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  • Build Your Own Democracy: How Does DHK dao Achieve Autonomy?

    Build Your Own Democracy: How Does DHK dao Achieve Autonomy?

    Last issue, several friends left comments laughing that I was using clickbait titles. I half-jokingly replied, “You guys taught me that writing peacefully in the body text is useless.” Indeed, I’ve always been a “content person,” but the comment responses have never been so enthusiastic. If one day I truly become a clickbaiter, it would be a collective karma forced out by apathy.

    If we can take one more step within our capabilities in our daily lives, although we won’t see immediate effects, accumulation will eventually bring about a turning point. Conversely, some people think it’s enough to suppress the surface appearances daily, not knowing that they are just accumulating resentment, which will have to be repaid someday.

    Previously, I discussed the multiple meanings of the “D” in DHK. This time, from concept to practice, let’s talk about the “A” in DAO – how autonomous is to be implemented, starting with the DHK token distribution mechanism.

    The DHK token is an ERC-20 smart contract built on Ethereum, with seven million tokens minted on the Layer 2 network OP Mainnet. Excluding one million reserved for backup, one hundred thousand tokens, worth approximately two thousand USD, are airdropped to the community monthly. In other words, six million DHK will be gradually distributed over 60 months, i.e., five years.

    Guanyin’s Treasury Opening is Harder Than Imagined

    Most people would assume that giving away money is simple, and any difficulty would merely be an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response. However, if the public hasn’t yet recognized the value of the token, or doesn’t understand what you’re talking about at all, giving away money is no easier than handing out flyers on the street. In 2010, Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen created a “faucet” to give away Bitcoin. As long as you passed a simple reCAPTCHA to prove you were human, you could receive 5 BTC – more generous than Guanyin’s treasury lending. It seems incredible now, but its usage back then was very limited, showing just how difficult it is to give money to the public.

    From Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20100703032414/http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/

    If this was the case for Bitcoin, it goes without saying for DHK. Although the plan is to airdrop one hundred thousand tokens monthly, only a portion of people ever claim them. Originally, if the goal was just to blindly chase KPIs “with results as the target,” even ten billion tokens could be easily distributed. But DHK dao chose the harder path, adhering to the principle of “proof of contribution/participation.” Tokens are distributed based on each user’s contribution to the community and require active claiming. Alternatively, after explaining to “Muggles” (newcomers), a trivial amount of 1 DHK, representing “daoyau” status, is issued, moving step-by-step towards the vision of bringing seven million people onto the blockchain.

    Many things cannot be quantified, but to allocate resources, we have no choice but to measure the contribution of each daoyau. Taking April 2025 as an example, the monthly airdrop budget is split in half. Fifty thousand DHK are distributed to users who stake ATOM, OSMO, or AKT with DHK’s partner validator, allocated according to the square root of their income contribution:

    1. Calculate the income from the three nodes: ATOM, OSMO, and AKT. In April 2025, nearly 90% of the income came from ATOM.
    2. Based on the income proportion from ATOM, OSMO, and AKT, the fifty thousand DHK are divided among the three groups of users.
    3. The number of tokens a user stakes in each token’s validator node is taken square root, and this figure represents the user’s contribution, aiming to narrow the wealth gap.
    4. The DHK airdrop share for each user is calculated based on their contribution ratio.

    As for the other fifty thousand, they are allocated to daoyau Pro who are paid subscribers to the weekly newsletter. This part of the calculation is much simpler. Continuing with April 2025 as an example, there were 182 daoyau Pro, so each received 50,000/182 = 274 DHK.

    Interestingly, at the time of the airdrop in early May, DHK was 0.03 USDC, making 274 DHK worth about 8 USD, which is higher than the daoyau Pro monthly fee of 6 USD. And this wasn’t unique to April; the airdrop amount being higher than or close to the daoyau Pro monthly fee has been ongoing for a while. I don’t think any daoyau Pro subscribed just to earn money from airdrops, yet they inadvertently earned back their monthly fee or even more. This strange phenomenon is the “karma” of the blockchain industry, which I call “When will the cycle of reciprocal rewards ever end?“

    The Art of Distributing “Leftovers” (下欄 – Haa Laan)

    The above describes the distribution method, but whether users claim it is another matter. Of the 182 daoyau Pro in April, 101 provided wallet addresses to claim DHK, accounting for 55%, proving that daoyau Pro members pay to support, not to claim airdrops. “Saving” 45% of the airdrop budget isn’t a good thing; assets need to flow to be meaningful. Notifying and encouraging more people to participate has always been my work, including this article. But while trying hard to explain, I also understand very well that for many people, spending time to understand is a much greater commitment than paying money to support.

