We ask the builders in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors for their thoughts on the industry … and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them busy!

This week our 6 questions go to Han Kao, founder of the thesis-oriented investment fund Sanctor Capital and co-founder of the crypto research company Crypto Briefing.

Han grew up in New York City and studied economics at Columbia University. He started out as a software developer, but soon realized that he wanted to become an entrepreneur. Over the years, Han has founded several companies: a web development company (ISI Studios) during the dot-com boom, companies for event marketing (BDBG Marketing) and online ticketing (theDreamVine) from 2005 to 2015 and a mobile app studio (J Technik ) in 2015.

In 2017, Han began publishing research on early-stage blockchain projects via Crypto Briefing. Today, with over 1 million monthly readers, Crypto Briefing is one of the leading crypto research publications.

With Sanctor Capital, Han hopes to help other founders in the field find their own success. It recently launched Sanctor Turbo, a Y-Combinator-style mentoring program to assist mission founders.

1 – What does decentralization mean to you and why is it important?

For me, decentralization represents a tectonic socio-economic change for the modern world. For centuries the world has relied on centralized governments, financial institutions and other centralized organizations to give us a false sense of security and security.

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the same organizations and agencies to which we have given these powers are often not acting in the best interests of their constituents and are only concerned with their own individual. Furthermore, the cost we pay for this false sense of security is inefficient and detrimental to the societies these organizations serve.

From a sociopolitical point of view, decentralization helps to distribute and democratize power and empowers the active participants of a given society (or organization) rather than those who are more privileged.

From an economic point of view, decentralization helps eliminate the costs, inefficiencies and risks associated with trust between intermediaries and centralized parties.

Simply put, it just makes everything better – not necessarily easier, but better.

2 – What is the biggest obstacle to Ethereum today and what is its greatest opportunity?

Marked by Vitalik Buterin, the “Blockchain Trilemma” refers to the challenges and tradeoffs that exist between the three main aspects of a blockchain – decentralization, security and scalability. He notes that developers have to choose between the three facets between compromises.

Ethereum is one of the most decentralized and secure blockchains there is today, but it is also one of the least scalable. The move to a more scalable, faster, cheaper one Ethereum 2.0 was and remains one of the most complex and challenging developments of the Ethereum development community.

The target post for Ethereum 2.0 continues to move, and the developers are frustrated and looking for alternative solutions. Developers today want to build applications on chains that can serve as the best foundation for the intended use cases they envision.

And the longer it takes for Ethereum to achieve an acceptable level of scalability, the more opportunities arise for other blockchains to place their claims on the market. We have already seen other blockchains like Solana and Binance Smart Chain taking advantage of this opportunity. and we will likely continue to see more momentum for other ecosystems like Cosmos, Polkadot, Avalanche, and Algorand.

3 – What’s more silly: $ 500,000 Bitcoin or $ 0 Bitcoin? Why?

Without question, $ 0 Bitcoin is sillier. The US dollar is probably the biggest scam in the history of the world. After World War II, 700 representatives from 44 nations (in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire) came together to find out how a new global financial system could be built. And since the United States had the largest gold reserves, it promised to tie the dollar to its gold reserves and make the dollar the international reserve currency for other countries.

However, in 1971 – after building a huge deficit – our gold reserves began to run out. So President Nixon decided that the dollar would no longer be backed by gold. We have since deviated from the gold standard and nothing but the strength of our military supports the US dollar. That sounds like fraud to me. But the problem is that until recently there was no real alternative.

It’s not really practical to carry gold bars and coins around when you want to buy something. You cannot transfer a gold bar to relatives around the world either. So Bitcoin is a viable solution for people who want to store their wealth in an asset that others might accept in the future. And the more people see Bitcoin as money, the bigger it will get.

With a steady supply of 21 million BTC and US dollar inflation hitting record levels, I bet that more and more people will be willing to accept Bitcoin for money. We’re really not far from $ 500,000 Bitcoin. That’s only an order of magnitude away!

4 – What talent are you lacking but would like to have it? How would you use it if you had it?

I was very fortunate to have been given a semi-functional brain to think through problems and capable body parts to carry out my brain’s commands. But I don’t have super powers so I think asking about the ability to create more time isn’t too much for me.

I wish I had the opportunity to create just one extra hour a day for everyone – for myself, for my partners at Sanctor Capital, for our portfolio companies, for everyone. I would then take that extra hour of US time I have and trade it on a time DEX against a block of Asian time. That way I can spend an hour less each night talking to Asia and putting that to sleep!

5 – Think of a favorite poem or song text. What is it and why does it appeal to you?

OK, I’ll take this opportunity to be super cheesy here. One verse that comes to mind is from a Drake song called “Started From The Bottom.”

“Starting from below, here we are. Started at the bottom, now my whole team is fucking here. “

When I got into the blockchain full-time and started Crypto Briefing, everyone thought I was crazy – friends, family, colleagues, literally everyone. “Why should you invest in these scams?” “Crypto is for criminals!” “You’re crazy!” “Tulips!” I kept hearing such reactions.

Four or five years later, and blockchain and crypto are a real thing now, and on the way to global recognition and acceptance. And my time in the industry has given me the experience and knowledge to make a really effective contribution to society based on the projects we support and support.

It’s important to note that when I think of “my whole team” from the song, I don’t just think of my partners at Sanctor Capital who made it through the long bear market on reduced salaries when everyone left us and we were months away from unplugging – I also think of every honest blockchain founder who went through the exact same emotional roller coaster ride in 2018, 2019 and early 2020.

The world has changed a lot and now we are at the forefront of a socio-economic one revolution, and we can influence how we want to read the next chapter. Congratulations to all builders, owners and everyone who hasn’t given up on their vision!

6 – What should we teach our children?

I have a lot to say about education as I am the product of New York City’s infamous public education system. I attended elementary school in Queens and high school in the Bronx. Most of my fellow students do not have a degree. I don’t have enough space to say everything I want to say so I scold a bit until I run out of space.

Our education system and curriculum need serious reforms. For starters, we need to teach our kids history – the way it really happened, not the BS that fills our textbooks.

Next, we need to teach financial literacy at a young age – not math, but financial literacy! I wasted years of my childhood learning trigonometry (yes, the sine, cosine, and tangent stuff), and in all of my adult life I haven’t used it once. I’m not saying it isn’t important, but it wasn’t relevant as a core skill.

I would have been better placed to learn what an income statement looks like or how taxes work. I would have loved to have been encouraged to be an entrepreneur and have been taught more about entrepreneurship, rather than portraying it as something just for child prodigies and geniuses. Much of it is changing today, but not quickly enough.

And yes, of course, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies should be mandatory classes!

A wish to the blockchain community:

Think great and have a little faith in you and your vision.