# "The Challenges of Digital Democracy" by Santi Siri & Friends // Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress 2 - Channel: [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://streameth.org/ethereum-cypherpunk-congress) - Date: 2026-01-09 - Duration: 20:59 - Topics: web3, privacy, now, crypto, cryptography, blockchain, data, security, human right, rights, tech, technology, internet, open source, free, freedom, ethereum, hackers, ethics, cypherpunk, dev, developer, dapp, decentralization, bitcoin, computer, surveillance, cyber, peer2peer, p2p, love, solidity, zk, zero knowledge, education, academy, w3pn, congress, ethereum cypherpunk, buenos aires, argentina, vitalik buterin, privacidad, filecoin, foundation - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-9rg9d1rrfdY - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rg9d1rrfdY ## Description An extemporary panel between Santi Siri and his friends Lane and Kurt exploring the challenges of the Digital Democracy. Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress by Web3Privacy Now is the world's largest cypherpunk and human rights event. 4500 people gathering in Buenos Aires to celebrate privacy with internet freedom leaders like Richard Stallman, Vitalik Buterin, Roger Dingledine, and Eva Galperin. Join us in building a free internet for all. Website: https://web3privacy.info/ Congress site: https://congress.web3privacy.info/ ## Transcript Um, I'm very happy to just reconnect with my good friend Lane who was responsible for actually um convincing me about going to my first DevCon many years ago. Um and uh the theory of this or the topic of the conversation for to for this session is digital democracy and you're living in Taiwan which is the most avanguard uh country in terms of digital democracy because of all of the work Audri Tang and and many of her friends have done over the years. Um so how how have you been? Let's let's have our our friend conversation on stage >> for for context here. Uh Santi and I have been friends for eight years, maybe going on nine years now. I think we met in 2017 in New York. >> Let's round it up in 10. >> Yeah. Okay. Rounds up to 10. Um and as he mentioned, I helped bring Santi into the Ethereum community. But what happened before that was that Santi brought me into the Bitcoin community. So I have you to thank for that. You're my Bitcoin prophet. Always will be. >> And I haven't seen you in about 3 years. I think >> it's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're actually going to be catching up on stage >> and also in proper cippher punk fashion, I'm purely privacy preserving. I'm not even on the agenda. So, >> this is all by design. You're a zero knowledge proof right there. >> So, by by way of background, I'm Lane. I'm a zero knowledge proof. Um, I was an Ethereum core developer from 2017 to 2019. So starting shortly after you and I met um I left Ethereum to build a layer 1 blockchain called Space Mash in for about five six years after that 2019 until last year and then I don't even know if you know cuz it's been a while since I caught up but >> this is the last thing you told me. >> Yeah. So late last year I joined the Near Foundation. So I'm now head of research at Near. >> Nice. >> Uh and I'm focused on the intersection of governance and AI which I know are things that you've been thinking a lot about. So hopefully a lot of relevance there. eager to actually interview you, but >> hold on for context. >> I mean, I can do the intro, but introduce yourself. Tell folks here a little bit about your background, about the activism, about your book. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, more recently, I've been more focused on AI. So, I got a little bit away from the web 3 crypto world. Uh, so I'm eager to get a very nice update on this Devcon connect this year. Um but uh I've been uh researching extensively AI and governance. Governance has been the common thread among >> you didn't even know when you asked me to join the panel that I'm working on the same thing. So >> Oh no, I work for the spy agency so I already knew. And um yeah, it's it's whether we will govern AI or AI will govern us. I think it's like one of the main erh questions that we're facing today. Um is a big challenge. erh alignment with super AI or with artificial general intelligence. Um there are many challenges that we're being that we're facing. It always comes to my mind this Peter Thiel quote that says artificial intelligence is totalitarian. Crypto is libertarian. And I suspect that the cure to properly bring some good governance into the world of AI and at the same time to bring some good practices into the world of crypto is kind of finding this common ground between these two great technologies of our time. Um >> it's actually it's interesting because if you look back at the 20th century, one way to frame geopolitics in the 20th century was as a battle between capitalism and communism that played out on a global scale. >> Yeah. And so I'm beginning to wonder if you know totalitarianism versus libertarianism framed as AI versus crypto. You know, Balagi talks a lot about this, right? But is that >> the stage that's being set for the 21st century kind of political battle? Do you think >> it's interesting we talk about this in Argentina where MLE is the president? >> Okay. Yeah. Hold on. Let's let's pause for one second. So in case it wasn't obvious, Santi is Argentine. Argentinian. >> I'm