    As for users staking ATOM, OSMO, and AKT, the base is much larger, totaling over twenty thousand people. However, due to the lack of user contact information, the claim rate for airdrops is much lower. For example, in the first quarter of 2025, seventy-five thousand DHK were allocated monthly to staking users, but the claim rate was only 8%. In view of this, the volunteers decided that starting from the second quarter, the airdrop quotas for staking users and daoyau Pro members would be adjusted to fifty thousand each, and the share for daoyau Pro members might be gradually increased further.

    Speaking of contributions, how can we forget the volunteers? In Cantonese, there’s a term “下欄 (haa laan),” which originally referred to fruits in a fruit market that were about to rot and needed to be taken off the shelves. In the past, society wasn’t as affluent as it is now, but it valued thriftiness, so these fruits were distributed to employees. Over time, any practice of treating kitchen scraps, expired food, or any unsellable goods as employee benefits came to be collectively known as “haa laan.” A year ago, DHK dao borrowed this concept, distributing unclaimed airdrop tokens to volunteers each quarter based on their contributions, simultaneously solving the problems of “running on passion” (working for free) and asset stagnation – killing two birds with one stone.

    How to self-assess elegantly and fairly is another challenge in resource distribution. I remember during university, we often did group projects. Lecturers would require group members to conduct peer evaluations, where each person would allocate one hundred points among other group members based on their contribution. These points were then summed up to determine each person’s contribution score for grading purposes, preventing anyone from getting a free lunch. The method DHK dao volunteers use for peer evaluation is similar, but it employs quadratic voting (QV), requiring each person to use n² points to represent n contribution points, allocating a total of 99 points.

    Here’s an example: Suppose there are five volunteers, and we first consider Alice’s scoring. Alice believes Bob contributed the most, followed by Carol and Dave, while Eve had no notable merits. So, she gives Bob 81 points, reflecting 9 contribution points (9² = 81); Carol and Dave each get 9 points, meaning 3 contribution points (3² = 9); 99 points have been used up, so Eve gets 0 points.

    It’s relatively rare to use exactly 99 points. More often, because scoring is squared, it’s often impossible to sum up to exactly 99 points. Therefore, the principle for scoring is not to exceed 99 points, but it’s not necessary to use them all. This isn’t a design flaw but an intentional feature. The starting point is to prevent people from conveniently averaging out scores and to force evaluators to think more carefully.

    Assume the scores from everyone are as follows:

    Finally, each person’s score is converted into contribution points and summed up. Then, the DHK is allocated proportionally. Assuming a total of 10,000 DHK, the allocation results are:

    From the example above, it can be seen that although Bob’s contribution and score are outstanding, the distribution among everyone is not excessively disparate. Besides requiring participants to think more when scoring, quadratic voting can also effectively narrow the wealth gap.

    Using quadratic voting, DHK dao’s volunteers have conducted three peer evaluations and “haa laan” distributions since the middle of last year. All related numbers, documents, and transaction records are fully open for inspection on the website dhk.org. No matter how long they are stored, data will not be deleted under the pretext of slowing down the website.

    I often emphasize that if you want democracy, besides entering the system and taking to the streets to fight for it, you can also create it yourself. On this “specific day” of June 4th, no matter if the state machinery holds ten events in Victoria Park, even if I feel unwilling to accept it, I will absolutely not slow down my pace of creating democracy in daily life.

    p.s. Apart from watching movies, I rarely set foot in shopping malls. This issue’s cover photo, a casual shot taken in a mall, is the first of its kind. I mainly feel that the giant panda “invading” Hong Kong, with Hong Kong people seemingly oblivious and living as usual, strongly reflects the reality of Hong Kong. (Mysterious voice: Otherwise, did you think the black-clad neighbor carrying two bags of groceries would physically block the giant panda?)

  • Postcard from Sendai

    Postcard from Sendai

    Dear friends,

    Some folks back home in Hong Kong jokingly call traveling to Japan “visiting the hometown.” Critics label this unpatriotic or even treasonous, but they’re overthinking it. Truth be told, it’s just people voting with their feet. We simply enjoy good food, entertainment, courtesy, honesty, cleanliness, quality, and order. Plus, in recent years, another huge perk has been added: it’s cheap.

    For Hongkongers of my generation, our old impression of Japan was expensive—painfully expensive. Back in the 1980s at Sha Tin Yaohan, a bowl of ramen cost around HK$40, roughly what a bowl of local noodles costs forty years later today. Times have changed. With the yen hovering around 0.05 against the HK dollar, conversions are dead simple: divide by two, drop a zero. Suddenly, everything feels astonishingly affordable. A bowl of ramen costs the same as Hong Kong cart noodles; plenty of goods cost half of what they do in Hong Kong and are even cheaper than in Taipei. Convenience store drinks, onigiri, and snacks often convert to single digits in HK dollars. Seeing prices that low feels like stepping back in time.

