For years, I told myself I wasn't the founder type. Instead, I strive to become a strong business owner who fulfills the founder's dreams. Perhaps my avoidance of becoming a founder is influenced by my education in China. My mother often says this. She said, “A gun shoots the first bird that shows its head.''
She didn't want me to be that first bird.
So until recently, my career was defined by the idea of working hard towards someone else's vision, until I discovered cryptocurrencies. Cryptography is self-sovereign, and it starts with managing your own keys. Crypto communities encourage ownership through participation.Yes, we all love to see the magical internet money rise, but there are serious problems in this industry Economic, social and technological impacts to our society.
Crypto is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a generation to express their raw talent while owning a piece of it.
My first job related to cryptocurrencies was consensus. This work has enabled us to develop everything from base layer (Linea) to middleware (Infura) to user interface (metamask).
it was fun. People started knowing me as “Brother Bing” rather than as Shuyao Kong, Global Head of BD at ConsenSys. Decryption Columnist and founder of Hot Pot DAO.
But a little voice in my head started to get louder and I wondered, “Can I do something on my own?”
Many people have the entrepreneurial itch, but most people don't have it. I knew primarily that he was driven by three missions. (1) Work at the cutting edge of cryptographic technology. (2) Welcome young talent to cryptocurrencies. (3) Fostering specific crypto products for emerging markets.
As I was exploring, the good old Consensys network worked its magic. ConsenSys has not only developed several well-known products including: Decryption), but also inspired crypto founders, operators, investors, and rebels who are still pushing the boundaries.
When I received a message from my former colleague Yi Tang in January, I knew he was trying to do something solid. Yi and I were at the forefront of his 2018 effort to bring governments and large enterprises in Asia Pacific on-chain. He is currently a prominent cryptocurrency investor at Qiming Venture, one of the world's largest funds.
“We have a pretty solid portfolio company and are looking for a business co-founder,” he messaged me on Telegram and told me: Mega ETH's Twitter handle. Looking at the Github repository, I couldn't help but wonder who would be stupid enough to call themselves “MegaETH”. I mean, I like ETH in the name, but Mega was giving me a 2017 ICO vibe.
I wasn't overjoyed.
But I wanted to learn more about the technology, so I scheduled a phone call with Yilong, who started MegaETH after earning his PhD from Stanford University's Department of Computer Science. In his usual calm and steady voice, Yilong explained to me his motivations, system design philosophy, and vision.
Simply put, he wanted to build a scalable base layer that would allow developers to create easy-to-use, fast, and inexpensive crypto-native DAPPs.
The thesis is simple and clever. Even after 10 years, no one has succeeded in extending user-friendly blockchains like Web2. Solanawas a step in the right direction, but it still faces scaling challenges and is still in beta.And Ethereum L2 will only collectively scale main net 10x, which is quite small.
No blockchain is scalable enough, resulting in poor performance and poor user experience for dapps. I often joke that developers are cheating the blockchain, but the reason is that performance issues are forcing developers to put their data off-chain rather than on-chain. Because you want it.
These are the problems MegaETH is trying to solve.
MegaETH, Rust in Prod. Image: MegaETH
As Yilong explains the idea behind MegaETH, his voice exudes a charming, quiet confidence. In less than an hour, I went from thinking, “Cool technology, but so what?” to “This will make Ethereum great again.” After the phone call, my mind was 80% consistent with him.
The next day, I met Lei Yang, who would later become our third co-founder and CTO. Ray is already a well-known blockchain researcher at MIT. His ability to explain complex blockchain concepts in the most general way was the best I've ever seen in the cryptocurrency space.
The MegaETH team began to take shape virtually and I was signed on to lead all business and marketing efforts in March.
Naturally, there was much work to be done. But there was also the joy of starting up.Because we lived all over the world, our founding team rarely met in person.—All attended the defense of Ray's dissertation, once at the Denver Institute of Technology and then in Boston. These in-person hangouts were great moments. For example, we learn that Rei is a fan of rabbits. He actually goes to a park near MIT every week to feed the rabbits. In his spirit, we designed his MegaETH logo, a super-fast rabbit.
Along the way, we learn about each other's communication styles, diet, and even our families. As I write these words in the middle of the night in Dubai, I realize that my entrepreneurial journey may have started with a vague intuition, but it really took off when I met the right people. Ta.
A lot of things keep me up at night. We have not received the funds yet. We desperately need developer evangelists who can geekily snipe developers into our ecosystem. And we don't even have a website yet.
But so far, despite what my mom taught me, sticking my head out feels really good. And I haven't been shot yet.
