Thanks to He Yifan, China is pioneering its own state-backed version of Web3, internet infrastructure that runs on blockchain.
Illustration by Luis Grañena
He Yifan thinks cryptocurrencies are a “Ponzi scheme,” but his Hong Kong startup, Red Date Technology, relies on their underlying technology, blockchain, to revolutionize the internet.
Blockchain, He told The Wire, “has actually changed everything in the future — it’s changed the entire IT-tech picture. I’m not saying the current internet will be replaced. But it will be just one of two layers.”
He Yifan presenting at the BSN Hong Kong Summit. Credit: BSN Base via YouTube
A graduate of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, He is working to pioneer a version of the World Wide Web that runs on blockchain — what some call ‘Web3’. With loosely cropped hair and warm, crinkly eyes, the 46-year-old talks about Red Date’s signature project with the evangelical energy of early internet optimists. Although the technical details are complicated, he often uses a simple analogy to describe what he says is the coming thousand-fold increase in internet product
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