    Pundits with an “international perspective” tell us that the Motherland’s economy keeps booming while Japan’s has stagnated for decades. But as an ordinary civilian, I care about lived experience, not macroeconomic theory. Consumer prices and housing have stayed steady for years, which hardly seems like a bad thing. Most importantly, the underprivileged are looked after, the country is self-sufficient, people are fed and housed, and there’s democracy on top of that.

    Better stop there before I get carried away; let the photos speak for themselves.

    kin
    2026.09.16

    Fresh oysters at Sendai Morning Market for just ¥100 each; the plumpest ones are only ¥500.
    Sendai’s signature treats: zunda mochi in front, and the edamame shake i drank almost daily during my trip. We don’t have this in Hong Kong, so i had no idea how delicious it was. Another pleasant surprise was the butter-baked sweet potato, though that actually hails from Hokkaido. While i don’t know when i’ll taste them again, i secretly hope they don’t go international—places are better off keeping their own local flavors.
    The fanciest meal of the trip: eight dishes, fine sake, and flawless hospitality, all for under ¥5,000 per person.
    Even Japanese post offices are fun to browse. Full of color, eye-catching goods, and gorgeous postcards for just ¥110 each.
    When I told C I was visiting Sendai, his immediate reaction was, “Isn’t that where Lu Xun studied?” Exactly. Lu Xun studied medicine here at Sendai Medical College (now Tohoku University School of Medicine) hoping to “save the nation through medicine,” before famously turning to literature instead.
    Ginzan Onsen, the setting that inspired Spirited Away. (By the way, I’m not the biggest Spirited Away fan—I don’t hate it, but Miyazaki’s work goes over my head; I prefer Makoto Shinkai.)
    Happened to catch the annual Jozenji Street Jazz Festival. Over two weekend days, more than 5,000 musicians played over 870 free sets across 50 stages throughout Sendai. I caught a few, including this super cool saxophonist with her son sitting right in front of her.
    Matsushima Bay, one of the Three Views of Japan. Truly breathtaking (don’t judge it by my casual snapshots).
    The epicenter of the 9.0 magnitude 3/11 earthquake in 2011 was off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, where Sendai sits. From what i could see on this trip, the buildings have been rebuilt and Matsushima’s greenery has recovered. May Japan and the rest of the world be spared from natural disasters.
    i like watching local films or shows whenever i travel. This time, i picked up Until the T-Shirt Dries right before leaving, which prompted a pilgrimage to a local laundromat. Just like in the show, it was spacious, completely empty, and stocked with free manga. The only false advertising: no Yu Aoi in sight :U

    P.S. This postcard makes me sound like a total Japanophile, but truth is, i can’t let go of Hong Kong—i mean the local noodle shops and iced lemon tea.

  • Just Books: Just Defend It

    Just Books: Just Defend It

    It’s all my fault for always doing bizarre things—I constantly have to spend time explaining to people what I am actually doing. Take Just Books, for example.

    Just Books is located directly opposite Sam Kee Book Co., a legendary bookstore famous for its cats in North Point, sharing space operating as “underground bookstores” in the basement arcade. Whenever I talk to people about Just Books being a specialty shop for e-books, they are always thoroughly baffled and ask why e-books shouldn’t just be sold online.

    Interestingly, if a physical bookstore builds a website to sell print books, no one finds it strange; in fact, people think it’s perfectly reasonable. Thinking deeper, this is somewhat a double standard. Since print books can also be sold on websites, the question “Why open a physical store?” should logically apply equally to bookstores selling print books.

    This is certainly not meant as a provocation. Quite the contrary, I have immense respect for all booksellers who dedicate their time and effort. I just want to explain that although Just Books specializes in e-books and related services, it equally recognizes the value of local, physical connections—motivated much like traditional print bookstores, hoping to use books as a conduit to foster serendipitous encounters and interactions between people.

    Choosing e-books wasn’t about being quirky or different; it was a deeply considered decision. Following the social changes of recent years, many people in Hong Kong have realized that our culture must be saved by ourselves, and our history must be written by ourselves. The complete disappearance of websites like Apple Daily, Stand News, and Citizen News led many to lose faith in digital media and turn back to print books. I support any action that safeguards culture, and I support print books and newspapers within my means—such as buying and reading books daily, launching the UBR (“Universal Basic Reader”) initiative, and having independent bookstores collaboratively curate an annual reading list in a decentralized manner. However, while mainstream attention focuses on print, the preservation of content in digital media becomes all the more crucial.

    Independent bookstores reflect the book-curation tastes of their owners, often giving off a hipster vibe. What Just Books reflects is a positioning of “Humanism as the core, Technology as the tool.” It mainly centers around e-book services, including selling e-readers, e-book production, as well as digitizing books, newspapers, magazines, optical discs, and film rolls on behalf of customers. Although it calls itself a bookstore, it resembles an “e-book printing factory” or a “copy shop.” I don’t know whether this makes Just Books the least cool independent bookstore around; I only know that someone has to do this.