Argentinian. You just charge. >> Yeah. And I mean, you were honestly one of I think one of the first people ever to really understand the potential of Bitcoin. That's certainly what I learned from you in the early days. Um, and you were friends with with uh what's his name? The Zapo guy, right? >> The Wes. He's a legend here. >> And and so I think we need to take just a second before we dig into just the AI, you know, kind of governance, crypto stuff, and just >> just just appreciate that we're in Argentina where so much of this started. >> We're in Argentina. >> And by the way, this is the first time I've seen YOU IN ARGENTINA EVER. [ __ ] >> I KNOW. AND you guys have been waiting. You guys have been waiting a decade for this. >> Argentina. >> No, Argentina. >> Argentina. That's how we get the attention of the people in the back. >> Uh, dude, it's insane to me. Like, I've been following this tribe for the last 10 years, just like because of you. Uh, and in Boota, in Osaka, in Prague, in Berlin, in London. >> We knew we'd eventually be here, but it took took a while. >> Everyone is here. It's so It's such a big order. >> What is it? I mean, it's an important question. What does it mean to you? What does it mean to the local community here? >> No, it's it's amazing. I I've been just almost teary watching on Twitter like all of the tourists arriving to Wenocidis. There's like now there are now Oh my god. Curve. Curve, come here. Come here. Join us. Talking about arriving. Grab a chair. Grab a chair. Yes. Yes. >> The panel is growing. The panel is growing. >> Grab a chair. He he just got detained at at the airport, by the way. But we won't we won't tell why. >> It's true. It's true. >> So, this is Herb Stevens, my co-founder of Democracy Earth Foundation. >> Good to see you. Oh, yeah. Good to see you. >> Also an an OG. Um Lane. Yeah, Lane. Herb, you you you two are like the main responsible people that got me into this mess. So it's it's awesome that the the very first erh talk that I give during this week is with you too. It's like a this the proper in a serendipitous way very proper. Clearly it's a simulation. This had to happen >> obviously. >> Um >> what are we talking about? >> Democracy AI crypto >> and Argentina >> and Argentina like well Argentina Argentina has MLE as a president. >> Let's talk about that. and and we figured, okay, this is a libertarian guy, but with totalitarian tendencies. So, it's the mix of the two. It's kind of like a weird Maybe not. Maybe time will tell, but he's like a sign of the times. Like people, the young generations here really voted for him. They really w wanted someone that said, "Fuck the state. [ __ ] bureaucracy." And >> very very similar to what happened in New York a few days ago with Mandani. I think >> Man is like the the the anti the other side of the coin. Uh interesting times interesting times um to be building technology. Um Herb, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us what you you've been working on time out. What are you thinking? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um >> you're jetlagged. >> I'm really jet-lagged. I just landed from Lisbon like two hours ago. So, uh yeah, >> I'm I'm also very jet-lagged. So, you're probably the only one here who's not. So, good luck. I I went to the Oasis concert yesterday and I was I'm not that young anymore, but my friends were. So, we went really really close to the stage and we everyone jumps like like crazy and my whole back hurts. But anyway, >> you're getting a little old for that, son. >> Yeah. And you're older than me, but but you you look younger now. >> I'm a little better shape. >> So, yeah. Well, yeah. you know, two babies. It's It's difficult. So, you you What are you working on these days? You're in Lisbon. Uh >> I'm in Lisbon. I'm I'm working on a new stable coin. Actually, >> a new stable coin that's based in time. Actually, time is one of the best assets and it hasn't been monetized. Uh we're actually going to be creating this week uh something called the Time Dow. >> Hold your mic a little closer to you. uh something called the time DAO uh that enables people to actually work uh mint a coin and it's actually backed by the the labor payment uh of the stable coin. So uh uh stay tuned. We've got a lot of building to do this week but uh we're pretty far already and uh you know at least all the AI says we're on to something. >> First time in Argentina for you? No, you came you came before >> third time I think. Yes. Your mountaining uh adventures. >> Yeah. Climbing over in uh Chile. >> Yeah. >> So, how are things in Taiwan? You moved there. >> Yeah. Earlier this year. Um I mean the primary motivation was actually my wife is Chinese, so send sending sending our son to school was actually like the primary motivation. But there's I guess we could have chosen mainland China or Hong Kong or Singapore other places. And yeah, that was a factor I think is I want to be I want to contribute to the movement that's happening there. Um I haven't had a chance to go super deep yet. Um but yeah, I mean maybe for context like people here aren't totally aware of kind of who Audrey Tang is or kind of like what the the movement is. Um, she was part of a political movement called the Sunflower Rebellion that happened seven, eight years ago in Taiwan, something like that, which was a movement on the part of Taiwanese youth to um to kind of like lobby the government to be more uh