In the past ten years or so, the development of Web2.0 has greatly expanded users' ability to obtain information, but at the same time, it has also led to Facebook and other giants occupying the top of the mountain and taking the land as the king, using users' private data for profit, and various drawbacks have been more and more Human criticism, Suji Yan is one of the first people in China to realize this phenomenon.
Suji Yan has always been active in the eyes of Internet people with the label of rebelliousness. He tried to use the image of "women's clothing programmer" to fight against common social stereotypes. He and his wife Katt Gu jointly launched "Anti 996 Lisence" to resist the inhumane work system of the Internet industry. , And even reported in the Fukushima nuclear disaster area to trace the truth.
After realizing the value of data, Suji Yan founded Dimension. Its core product Mask Network (formerly known as Maskbook) was launched in the second half of 2019. This product tried to help users transition from Web2.0 to the portal of Web3.0. On the platforms of traditional social giants such as Twitter and Facebook, encrypted messages, encrypted currencies and even decentralized applications are seamlessly sent, that is, to build a bridge to a new type of open network on the current Internet.
For example, this product can help users encrypt the information they send on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Users designated by the user will get the decryption private key and encourage users to recapture their data assets.
Recently, Chain Catcher (ID: iqklbs) conducted an exclusive interview with Mask Network founder Suji Yan. In this interview, he elaborated on the original intention and vision of creating Mask Network, and expressed many unique opinions on the development of the industry. I believe this article will help You see a particular believer in a decentralized world, and think more about the vision of decentralization.
Author|Echo
Edit | Gong Quanyu
01
Want to be a bridge between the blockchain and the Internet
Chain Catcher: Mask Network is a very interesting and impressive product. What kind of changes do you hope to bring to the Internet world by creating it?
Suji: In the past, many people said to liberate data sovereignty, but there is no project that can connect the old world with the new world. Internet giants will not upgrade themselves. Therefore, we want to build a huge bridge through this project to force the traditional Internet to enter the new Internet and upgrade to Web3.0, hoping to eventually lower the barriers to use of decentralized products and directly use Web3.0 products.
Chain Catcher: In addition to information encryption tools, what other interesting tools can Mask Network share?
Suji: We have developed a technical framework called DApplet (Decentralized Applet), which can be directly inserted into Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. Simply put, Mask Network can load small programs into Facebook or Twitter, and they won't know it; or it can be decentralized through our technology, so that social platforms can't block it. We should be the only team in this industry that has mastered this technical framework and is willing to open source it.
In the past year, we have developed some "Applets" in Mask Network, including an Ethereum red envelope function. Through this plug-in, users can load any encrypted token into the Ethereum smart contract, and at the same time post the red envelope in the form of Tweet on Twitter. As long as other users also use the Mask Network plug-in, they can receive the red envelope in the correct way.
Another example of a small program is Gitcoin donations. Mask Network will detect all Tweets containing gitcoin.co URL and display a floating window on the user's social page through which users can make donations.
Our newly developed trading widget can detect whether there is a token tag starting with a dollar sign $ in the web page. If so, users only need to hover their mouse over this tab to see the market trend of the cryptocurrency, which trading pairs are on, and even if the token has trading pairs in Uniswap, they can also pass Mask The built-in "Swap" interface in the Network allows direct transactions. This is supported by Uniswap. These functions are already open to all users of Mask Network, and no additional installation is required.
Chain Catcher: You call products such as Mask Network a bridge. How do you understand it here?
Suji: Yes, they are bridges that can be customized and modified, but not tools, but middleware. Without us, many projects cannot be used directly on a centralized platform. But unlike other middleware, we are a decentralized project, the code is open source, everyone can develop on it.
We regard the Internet itself as a data foundation of the blockchain world, and the new world as a database. We straddle these two worlds together, but not a cross-chain, but a cross-Internet blockchain.
For example, by cooperating with Polkadot and Ethereum ecology, we have successfully moved Polkadot and Ethereum to Twitter and Facebook. Although we have only made some small plug-ins so far, the following imagination is limitless. It will be a complex of all tracks and the largest entrance to the decentralized world, because we are the first to be able to follow the centralized The bridge connecting the world.
Chain Catcher: There are very few teams like yours in the blockchain industry that have been focusing on making encryption plug-ins or bridges. Can you share your initial thoughts on doing this?
Suji: We know that many projects are cool from the perspective of the traditional Internet industry, but they lack understanding of the new world and lack of understanding of Web3.0. I also know some big guys of Web3.0, like Vitalik, they already understand the problem, but the ship is not easy to turn around, and they can only say that they fund Dimension to do this.
The Chinese Internet is similar to the US Internet. If any Chinese Internet project, industry or VC says that I want to bring down centralized Internet giants, this is just a dream. Similarly, any project that says to bring down Ethereum, although possible, has certain difficulties.