    It is very common for bookstores to also handle publishing. From traditional publishing groups like Commercial Press and Joint Publishing, to recent independent bookstores like Mount Zero (見山), Have-a-nice-stay (留下), Hunter (獵人), and Nowhere (飛地)—besides selling books, they all publish to varying degrees. Just Books is no exception; in fact, one could say publishing is its “primary mission.” The number of books published by Just Books far exceeds the number sold. But unlike traditional publishers who oversee curation, editing, layout design, printing, distribution, and warehousing, Just Books is primarily responsible for scanning materials, creating e-books, and listing them on various platforms.

    In 2023, media outlets discovered that public libraries had quietly removed books by Jimmy Lai, Szeto Wah, Zunzi, Au Ka-lun, Benny Tai, Margaret Ng, Roy Kwong, and many others from their shelves. Furthermore, these removals didn’t even exclusively involve political opinions—they included travelogues, commentaries on Jin Yong’s novels, and even romance novels. The exact number of removed titles was unknown, but the civilian reverse-engineered reading list alone exceeded 500 books. Unable to just stand by and watch, I brainlessly (and I mean that in a positive, intuitive sense 🙂 launched the “Hong Kong Decentralized Library” project, aiming to collect and scan removed books, hoping to save as many as possible, one book at a time. The project ran for over a year. At my own expense, I collected over 300 removed books through various channels, alongside more than 700 titles that were very likely to be, or had already been, removed without the public’s knowledge—after all, titles were still being removed from shelves at the time.

    Finding these removed books one by one was far from easy, especially out-of-print titles from long ago. But the hardest part was convincing copyright holders to authorize scanning and publishing digital versions. Although the “Hong Kong Decentralized Library” rescued over a thousand books, apart from stuffing my two mini-storage units, there was no avenue to reach the broader public. Making up my mind, I halted the project in September 2024 and launched trial operations for “Just Books” as a consignment cube store in Shatin, managing operations while exploring paths to safeguard Hong Kong’s culture and history.

    Around the same period, LikeCoin—which I initiated in 2017 to focus on decentralized publishing—was brewing its v3 DeBook Protocol upgrade. The medium for content preservation transitioned from primarily articles to books, and the accompanying application Liker Land was simultaneously upgraded to 3ook.com (book-dot-com), promoted as a “3rd Generation eBookstore” that is readable, listenable, and ownable. Listing an e-book on 3ook.com is as simple as uploading a video to YouTube. Besides checking whether the uploaded file conforms to EPUB or PDF formats and whether metadata like book title and author are filled out, the system doesn’t make additional judgments on whether the publication is “decent enough.” Even if the cover is a blank piece of paper, the content is only one page, or the illustrations are a child’s scribbles, it won’t be rejected, and the publication is listed immediately.

    This isn’t about ignoring editorial quality, but broadening the imagination of what a book can be. Very often, whether a work is considered a book and enters the traditional publishing ecosystem is one thing; whether it is meaningful and worth preserving is another. Community newspapers, which have a small audience but immense significance, are a prime example. Additionally, corporate annual reports, non-profit flyers, theatre house programs, student newspapers, class publications, doujinshi (fanzines), family, or personal zines—all hold meaning for the world, or at least for a segment of people. Yet they are almost never available for purchase or free download in ebookstores. Print must factor in costs like printing, warehousing, logistics, and display, making filtering necessary. But with advanced technology, bandwidth and storage costs are no longer a concern. Even if there are only a few readers, it can still be published. What’s more, viral, blockbuster content often originates from unintentional, casual creations.

    3ook.com can be thought of as the “YouTube for printed matter.” On one hand, it provides entry points via smartphone, tablet, and computer applications for readers to discover, purchase, and borrow various e-books, newspapers, and magazines anytime, anywhere. On the other hand, it drastically lowers the barrier to digital publishing, empowering grassroots creators, documentarians, and reporters so that every tiny piece of history can be seen.

    That said, even though smartphones have made taking photos and recording video basic skills, no matter how simple e-book creation is, there are still technical skills to master. There is a vast amount of content in society worth preserving; even if copyright holders are willing to digitize and preserve it, they may lack the resources, ability, or may even no longer be alive—requiring someone else to step in.

    To readers, 3ook.com is an online bookstore, while Just Books is a physical bookstore. To me, both are actually continuations of the Hong Kong Decentralized Library: the former is an open infrastructure where anyone can publish, and the latter is an e-book “printing plant” that digitizes physical books. Without 3ook.com, the ebooks produced by Just Books would have no suitable home; without Just Books, 3ook.com would just be a cold, empty bookshelf—code alone cannot proactively bring out-of-print Hong Kong books, canceled event programs, and various historical materials scattered among the public directly to readers.

