In the future, cryptocurrency will not only be an asset class, but it will also become a way of life. This article is an exclusive interview conducted by Luke Belmar, the founder of Capital Club, with Meow, the founder of Jupiter. The article is sourced from “Luke Belmar – Money Talks with Jupiter Exchange Founder Meow $JUP,” compiled, translated, and written by Block Beats.
Table of Contents:
Currency Originating from Consensus
The Illusion of Traditional Finance
Jupiter Breaking the Illusion
Currency as a Medium of Action
The Cryptocurrency Garden
Transforming “Tokens” into “Currency”
Community Consensus Embodies Token Value
Empowering Users to Become the Community
Embracing the Uniqueness of the Community
Jupiter’s Vision
In the week leading up to the official release of the JUP token, Luke Belmar, the founder of Capital Club, conducted an exclusive interview with Meow, the founder of Jupiter.
Before developing Jupiter, Meow served as the chief advisor for Instadapp, Kyber, and Blockfolio. He is also one of the co-founders of the largest wrapped token wBTC and a contributor to the Handshake project. Currently, Meow is the founder of Raccoons Labs and is developing the Solana liquidity aggregator Jupiter, the Solana liquidity protocol Meteora, and conducting cross-chain research with a strong interest in social infrastructure.
Many people know Luke Belmar as a successful entrepreneur, but his success is the result of combining digital advertising, e-commerce, direct sales, and investments in cryptocurrency and NFTs. Luke Belmar once said, “Funds tend to stay away from those who pursue them, but are easily attracted to those who realize that money is just a monopolistic currency.”
Luke Belmar hosts the interview program “Money Talks,” which focuses on exclusive conversations with some of the most outstanding thinkers in business, entrepreneurship, and finance. In the latest episode, Luke Belmar and Meow discussed the “Currency Consensus Theory,” in which Meow elaborated on his unique insights into the execution of the crypto world and the role of Jupiter in this process.
Meow believes that the traditional financial system has created an illusion in which people live like prisoners, invisible in this illusion. Cryptocurrency is the key to breaking this illusion. Cryptocurrency made Meow realize that consensus is a very powerful force and that consensus shapes currency. Consensus is the result of the collective efforts of everyone in the community, and the construction of the crypto world cannot be separated from consensus. Compared to an invisible prison, cryptocurrency is like a garden that is open to everyone, welcoming their participation and construction. Jupiter’s goal is to become such a garden.
Therefore, Meow values the community ecosystem involved in the garden construction. He points out that each community should have its own characteristics and charm. In describing the Jupiter community, Meow compares it to a “global decentralized securities exchange” that allows anyone to trade on it, and all processes and details can be seen by everyone in the community.
BlockBeats has compiled and translated the interview content as follows, with some parts omitted.
According to Meow’s perspective, the “Currency Consensus Theory” refers to the need for corresponding consensus in the process of creating currency. This process involves a form of control, where you actually hold the control. The purpose of this control is that if someone prints a large amount of virtual currency to a certain extent, the law will intervene and take mandatory measures to pursue and imprison them. This consensus is also reinforced through the government, central banks, and the entire network of banks and branches.
In the “Currency Consensus Theory,” the consensus of fiat currency comes from the ability to control and actually allow people to use this fiat currency. Meow uses the strong consensus of the Ethereum and Bitcoin communities as an example, pointing out that when there is enough consensus invested in them, the currency becomes real.
When explaining this theory, Meow introduces the concept of “Infinite Tsukuyomi,” which is a ninjutsu in the Japanese anime “Naruto” that can trap the person using it in an eternal illusion, mistaking it for reality.
Luke Belmar: Let’s start from the beginning. What led you to where you are today?
Meow: I’ve been involved in many technology-related works, including social networking and viral marketing. I believe we actually built the first recommendation system that uses social data. From a technological perspective, the initial recommendations were based on semantics, using phrases like “If you’re into computers and technology.” But we found that social data is more interesting than semantic data, so we built a recommendation engine based on that. For example, if you follow someone, through social data recommendations, you can interact with someone else who also follows them.
I successfully promoted it through a series of viral marketing methods. So, I think we’ve achieved a lot in this area and have been sticking to this idea. We tried various mechanisms and invented many new concepts, but it seemed that there was still something missing, and it felt like something was not complete. It’s like if you try to build a fintech company, you’re actually dealing with regulations. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a fact of life in the world we live in. I comply with all these rules, but I don’t really like doing it.
I’ve always been very interested in economics and finance, but because of that, every time I approach this field, I realize that no fintech company is truly innovative. They are just building on top of the entire stack architecture. The entire architecture is massive and the underlying layer is immutable, including banks, credit card systems, processing systems, and energy systems.