Too many people are working on a decentralized underlying blockchain, and it doesn't make much sense to build another one, so we will build a bridge across the Internet. Ethereum may be like the Internet back then, although it is cool, but the barriers to use are high; and now the Internet giants are very easy to use, but very closed, it can ban or ban users at any time. So I was wondering if I could do something more innovative on the Internet: use DeFi, NFT, DAO, Ethereum, Polkadot and other decentralized projects directly on modern Internet applications.
Chain catcher: Tool products are often difficult to realize, what is your business model?
Suji: The business model under this model is also quite straightforward. It is similar to the logic of Compound and Uniswap. We are building a huge network that does not require any recognition and does not require any traditional supervision, and there is a huge profit margin. , We cooperate with cloud computing vendors, etc. Users need to pay a handling fee or pay to unlock the transaction. These fees are all captured by Dimension.
But it doesn't make sense to do so now. We hope that users will first realize the importance of data. Data is their asset. We provide users with legal technology to defend their data assets.
Chain Catcher: Can you talk about the specific user volume and growth trends of several products that have come out?
Suji: We have two parts of users. One part is users who have a clear understanding of what Mask network is and will use each function. This part has 30,000 to 40,000 downloads, and daily activity is about 3,000; the other part refers to users who enter us through the Internet portal. There are already more than 800,000 users. The user growth trend is exaggerated, with a growth of close to one million a year.
Our goal is to achieve 20 million installations in three years. For example, during the Spring Festival this year, our cooperation with Maker attracted more than 1,000 real users, and Ethereum founder Vitalik also participated.
These people may not be users of Web3.0 and will not use DeFi to do more things, but this also proves that the original Internet platform is an entrance. This entrance needs a bridge, even if it is successful like Ethereum and Maker. This bridge.
02
Web3.0 is to break through obstructions and restrictions
Chain catcher: Nowadays, social data privacy leakage is very common. A lot of data is actually collected by enterprises or governments on their own initiative. Products such as Mask Network make Internet giants or governments stand in their own contrast. So since the release, have you played any games with big companies like Facebook or the government?
Suji: I will definitely do it. It's not convenient to disclose now. What I can say now is that software like Twitter is our ally.
It took more than 10 years for Bitcoin to reach a market value of more than $100 billion, but as long as Zuckerberg and Bezos work together, it seems that the entire industry can be blocked. There is a simple truth. Facebook's targeting of us is equivalent to targeting decentralization. For Ethereum and IPFS, we are not alone.
Therefore, we have to unite with projects such as Ethereum and Polkadot, and not to compete excessively with each other. Only when we cooperate together can we truly realize a decentralized world.
Chain catcher: Your goal is to build a bridge between Web2.0 and Web3.0. Can you talk about what Web3.0 is like in your understanding?
Suji: Everyone has different understandings of Web3.0. My understanding is that Web2.0 cannot do things due to some strange reasons. There were many beautiful dreams in the early days of the Internet, such as cross-border payment, three rights of privacy, and online. Governance, permanent storage, open finance, and data belong to individuals, but because countries and some commercial organizations are obstructing based on their own purposes, this is the current stage. We call this current stage Web2.0, and the next stage of breaking through obstructions and restrictions is called Web3.0.
Chain Catcher: We understand that you are one of the initiators of the anti-996 agreement. Do you think that blockchain technology can improve the 996 work system by empowering individuals?
Suji: Vitalik has always believed in and practiced the concept: Data as labor. Everyone believes that the 996 movement changed production relations, and the essence of production relations is nothing more than the relationship between labor and capital. In the digital world, users are labors, and platforms and platform owners are capitals. The labors of users are paid for by creating data. Only cryptography can protect data or protect data transfer and transactions. This is open finance or DeFi.
So I am very convinced that everyone can become capitalists. These code farmers need to have capital, and they need open source movement to help them truly own their intellectual property rights, rather than let big companies own and pass this knowledge on their behalf. Property rights make money. I feel that the 996 movement is the beginning of this vision.
In the traditional world, we need to protect the ability of workers to pay through laws and regulations. In the digital world, you need to implement it through Ethereum and smart contracts. If we stick to this idea and move forward, centralized platforms will not be afraid.
Chain Catcher: You have many very personalized labels on your body. Behaviors such as women's clothing programmers, opposition to the 996 movement, and college dropouts are a bit deviant. Can you talk about how your sense of resistance was formed? However, from a social perspective, the existence of many value judgments is deeply ingrained, and the effects of resistance actions currently seem to be limited. How do you view this situation?
Suji: This is difficult to say. Everyone sees and believes in different things. For example, you believe that there is no difference between gender and that the government and monopoly companies do not affect the investigation of the truth. That's why you become a reporter and participate in social movements.
I think someone has to do such a thing. It is not a resistance or deviation from something. It is a reform. This is consistent with what we do in business. We advocate users to regain their data privacy. Forcing some Internet giants to make changes, this is a revolution on the Internet.
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Interview with Fenbushi Capital Shen Bo: My understanding of blockchain and investment principles
This is the 310th issue of "Chain Catcher",
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