    After Just Books’s publishing work got underway, classical works like Outcry（吶喊） and Selected Prose of Xu Zhimo（徐志摩散文集） led the way, aimed at streamlining processes and improving tools through public domain books. Once preparations were complete, starting last year, Just Books reached out to publishers and independent authors everywhere. To encourage content preservation, whether for new releases or past works, ebooks were produced without upfront fees. Depending on the publisher’s preference, Just Books sometimes served as distributor, and other times publishers or authors uploaded the books themselves—the sole goal being to provide the missing puzzle piece in the decentralized publishing ecosystem. By early 2026, content preservation efforts had achieved modest success, with over 100 participating titles.

    Among all the projects, the collaboration with Progressing Media (進一步多媒體) and InMedia (獨立媒體) came closest to the original intention of the “Hong Kong Decentralized Library” three years ago. The works of both organizations are crucial records of the era, yet most are completely out of print, and all have either been removed from public libraries or were never stocked in the first place—making them precisely the kinds of works civilian historical preservation should focus on most. In light of this, Just Books scanned six older works from InMedia, such as Our Umbrella Era — Umbrella Timeline and Media Operations and Citizens of a Kind — Chroniclers Traveling between City and Countryside, as well as works from Progressing Media such as Walter Benjamin on Violence and Return Power to the People: Democracy, Elections, and Resistance, making them available one by one on 3ook.com for everyone to purchase or borrow.

    Although Just Books operates commercially and is “a business,” in reality, like many independent bookstores, it is powered by love, paying out of pocket to do what is supposed to be handled by the government. Beyond extremely tight finances, experiences since 2019 have continually shown me that a greater obstacle to grassroots historical preservation is copyright holders refusing authorization due to commercial considerations or political concerns, preferring that their works remain hidden away forever. I absolutely agree that creative work has value, and I respect others’ right to be forgotten; however, standing from the perspective of a documentarian, feeling upset about this is inevitable.

    Even so, Just Books only knows how to press on for as long as it can, taking its positioning as an ebook specialty shop to fulfill its mission of preserving culture and safeguarding history. Just defend it.

    《賣書者言》：森記、塔冷通、序言、艺鵠、Seeds、見山、一拳、南灣、神話、渡日、留下、獵人、界限、長夢、渴喝、飛雲、義守、種種、碼頭，19 家獨立書店的故事。

    3ook.com Li3rary｜Instant lending

    p.s. Just Books is currently undergoing minor renovations. The shop area will expand from 10 square meters to 16 square meters—mathematically an expansion of operations by 60%! Hope to offer enough space for everyone to try out e-readers and experience the 3ook.com library.

  • DHK Newsletter Fifth Anniversary

    DHK Newsletter Fifth Anniversary

    Repeating once a year shouldn’t be too much, right?

    On June 24, 2021, Hong Kong’s Apple Daily was shut down, and my column #decentralizehk came to an end along with it. Unwilling to simply stop writing, I launched DHK Newsletter #0 the very next day, June 25. Since then, I’ve written one piece every week without a single break. In other words, this issue, #261, marks DHK Newsletter’s fifth anniversary.

    Following past tradition, I’ll close with an annual review.

    Previous reviews: Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4

    1. I can’t quite tell whether these five years have passed quickly or slowly. Two contradictory feelings circle me at once — one says five years blinked by in an instant, the other says I’ve finally made it through five years. The objective fact is: although I once wrote a newspaper column for nearly a decade, five straight years of weekly output is, for me personally, the most sustained record I’ve ever kept.
    2. Since I choose my own topics, I already knew that this year, among the “three freedoms”, I leaned more heavily toward “freedom of information.” But it wasn’t until I just tallied everything up that I realized how lopsided the distribution actually was — articles related to “freedom of information” made up half of the total, followed by “financial freedom” at 27%. Pieces on “democracy” were fewer than in previous years, only 6 articles, while “Diary of a Fool” stayed at around 10% as usual, also 6 articles.
    3. This year there were especially many articles on “freedom of information” — partly because of the LikeCoin v3 update, around which I wrote ten pieces, and partly because over the past year authoritarian power has grown ever more brazen: bookstores raided, the press suppressed, with related incidents occurring more frequently than ever.
    4. As in past reviews, below I list all the year’s articles, with 19 specially recommended pieces marked out. That might seem like a lot, but they’re all important topics, so I won’t limit myself to a fixed number. I’d suggest saving this post and coming back to reread it when you have time — branching outward from it, you can connect to all the articles from these five years.
    5. For six months of this past year, alongside writing the weekly Post, I was also preparing my new book The Pursuit of Freedom. Though I call myself a “full-time writer,” I write extremely slowly, and on top of that there’s 3ook.com and Just Books to run part-time. With everything piling up, the newsletter sometimes felt like a real struggle to write — but I still managed to publish on time every week, and never once let AI ghostwrite for me.
    6. I believe the topics I’ve chosen matter, and I’ve done my best to “tell the web3 story well.” And yet, over this past year, paid subscribers haven’t grown at all — worse, the open rate has kept declining, dropping from the low 30s to the low 20s percent within just a year, a drop of over 20 percentage points. Honestly, I have almost no idea what to do about this. But “knowing shame is close to courage” — so on the occasion of this fifth anniversary, I want to let everyone still reading know about this trend, so we can face it together.

