of life expectancy so more than the calendar year we're losing and then hopefully this can go on for very long so it gives you the Liberty to really live as long as you want sort of Freedom uh from death which I also believe someone want to die that's my theory like we're going to see it but like I think people don't want to go on forever and forever is anywhere long term but like I think the biggest freedom I want to produce for people is someone the freedom to sort of choose when you want to want to exit sort of that game and then the third one is brain computer interfaces so we own the leading brain computer Face Company in the world like we have people with chips in their brains in seven years so way longer than eurolink yeah and ultimately I believe again we talking about 10 20 years but it's not so long I'm always saying that my high school reunion was 20 or my high school was 25 years ago so and it feels like yesterday so 20 years is not a super long term in biotech I think we're going to be able with chips in our brain to completely simulate all sensoric input so and the reason why you believe all of you that you're sitting um in this room watching us is your sensoric input you're seeing us you're hearing us your bum feels the chair so you maybe feel a breeze of the air conditioning so in the moment we will be able which going to happen in the next 10 20 years to simulate 100% realistic sensoric input you will be able to live in virtual world worlds without being able to distinguish them because they're not glasses on your face whatever but we project what now your sensoric organs do we can project directly into your brain so if you're some of you might be fans of Ready Player One um The Oasis like sort of that virtual reality which is indistinguishable from our current perceived reality um will be possible and that gives you practically a freedom of anything because you can be who you are you can be in whatever surround in time whatever you are so I think all the stuff we're doing in my investment firm is around that topic like freedom of like again tyranny of your ego freedom of death freedom of sort of being bound to just one body yeah and and taking a step back you know you're a Serial entrepreneur you've done this for a very long time you've done this in a variety of Industries in biotech you've done this in bcis you've done this in now in crypto you know kind of taking that Leap Forward how do you think about you know when you're starting a new business when you're starting a new kind of Journey you know it seems like the core thesis behind it is freedom but how do you really take that step forward how do you gain enough confidence to say you know what I'm going to go and own this thing it's I think it's it's a great question it's super hard to answer because like first we do two things so in a Pyon we're predominantly now so I started when I was 19 a biotech company um which luckily because like being an entrepreneur has to do with a lot of luck became now a a 40 billion uh nesc listed company but like so we're predominantly now an investor so we have our Investment Portfolio where we invest in companies from C to um late stage and our but when we have a novel idea so that's the dream example an idea where I really come up with and say look nobody's doing it and I think it's worthwhile doing it psychedelics is the one like sort of my the thing I'm really proud of like when I had the idea bring psychedelic back now it sounds normal now we're sitting on a stage even in Singapore and talking about the use of psychedelics so I had actually my first uh I have this weird story I never did any drugs which by way include alcohol because I think alcohol is the worst like never touch alcohol to a lot of other stuff yeah but I did nothing because I had the luck I was always very happy uh and I don't think I'm dumb so already when I was 15 14 I grew up in Bavaria where alcohol is sort of pushed onto you when you're when you're 13 14 uh I was like something is very bright with my brain so don't jinx it so till I was like 32 uh I've never tried anything no alcohol and obviously nothing of the bad stuff and then via a long really yearlong series of events to long for that panel now but I I was compelled to try what is colloquially called magic mushrooms um a disclaimer it was literally it was really in a country where it's not recognized it's not legal not illegal it was somewhere in South America where it's still so if you ever want to try it before or we are successful in the Western World there are great clinics already in Puerto Rico Mexico whatever who in a legal framework offer psychedelic treatments but I did it in a country with friends but like I had a good guide so kind of see me properly um and it was hands down so if you want to call it it was my first drug experience but I don't like to call psychedelics drugs they ancient medicines and we just forgot them for some decades but it was hands down the single most important thing thing meaningful thing deepest thing I've ever done in my whole life and I came out of it and I was like holy like if it's doing or giving this amount of positivity and sort of kind of addon to my life which was actually very good anyway I can totally see how these compounds sort of can help people with depression anxiety addiction but at the very end even if people here like hopefully would not say they depressive or whatever being a human is complicated like we all have issues and I think psychedelics are an amazing way to connect with again I'm personally very spiritual with our soul but you can call it subconsciousness but with the deeper part in you which is at the end the best sort of advisor you can have so to your question I came out of that and it's very hard to describe but I just knew it like it's not that I I don't have a process when I start companies where I'm like oh what's cool right now in the world it was these