CoinVersation (谈东论西) with Bee & Latingirl (CJ)
Primer: In this episode of 谈东论西, Bee and Latingirl (CJ) shared a little about their background and how they got into cryptocurrency and became creators in the crypto space. Both of them are current contributors in Yearn and CRE8R DAO. They also discussed what it is like being female in a male-dominated space.
Intro on Bee and CJ
How the two met
1 month before Bee and CJ met, CJ happened to collaborate with Yearn Finance
CJ joined CRE8R DAO and Bee was one of the founding members of the DAO
Bee noted that CJ had already created some content in Yearn in her Youtube channel and they started chatting, eventually becoming a mentor figure for CJ in CRE8R DAO
Their collaboration is very good because they can complement each other's weaknesses and strengths
CJ thinks they are compatible too and feels comfortable talking to each other
When chatting with her friends, there are some topics that they wouldn't understand but there are no such issues with Bee
Both are yoga practitioners
Bee prefers Ashtanga yoga especially when her mind is occupied with a lot of things
For Ashtanga yoga, the poses are fixed, so she doesn't have to think too much and it becomes a meditative experience for her
For Flow yoga, she will have to think about what to do next
Yoga is not just a physical exercise, but also an activity to rest the mind as well
How did they first come into the crypto space?
For Bee
In 2009, Bee first heard of cryptocurrency because her husband is a Web2 and game developer, so he is updated on this new tech that looks revolutionary
Did not act on anything until a few years later in 2013, when she bought some BTC
Bee's first crypto coin is either OMG or BAT.
Vitalik Buterin is an advisor for OMG.
Her husband thought maybe they should look into this since Vitalik is involved
Got into their ICO around 2015
Bee is one of the ETH genesis investors. Back then, 1 BTC can buy 2000 ETH
She said she'll try finding the transaction hash and mint it into an NFT using Proof of Beauty because this is something memorable
After the DAO hack and the fork of ETH from ETC, they wanted to sell it all but thankfully they did not
CJ jokingly said that Bee is like old leek, an analogy used in China to describe how after being harvested (losing money to others), leeks can grow back again just to get cut again
Bee heard of this phrase before and did not understand the analogy of using leeks. Initially, she thought it was because leeks smell badly
For CJ
CJ experienced her first bull market for crypto now as she entered during the start of the 2019 bear market
She is a yoga teacher and every week she will exercise with 2 of her friends, teaching them yoga
After the session, they will go for long lunches where they will chat for hours
During one of the lunch sessions, there was an elderly person whose age group is around CJ's father. He is very open-minded and curious. He mentioned the concept of cryptocurrency and this piqued the interest of CJ
Since CJ is very curious, she went home to research and bought her first BTC at 3000 USD during the bear market. Would rather learn by doing than by reading, so she jumped right in
CJ had a wallet that can hold many different tokens, many of which she had not heard of
This becomes an itch that she had to scratch - she just had to find out what they are
To begin learning about those coins, she bought ETH first and that's how she started on ETH
Her first ERC-20 token is DAI
Wanted to play around with mToken so she needs to deposit DAI
Attracted by the interest that is way higher than in banks
Prior to this, she had no concept of financial knowledge and had not buy any stocks of public listed companies before
Did some trading but it did not turn out well. Thought it was a waste of her time just staring at the prices moving up and down
DeFi summer came along and it turned out to be very interesting to CJ
Starting from Compound, she began researching, experimenting and learning by doing
A while later, she began creating content as she realised it is the fastest and most efficient way to learn
Her content on Youtube had good reviews and she felt encouraged. She feels that the person who actually benefits the most is herself but is glad that her content can help others too
How to last in the Crypto space
Curiosity
Bee mentioned that being curious is a common trait among her friends in the Crypto space. One needs to be curious in order to stay in the space for long
CJ said that learning and updating one's knowledge is a very hard thing consistently
To be able to do so continuously, one needs to be curious in a perverted sense
To enjoy 'suffering' by learning
Without this trait, it will be hard to last long
Innovation is the greatest attraction of crypto for CJ because there is always something new to look forward to each day
Balanced life
CJ did some reflection recently and found that she had been going at a crazy pace for more than a year now
Even though it is physically tiring, it does not make her weary. She gets rejuvenated after a good night's sleep
In CRE8R DAO, there are always new protocols looking for marketing, some of which that even a veteran like Bee haven't even heard of
Sometimes she wonders if she is lagging behind
There is a constant pressure to at least keep up with all the new info and have a basic understanding of it, which is super tiring
In times like this, she'll drive to the mountains to find refuge or do Ashtanga yoga
CJ exercises daily too to keep everything in balance
Being a creator
How did Bee get started as a creator?