    Freedom of Information (25)

    Financial Freedom (14)

    Democracy (6)

    Diary (6)

    p.s. Looking back, freedom turns out to be right there, where the lights grow dim.

  • Hong Kong Sends Undercover Agents Into a Bookstore

    Hong Kong Sends Undercover Agents Into a Bookstore

    Last November, a fire tore through Wang Fuk Court — a residential estate of eight high-rise towers in Hong Kong — killing 168 people and displacing all 1,984 households. Hearings over the past few days have revealed only fragments of what went wrong. Residents had complained, repeatedly and to multiple government departments, about the renovation works long before the fire. None of it was enough to prevent the disaster.

    Whether anyone should be held responsible is for the independent commission to determine; the public should not rush to judgment. While we wait for the findings, however, it may be worth turning to another case — one that shows just how proactive the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) can be when it sets its mind to enforcement, and which may serve as an instructive example for other government departments.

    Hong Kong law requires anyone running a “place of public entertainment” to hold a licence, with criminal penalties for failure to do so (Cap. 172, s. 4). On 29 June last year, Book Punch — an independent bookstore in Sham Shui Po — hosted a graduation showcase for the third cohort of its in-house stand-up comedy class. The event ran across two sessions, pay-what-you-wish. No licence had been obtained. Yesterday, the bookstore and its owner were each found guilty on two counts and fined HK$3,000 per summons (case nos. KCS37515 & KCS37516/2025).

    I attended both the trial in the morning and the verdict in the afternoon at Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts. Watching how this case was successfully built and prosecuted, I noticed at least three commendable details that other government departments would do well to study.

    Proactive Enforcement: Scrolling Facebook in the Midst of a Busy Schedule

    According to the Agreed Facts, two FEHD Health Inspectors I came across a social media post by Book Punch about the upcoming event on 25 June 2025, and from that moment began their investigation.

    In other words — assuming I have understood correctly — between their routine inspections and their handling of public complaints, FEHD officers nevertheless found time in their busy schedules to spot, on Facebook, that an independent bookstore was hosting what looked like a public entertainment event without the relevant licence, and to swing into action. This kind of proactive, public-safety-minded enforcement stands in stark contrast to the popular stereotype of bureaucracies — that they go strictly by the book, that doing less means erring less. It is a model worth emulating across the rest of government.

    Infiltration and Cunning: Undercover Agents, Cash in the Cardboard Box, Floor Plans from Memory

    The Agreed Facts go on to state that the two FEHD inspectors signed up via the registration link in the Facebook post. On the evening of the event — 29 June last year, around 6:00 p.m. — the two inspectors arrived in plain clothes. There were about 50 audience members. Six performers took turns delivering jokes and using physical comedy, to frequent laughter from the audience. At 8:00 p.m., after a group photo, the event came to a close.

    According to the case, the two undercover inspectors not only documented the event in detail and took 11 photographs — they each also dropped HK$100 into the cardboard box being passed around, like the moles in classic Hong Kong cinema who, to win the trust of the boss, are willing to dirty their own hands by committing the very crime they are investigating. The day after the event, the two inspectors drew, from memory, the floor plan of Book Punch — the key piece of evidence that cracked the case.

    Those of us raised on Hong Kong cinema, with its long tradition of cop-and-mole thrillers — the kind that gave us Infernal Affairs, later remade by Scorsese as The Departed — tended to assume undercover work was reserved for triads and drug lords. It turns out it is also reserved for stand-up comedy nights.

    Statutory Interpretation: A Bookstore Without a Stage Is a Stage After All

    The prosecution and defence agreed on what happened. The dispute was over what the law meant.

    Mr. Lawrence Lau Wai-chung SC, for the defence, argued that the Ordinance regulates “stage performance” — not “performance” as such. Citing both the Oxford English Dictionary (“a raised floor or platform… on which actors, musicians, etc. perform”) and the Cihai Chinese dictionary, he submitted that since Book Punch had no stage, what took place that day was not a “stage performance” within the meaning of the Ordinance. The narrowest interpretation, he argued, should apply — both because every word in a statute is presumed to have meaning, and because cultural activities enjoy constitutional protection under Hong Kong’s Basic Law.