coincidence if you want to call it like that I think I was kind of by whatever pushed into that way but I came out of it and I had these massive conviction and then I decided like this needs to become medically available again and then literally this was the one case where every single business partner of mine from even guys like Peter teal who then invested but like he did it as a favor but he was like look Christian this is insane like and literally everybody said don't do it you're going to ruin your career is an illegal substance whatever but I had this conviction and it turned out it was the right one and we literally a I think we're going to change the lives of billions of people with mental health issues but also we kind of changed the perception of it within 10 years because again we're sitting here and like at any dinner and especially the crypto sort of community is I think very embracing of psychedelics which is even if people don't know it but like it's based on the work we did because all the studies brought back the media attention and everything um and here we are yeah I I truly think about your life as a very good example of do what you love and you will really just succeed and I think in all the various kind of business Endeavors you've hit head on you've had that same kind of mentality of I'm going to figure this out some way you know some way we're going to make sure that this ends up working out and I think you know emphasizing that you took something that is seen as ilicit or black market or something that's kind of seen as a negative light and you're you know you're saying let's remove all the bad parts of it and let's make this a pharmaceutical grade you know administered by a health professional kind of uh therapeutic uh in the long run right what was the process like for that and how did you think about that when when you were kind of hitting it headon there's must have been a lot of roadblocks right yeah I mean at the beginning we were even thinking should we go the same way like cannabis like trying to sort of create a political change but again because I'm libertarian I believe the Lesser you have to do with politics the better um so when people ask me oh do you need support of politicians or whatever no because like I think the right way to do it to bring it back as a medical product by the way side note that also people can sort of afford it because the healthcare insurance will pay it so it's a very non-political process we're doing FDA uh clinical studies we're finishing phase three for soloc cybin the active ingredient in magic mushrooms and then we just prove it in a very scientific way and that will automatically lead then to an approval as a medical product I think it's just a and by the way that's how humans did it over the last 10,000 years so it's not that it's a novel idea for psychedelics the fact is actually the the one time people remember psychedelics was a pretty messed up time because like I believe the way the 60s and 7s did it like oh I don't know Timothy ly throwing a psychedelics at events or whatever it's wrong because like if you look at humans have always used psychedelics to become better for self-improvement but always in a very rigid often religious context um and it was very organized and we kind of just trying to recreate that and sort of the shamans of the modern times is the therapist next door right and and kind of moving forward to that libertarian conversation right you were someone who got into the Bitcoin ecosystem very early days right and now you're kind of moving forward in that direction a little bit more you're you're attending conferences like these I'm really glad to have you here how do you think about Bitcoin now as being a kind of focus for yourself or maybe even a pyron going forward well the funny thing is by I'm not super early I think there many people here much earlier like it was 2016 17 that's pretty early 2016 pretty and I actually had a very dear friend who I very very credit for that Mike novogratz was telling me actually over two years and then I really had it's not exaggerated I one uh media Outlet made it a very short headline this is maybe too short but I was actually musing about all of that what Mike told me about Bitcoin going on a psychedelic trip and you can do either strong ones then you go to another realm or you can do weaker ones then it's actually like Google is rumored to do I don't know if they' still do it but have done board meetings on a very mild dose because it's really helping you to get your head around very new Concepts and that was kind of the moment in this one trip where I was like okay think I now I get it like and um by the way having said that maybe one other thing that most people here are are below 30 I guess but some might go to the sort of old age of 30 or older so another very important thing psychedelics do which I just can sort of tell every founder every investor and I think that's the two groups who are here is like as a secondary effect so you have if you take enough you have what is called a trip like a deep spiritual mystical at least very deep experience but the secondary effect is that the weeks and months after literally your brain is growing um so it's called neuroplasticity you create this neuroplasticity so your brain is literally a tiny bit growing in volume so in new brain mass but especially in connectivity and one of the things which really suck and we don't talk a lot about is that roundabout at the age of 30 our brain starts aging so we think of brain aging normally like oh it comes with ad0 and people have Alzheimer's dementia but like gradually every single year your brain is becoming more rigid more stiff more closed down uh which is very sad because like an open Brain which has a lot of sort of connectivity and if really if you do an MRI of a 20-year-old and would give that person like a math problem to solve or a book to read you