accountable and more answerable uh to the to what they to their needs at the time basically. Um and one of the outcomes of this movement, it was it was a very peaceful kind of movement. Um and and again she was one of the kind of like leaders or student leaders of the organization was that um she ended up becoming uh Taiwan's first digital minister. >> Yeah. In 2015 2016 Andre Tank and just recently earlier this year she is no longer the digital minister. She now is um an adviser or something. So she kind >> she came to to Argentina last year and she met with the government but the government cannot say that publicly. >> I'm saying that. >> Yeah. So anyway, long story short, Taiwan has this this really um uh energetic kind of movement that you know spearheaded by Audrey and and other contributors where uh they have a digital ministry, they have open data standards. Um you've seen this a good concrete example of what happened in Taiwan was during CO right uh there were shortages of PPE of protective equipment of uh co vaccines things like this in Taiwan as there were elsewhere and this kind of group of young uh hackers kind of came together and built this online system using the government government tools that Audrey had put in place um to crowdsource like availability of vaccines and PPE and things like that. Fiveminute warning. >> Five minute warning. >> Okay. Anyway, so yeah, a lot of exciting things happening in Taiwan. >> Amazing. Um, how and how what's your view? I'm curious. You mentioned you're working on AI governance uh from the perspective of near and and what you're building now with with space mesh. What what are the what what challenges you identify when we look at AI and and you know what what can you give us any hope? Yeah, I mean look, AI is I'm trying to keep this brief. AI is obviously extraordinarily high potential. I think we can all agree about that. Um I think there are challenges both in governance of AI and governance by AI and we're kind of focused on both of those, right? So >> we're more focused on governance by AI, which sounds a little a little um dystopian. Uh but I think actually blockchains are the right place to do this experimentation. I like to say that, you know, blockchains have a lot at stake, right? The near ecosystem is worth multiple billions of dollars, but we have no hospitals. We have no airplanes. You know, we we we the the the stakes are high enough, but they're not super high. I don't think we should be governing city states or or nation states using AI tools just yet. >> Like Albania announced like like a AI minister. >> So, we kind of want to do something like that. I I don't know enough about Albania. Maybe their economy is similar size to near. It's probably larger, but >> it seems AI would be much better at governance than humans are. >> Well, this is the idea. So the optimistic side, right? So the thing that gives us hope is that I think we can also all agree humans are shitty governors, right? We are we self-deable. We go to sleep and get sick and we don't always we're not always on top of everything that's going on. AI doesn't have any of those issues. So theoretically AI should be a better governor than any human. Uh what are the challenges? Um most AI is very centralized today. We don't know what goes into the models. Um this is one of the things that we're focused on at NEA near is uh verifiable model training right so this I guess the short answer again I know we're short on time the short answer is in order to to build things at the top of the stack like AI governance you need a lot of enabling infrastructure I think like I don't want to sound too much like a nil a near shill but the like we're we're doing this there's a reason near is doing this right because we have this infrastructure we have um confidential end toend encrypted AI inference engines um everything is run in decentralized clouds and nothing is touching an anthropic back end or you know open AI background and then also like I said that that we're working on verifiable model training so you know exactly what went into the model uh and you know there's no sleeper agents if you're familiar with that idea any any kind of like stuff like that in the model >> I I I'd like to share a little bit of the and you you might remember this well the proof of humanity dow you remember >> I remember that one >> you remember yeah I run into some uh folks and and and former members of the original proof of humanity which was to To me the most exciting democratic experiment that happened in web 3. Most of the web 3 dows are plutoaucratic. It's coin voting, token voting, but proof of humanity was the one exception where we had one person, one boat. And we had all kinds of attacks like uh in terms of trying to capture power. Um there were two super delegates that had most of the delegations. It was Clement from Claros and myself. You remember those days? >> Oh, there was a there was a bit of a war there if I remember correctly. a war. The last >> always every every crypto project ends in a war. >> It was a [ __ ] war. Uh and Clement started farming delegations in Myanmar which was which was evil and genius. Mavelian at the same time. >> Fun fact, the previous attempt to build a decentralized governance system for near the exact same thing happened. We had we had a proof of humanity and people were farming identities in Ukraine and other places. So there you go. It's inevitable. forming identities