Bee had friends in Taiwan, but they only trade BTC. Not a lot of people get into ETH and learn about the various DeFi projects
Like CJ, Bee likes to chat with friends too. A lot of her friends thought that cryptocurrency is used to do illegal stuff like buying drugs
Wanted to share more with friends but they are close-minded. They had learnt a lot about the bad side of crypto from the mass media
She understands the technology and wants more people to know as she believes this will make the world a better one
She is living in a developed country, so everyone has access to banking facilities. However, the same cannot be said for everyone in the world
For crypto to become mainstream, there is a need to have more education
So in 2019, she started with that end in mind to make content to educate the 99.99% of the population who don't know much about crypto
Why did Bee begin with Chinese content?
English content is not an issue because there are plenty of them out there already. It is Chinese content that is lacking
Bee learned about crypto in the English medium. Until last year, she did not know a lot of terminologies and slang used in crypto for Chinese
When she first started, she will often get mixed up with the Chinese terminology of ETH and BTC initially
After her foray on Facebook, everyone there seems confused, especially on DeFi topics. But she believes that by immersing in the content frequently enough, they will get it one day
Yearn Finance
How did Bee begin contributing to Yearn community?
Started at Yearn Discord and when they needed translation to Chinese, she helped out
Bee was officially a contributor for Yearn around 2020 and this includes a financial sponsorship for her work
Currently, there are around 100 part-time contributors and 40 full-time ones with a salary
The forecast for Yearn's full-year revenue in 2021 is about 40 mil USD
This means that each full-time staff brings in about 1 mil USD, after accounting for staff pay
Bee feels lucky that she is able to get paid while sharing
Yearn's weekly newsletter in Chinese was done up by Bee
Until recently that is. Now CJ is doing it
CJ subscribes to the substack to keep herself updated
Yearn's community culture
CJ had been with Yearn as a contributor too
Bee jokes that CJ likes Andre Cronje - the mythical founder of Yearn
Chinese media had always been showing news of him
Bee has never talked with Andre before in the Discord, nor had he joined in any community call because he is a very private person
Andre is full of ideas and is a doer
He contributes ideas in smaller groups
Do not have anything to do with the day to day running of Yearn
The culture in Yearn attracts Bee
Everyone is a doer and always thinking of how to contribute first.
Secondly, the community is also very inclusive, welcoming even a non-tech person like Bee in
Anonymity in the crypto space
Being female in a male-dominated crypto space
Bee asked CJ if she ever felt alone as a female in the crypto space
Yes, but when she is learning new things she won't feel alone
There are a lot of anonymous people in the crypto space
Nobody knows she is a female and they use male pronouns like sir or mate to address her
This made her uncomfortable at first, but eventually, she got used to it.
For a very long time, the Yearn community did not know that she is female until she started speaking during community calls. People stopped using sir or mate anymore after that
CJ is probably different because cos her nickname Latingirl already indicates that she is a female
Importance of being anonymous
One reason why there are not a lot of females in the space could be that they might feel uncomfortable being treated as male by default since their identities are anonymous
That said, it is still important to be anonymous due to security and safety issues because it involves a lot of money
CJ mentioned that this is no different in the real world where a billionaire might be surrounded by bodyguards too
"Don't trust, verify" - an important culture in crypto space to remind people not to trust anyone in the crypto space because they are either anonymous or pseudonymous
In traditional finance, Asians usually want to know the background of the people they are dealing with
Makes it harder for them to understand the importance of anonymity in the crypto space
But being non-anonymous is not a protection against bad actors though
DAO
In a DAO, what is important is the work that you contributed
Race, age, nationalities and other superficial qualities do not matter
You just do what is interesting and not necessarily for the money too
A DAO culture is more easily understood by Westerners because of their culture
Asians, because of their culture, tend to defer to authority and wait for instructions
For Eastern cultures, it is normal not to stand out of the group
In the traditional workspace, employees get paid and will listen to instructions from their boss, but a DAO does not work like this
There are a lot more doers in the West due to their culture
After DeFi and NFT season, DAOs should be the next trend in crypto
CJ runs an actual company but closed it down in 2020 without hesitation after being in the crypto space for a while
There is simply no reason to continue operating when she knows about DeFi, and how DAOs works. Everything is determined by code and carried out by smart contracts
What is coming up next?
The title 谈东论西 literally means chatting about any stuff in the world
东西, the characters used to represent stuff, are also the exact characters used to refer to the East 西 and the West 东
This refers to CJ who lives in the East and Bee who lives in the West
In the very near future, the two will be collaborating to do more podcast episodes related to DAO
The information on crypto in the Chinese medium is outdated and lacking in content, and this is something they hope to address in their podcast
They promised to do at least 100 episodes
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