would see how the whole brain is lighting up and if you would do the same exercise every single year the brain is becoming again less rigid Less open all the time which is associated with creativity problem solving ability power of innovation so at the same time when you Grew Older like you gain experience you gain craftsmanship so what you truly want is the the sort of power of like say a 40 50 year old brain with all the experience but coupled with the Innovation power uh of a young brain so and that is kind of a secondary effect which is not really Medical but I'm very sure once or at least not medically acknowledged one of my other big topics is I think we have much more things we should think about like like Aging for example itself as a curable disease than we do when we do but like what I believe once psychedelics are approved for depression whatever people will seek it out also for other very positive Reasons by the way who doesn't want to be a bit happier uh no matter how much you are like you always want a little bit more like yeah and also like I think uh we did it actually for our portfolio like in in the last two three years meaning crypto now is back again but like time was hard like for me as an investor I was really feeling with all our Founders we have 150 portfolio companies so what we did and what I I think most of them did appreciate a lot we organized for all of them in a country where it's legal that they could have a psychedelic session and it when more than 50 Founders took it up uh and they really really profited for it because it gives you just whatever your problem is if you stressed like if you like need more creativity new ideas in different time in difficult times it just helps you so long story short like I could go on like that I see the time but like psychedelics I think will change the world world narrowly but it's already more than a billion people for mental health issues but but also can really help every founder every investor and at the end every person to lead a better happier more fulfilled life right and and I think when we talk about psychedelics right like bringing it into this world of Regulation bringing it into this world of you know being adopted by more than just the people that CU I think it kind of has a similar story to crypto right where it's you know crypto was used as this elicit thing in the earliest days and maybe the people who wanted to use it were using it on Silk Road to buy psychedelics right you know so there's that that kind of convergence but now crypto has gone into the mainstream institutional adoption level um we see that the biggest biders of crypto are no longer native participants people buying and selling it's mostly institutions that want it on their balance sheet so I I think we're seeing that kind of progress happen uh going forward what's next for you what's next for you know a Pyon what's next for you know know kind of your vision in terms of you know what crypto can kind of mean within the portfolio and you know broader well broader one thing I think which which um um resonates well with the crypto Community the other big stigmatized thing we're taking up is what is Cally called doping yeah I rather call it performance enhancement like I think we should be free coming back to freedom to design our body as we like yeah uh why it's this absurdity that on the one side we went very far as society and we're like hey if you don't feel happy with your gender you should be able to change it but on the other side we're saying at the Olympics oh performance-enhancing drugs like which make you look better whatever are not allowed it's like a a very weird thing so our idea was which going to be hopefully and surely the biggest sports events of next year at the end of the year we're doing something which is called enhanced games which going to be think about the Olympics the same core disciplines just that performance enhance drugs are allowed and endorsed uh and we're going to use it as a hey it's going to be a lot of fun yeah but as a as a showcase as well to show what real science because it's all science-based and especially longevity science and sports science is very close together uh what real science can do to optimize the human body again in the freedom as every one of us please if you want to be and by way the next thing we will my theory is like we have sort of uh we have seen it already with a zic uh which is like sort of the first really broad enhancement rugs like made a trillion dollar market cap for no noris and Lily now comes the muscle stuff but then we're going to talk about we should be able to be smarter if we want like why do we are we kept at whatever we start with at Birth and so on in crypto we have a very interesting project but it's not ready to be unveiled we need to do it somewhere in November but like uh a very simplified set but it's much more than that my co-founder would kill me it's also a company uh we started uh a Bitcoin layer too but it's much more than that but that's for another conference amazing amazing and you know when we talk about what more you know can up Pyon and what more can Christian anger get get into in the future uh it's been a real treat to have you here it's been an amazing time and I want to you know kind of leave the audience with one thing right how like how can they learn more about what you're working on next how can they learn more about which way you know your entrepreneurial spirit is kind of moving forward too well like the I Tred I like to talk meaning obviously I'm here uh I like to talk about the things I'm passionate about so follow me on Twitter it's my name yeah um the same LinkedIn I try to do longer pieces on substack the same you find it with my name um and get in touch and uh if you're in a country where it's legal you should give psychedelics a try and on that bombshell thank you so much Christian thank you was amazing thank you