in the third world is like the web three exploit by excellence for getting control of of a DAO. We ended up implementing from a game theoretic point of view a very interesting idea which was we took Glenn Wild's uh quadratic voting idea and we started computing the delegations using the square root. So that meant that I lost a lot of power, but Clement lost a lot of power also. And the the argumentation was in order to incentivize you to delegate to people with few delegations rather than to delegate with whales, a quadratic voting formula made a lot of sense. So we kind of invented quadratic delegations for that. And well, what ended up happening is that Clato fork it away and they made their their layer 2 uh version of the protocol which is fine, completely fine. But it was an exciting experiment on on the like hyper democracy, very high stakes uh two factions fighting for power. It was it was really exciting. A year later after all this mess on on on like talking with with Esteean Nordano from the centraland which he's around >> I saw him today too. Yeah, is the the living legend is is our Vitalic. Estean is the Argentine Vitalic. Have no doubt about it. uh and Estean actually uh like three or four years ago he showed he w he built a prototype that was very similar to today what what we would describe as cursor or lovable or vzero which was h let's use AI for coding and the argument that stean gave me is that the problem with web three communities is that uh only very few people can actually write code most of the community, the users and and the members of the of the DAO, they cannot write code. So they're h, you know, they they can suggest ideas, they can make contributions, but the code is ultimately being executed and written by the by the developer class. And that's the thing that actually was the the core of the problem of the proof of humanity. The users actually won a lot of the votes but the coders most of them from KTOS were were in disagreement with the revolt of the users and we had this this gridlock where implementation of the changes was not really possible. So looking into the future of web 3 and DOS if we end up with software and I think that we are this is right next to the corner like being able to build full stack applications or or eventually protocols or eventually even new AIs using nothing but prompts uh and coding we we have struck away from coding. Prompting is a very democratic skill like anyone can knows how to speak English anyone knows how to speak you know in human language so eventually web3 communities and this was the vision of estano like let's build coding tools with prompting using AI so web3 communities can also participate in the design uh and in the development process of our protocol and I thought that was mind-blowing today that's the present of the tech industry like the big players now loving tools are actually a huge opportunity for web3 ecosystems to implement this technology in order to democratize you know the the decisions the development of of you know in a near future so that's how I see AI kind of like democrat as a democratizing force then who runs the AI on what hardware and what infrastructure That's >> I think it's a great optimistic vision. >> Yeah, I'm always optimistic. >> I think we're basically out of time. Any any final thoughts we want to >> final thoughts of my jet lag partner? >> Final thoughts. I'm going to do a lot of building this week, so I'm looking forward to some sleep and some building. >> Awesome. Uh final thoughts. Thanks everyone for coming to Argentina when is the most awesome city in the world. Be ready for the most insane week of your lives. This city never sleeps. Uh >> I I noticed that and as a New Yorker, I was impressed, too. Like I think Benosarus has a good claim to being the city that never sleeps. >> We beat the [ __ ] out of New York, man. You're going to see that. >> To be fair, you left New York for Buenos. Basically, >> I came back. I can't leave it anymore. Anyway, final thoughts. >> I think I was very inspired by the early talks this morning. morning. I don't know if you had a chance to catch Kurt Opsall or uh Roman or any kind of the first few folks, but um you know the way or or Peter van Valkenberg as well. You know, >> I think we are at a at a fork in the road and it's very easy to meme it almost like the the button meme, you know, sweating like which which button do I press? The centralized AI, the decentralized AI. I think um the potential is enormous. I think it's important that we remain optimistic. That's something that Peter talked about in his talk this morning, but remain wary and remain vigil, which is something that Stallman talked about. you know, be very cautious about who owns your data, about exactly what you touched upon at the end, like the governance piece of the puzzle, right? Because if we're not in the driver's seat as a community, then we are the product at the end of the day. So, I think we need to be optimistic about the the the brave new world future that AI is going to bring, but at the same time, just have a very honest conversation about how to build these systems in a more humane way. >> Amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining me without notice on the panel, my friends. Welcome to Dev Connect. Thanks. Thanks everyone. The next panel is awesome. So stay for the next panel. Very smart folks from Argentina will be talking as well. So yeah. >> Gracias.