Basically, I have to operate according to this set of rules, but when I read all the economics books, I always feel that they don’t make sense at all. All these efficient theories, even the new concepts I’ve read, such as behavioral economics, are all wrong. These theories do not match what is happening in the real world. It’s almost like saying that economics is a branch of pseudoscience.
And I never understood why the whole world was living in the “Infinite Tsukuyomi” ninjutsu. I studied economics in Silicon Valley and came into contact with various knowledge, and economics seemed like “Infinite Tsukuyomi” to me because there is no corresponding financial market, and all predictions are wrong. How can you have confidence in breaking through the inflationary social army when everyone around you is in the “Infinite Tsukuyomi”? That’s when cryptocurrency appeared, and for the first time, I realized, “This is evidence that this audit is nonsense.”
Luke Belmar: Like glimpsing outside the prison cell and realizing there is freedom out there.
Meow: Exactly. For example, one of the most effective ways the British used to control colonies was to instill the idea that “you are foolish, we are the best, your culture is inferior, everything is inferior.” And then people became obedient and believed in this rhetoric.
I think we have moved away from this mentality in many things, but when it comes to economics and other aspects, we still adopt this coercive control method. Because it is actually difficult to control specific individuals, the only way to control them is through education. That’s why governments around the world attach great importance to education and history because what you tell someone in their early life can create an infinite economy. And cryptocurrency made me realize that it’s all an illusion.
Luke Belmar: When was your first encounter with cryptocurrency?
Meow: It was probably around 2013, maybe a little earlier. I have a very good friend who is one of the top experts in the cryptocurrency field, and I was lucky to meet him at a Dogecoin party, and then we started working together. At that time, I knew nothing about cryptocurrency, and I asked him, “Hey, how much do you know about cryptocurrency?” He said he knew nothing. Then I kept asking him, “How much do you know about cryptocurrency?” And he kept saying he knew nothing. But we got along well, he had a lot of ideas, was good at technical marketing, and I was good at coding. He also had a deep background in cryptography and financial systems, so we worked well together.
If you look at all the academic textbooks, the most basic concept is price, whether it’s left-wing or right-wing, everything is about price. If you study economics textbooks, they emphasize the importance of price. And usually, the price is fiat currency. So, what the economics profession cares about most is fiat currency, which can easily lead to problems. Apart from corruption, there is one more thing: 99% of the people in AEI (American Enterprise Institute) come from the same school. They live together, cook together, and even though they have opposing relationships, they are all friends.
We are forced to accept the concept of fiat currency from the moment we are born. Until Bitcoin was introduced, it told people, “You don’t have to own something worth a trillion dollars or a trillion units, and you don’t have to print something to introduce stimulus or achieve economic growth.” And then the “glitch” occurred, such as Bitcoin and decentralized finance, and people began to question the status quo. What you see today, like meme coins or new networks, basically breaks our existing concepts.
This is a very good topic that delves into what real currency is. In the process of creating currency, there must be corresponding consensus invested. This process involves a form of control, and you actually hold the control. The purpose of this control is that if someone prints a large amount of virtual currency to a certain extent, the law will intervene and take mandatory measures to pursue and imprison them.
Luke Belmar: Technically speaking, if you have a copy of the currency, coins, or denominations imposed by a ruler or king, you are counterfeiting their power.
Meow: This power is also reinforced through the government, central banks, and the entire network of banks and branches. So, the consensus of fiat currency comes from the ability to control and actually allow people to use this fiat currency. People have to accept fiat currency, or they will be locked up in prison or somewhere else, and most importantly, this is achieved through consensus.
Now let’s look at cryptocurrency. In cryptocurrency, how do you distinguish between real and fake currency? I hope to explain this through a series of more technical concepts, such as liquidity, digitization, wide dissemination, number of holders, duration of currency existence, etc., but these are just appearances. When there is enough consensus invested in it, the currency becomes real.
Like Ethereum becoming a real currency, people in the entire network invested their life consensus to make the network work very well. Although I have done a lot of construction on Solana, I want to say that Ethereum is amazing. The entire network is led by Vitalik, who has brought together a group of financiers, geeks, holders, enthusiasts, and people who create this consensus, making it a real currency. A truly sincere human consensus transformed into a series of other consensuses, such as proof-of-work, code, infrastructure, and so on.
If the government wants to create currency, there must be a central bank, coordination, and police enforcement. All of this requires consensus. If done well, then there is currency. This is business, an almost illusory way of thinking. I like the consensus theory, and the more a currency can represent a large network composed of many people and invest in real consensus, the more real it is.
Luke Belmar: Because consensus cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed, so fiat currency is not real. For example, when you create $6 trillion out of thin air, you’re not creating consensus; you’re creating an illusion. Calculated at a minimum wage of $15 per hour, you’ve created about 400 billion hours of minimum wage labor force out of thin air, which gives the economy a false sense of expansion.
Note: The translation is provided for reference only, and the translation does not guarantee accuracy or completeness of the original text.