    After more than four hours of deliberation, Magistrate Mok Tsz-chung was unpersuaded. The legislation, he ruled, exists to protect public safety; reading it too narrowly would defeat that purpose. So long as a performance draws an audience, whether or not there is a literal stage is beside the point. He convicted on both summonses.

    The Wang Fuk Court fire killed 168 people. Even though residents had complained beforehand about contractors colluding on tenders, district councillors collecting large numbers of authorised votes, scaffolding netting failing to meet standards, flammable enclosures, and construction workers smoking on site, no one was prosecuted on any of those counts and the disaster was not prevented. Some have accused various government departments of passing the buck and going through the motions. Yet the Book Punch case demonstrates so amply the initiative and execution of these very departments that any criticism of government incompetence collapses on its own.

    Don’t take a single case as too small to reveal what these departments are capable of. This is, in fact, the third successful prosecution of Book Punch — after earlier convictions for selling alcohol without a licence and operating an unlicensed school (the latter for hosting a Spanish-language interest class). Each time, in matters that ordinary citizens would consider harmless trifles, the FEHD, the Education Bureau and others have managed to unravel the threads, descend on the premises by surprise, and — twice now — send in undercover agents. The judiciary, for its part, has played its part in securing convictions every time.

    A fourth charge is pending. In March, Book Punch was raided again — this time by the National Security Police — over its sale of The Troublemaker, a biography of Jimmy Lai, the jailed pro-democracy media mogul whose own trial under the National Security Law has drawn international attention. Pong Yat-ming and three staff members were arrested for “knowingly selling a publication with seditious intention” and released on bail. Given the impressive performance government departments have shown in recent months, and their evident determination to safeguard public safety, what kind of future remains for Book Punch — and for Hong Kong’s other independent bookstores — is something the public can simply look on and see.

  • A Slave to Freedom, or A Free Slave? On Jimmy Lai of Apple Daily

    A Slave to Freedom, or A Free Slave? On Jimmy Lai of Apple Daily

    This issue of the newsletter features a draft excerpt from my upcoming work, “Attack on Freedom” (進擊的自由). This article was written last December—a piece of over ten thousand words reflecting on my experiences pursuing information freedom over the past twenty years. What follows is just a small selection.

    At the moment of writing, Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Digital, had just been found guilty of three national security charges.

    I still remember the end of last year; after attending the sentencing of the 47 pro-democracy activists, I found it impossible to sleep. Early the next morning, I simply got out of bed and headed back to the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts. In the wind and rain, I vied for a spot against the professional “line-standers” just to observe the trial of the Apple Daily national security case.

    As soon as the court opened, the defense lawyer asked Jimmy Lai about his original intention for founding Next Digital. Mr. Lai replied that media promotes the flow of information; the more information one possesses, the more free one becomes. Thus, after the June 4th incident, he decided to found Next Magazine. He spoke with such nonchalance, yet hearing those words—unprepared as I was—made my skin crawl.

    It wasn’t that the words were exceptionally moving. Quite the opposite: this discourse has become dated. If Mr. Lai hadn’t brought it up, I would have forgotten it entirely. Born in the era of the internet and smartphones, I witnessed information move from scarcity to expansion to total saturation. I can understand the context of that era. But for Gen Z, who have never “searched for data” and have only ever “swiped through posts,” these words might sound like “the more air there is, the smoother your breathing will be”—it doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny. If more information made people freer, shouldn’t we have been free long ago? Why, then, do we still lack even universal suffrage?

    Yet, Mr. Lai’s view at the time of the newspaper’s founding was absolutely correct. Information carries knowledge, facts, data, and the ability to discern right from wrong. Without information, one cannot fight for freedom, nor even know if freedom exists; fundamentally, the very concept of freedom cannot take root. Information freedom is the foundation of freedom of speech, personal freedom, freedom of belief, freedom of association, and all others. Information is like the forbidden fruit of Eden: one bite ensures you are no longer “domesticated,” liberating all subsequent possibilities while forcing you to bear a heavy price.

    Thinking of this, the 1995 television advertisement for the launch of Apple Daily—the image of Mr. Lai hit by multiple arrows yet still calmly eating an apple—surfaced vividly in my mind, sending a shiver through me.

    The Three Walls Obstructing Information

    In the Japanese manga Attack on Titan, there are Nine Titans, each with distinct traits. The “Attack Titan,” hosted by the protagonist Eren Yeager, is characterized by its relentless pursuit of freedom throughout its life. The “Founding Titan,” also inherited by Eren, possesses the power to rewrite memories and control all other Titans (except the Attack Titan).

    If we replace “Titans” with “Freedom,” then information freedom is the protagonist of this ensemble drama—playing the crucial role of “Attack on Freedom,” while also serving as the “Founding Freedom” from which all other layers of freedom derive.

    By the same logic, the most direct way to restrict a citizen’s freedom is to block the flow of information. Coincidentally, much like the Maria, Rose, and Sina walls that kept the Titans at bay, the primary means of obstructing information also comes from three high walls.

    from Attack on Freedom

    Many friends know I am a massive fan of Attack on Titan. Even the title of my new work, Attack on Freedom, and its core imagery, are unabashed tributes to it.

    Beyond Hajime Isayama’s brilliant plotting and profound characterization, fans of the series would likely agree that the dialogue is exceptionally well-crafted, embedded with many iconic lines. The one that left the deepest impression on me was the scene where the protagonist, Eren, mocks himself as a “Slave to Freedom.”

    I’ve watched Attack on Titan over and over. I always understood this phrase—composed of a positive and a negative term—as being ultimately derogatory. Perhaps because I studied science and emphasize logic, I figured “positive times negative equals negative.”

    Grammatically, “freedom” here is a noun. Just as some are slaves to money, Eren is a slave; it’s just that he pursues freedom instead of wealth. (And for the record, I absolutely detest Eren, though that’s beside the point).

    On Monday, Jimmy Lai was sentenced to twenty years for conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and sedition under the National Security Law. Former executives Ryan Law, Lam Man-chung, and Fung Wai-kwong were also sentenced to between six years and three months and ten years. Though I was already pessimistic, the reality was still heartbreaking. That night, walking along the Shing Mun River and listening to podcasts, I thought about how these people have now literally become slaves to freedom.

    《庭刊》報導

    As I walked, I suddenly realized that a “Slave to Freedom”, translated from 自由的奴隸, could have another, positive interpretation. The status of a “prisoner” is objective and imposed, but the attitude one takes toward misfortune is subjective—an embodiment of personal will. In this interpretation, 自由的奴隸 could be translated as a “Free Slave”.

    Understood this way, 自由的奴隸, or Free Slaves, perfectly describes Jimmy Lai, Gwyneth Ho from the 47-person primary case, and Chow Hang-tung, who is still defending herself in her incitement to subversion case. Facing an absurd system, even knowing that a guilty plea or a plea for leniency could reduce their sentences—and in Mr. Lai’s case, knowing he didn’t even have to return to Hong Kong to face trial—they chose to face it bravely. They remained true to themselves from start to finish, upholding their beliefs and manifesting a noble character that pushes free will to its absolute limit.

    I have no religious faith, but I believe that even if Jimmy Lai, now seventy-eight, were to pass away in prison, his free soul would live forever in heaven. However, the “heaven” I understand exists within the social conscience.

    P.S. Whenever a gross social injustice occurs, I hesitate over whether to comment in this newsletter. The answer is often “no.” Sometimes it’s purely for the sake of “division of labor,” wanting to keep the newsletter focused on my main mission; sometimes it’s because, after stripping away the thoughts that would be illegal to write, there’s nothing left to say. And sometimes—like this time—it’s the belief that everyone already understands, and anything I write would just be repeating what is already known.

    However, after being bombarded by the “News Simulcast” over the last few days—with phrases like “deserving of the crime,” “upholding the rule of law,” “justice served,” and even the classic line from From Beijing with Love, “traitor and running dog”—I made a last-minute decision. I cannot forfeit my right to freedom of expression. Even if what I write is merely common sense, in a society where common sense is scarce, it must be written—to add one more record to history.

  • The Eight Great Misconceptions About Money: Cryptocurrency Edition

    The Eight Great Misconceptions About Money: Cryptocurrency Edition

    Let’s continue counting down the eight great misconceptions about money. This time, it’s about cryptocurrency.

    Misconceptions about traditional currency stem from having fixed ideas about long-established things without zooming out to see the full picture. Misconceptions about cryptocurrency, however, arise from cognitive biases toward new things, either by being misled by their names or by making flawed analogies to the physical world.

    Part 1: Eight Misconceptions About Money: Fiat Currency Edition

    5. Cryptocurrency = Privacy Protection

    If I had to pick the single most important misconception to clarify, I wouldn’t hesitate to say this: Mainstream cryptocurrencies are not private. “Mainstream” refers to the vast majority of coins, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Only a very small number of exceptions, such as Monero, Zcash, and MobileCoin, exist—these are typically called “privacy coins” for distinction.

    “Cryptocurrency” is widely translated in Chinese as “加密貨幣” (Encrypted Currency), which I believe is the main reason most newcomers mistakenly believe the privacy of transacting parties is protected. The reality is that the wallet addresses, coin types, amounts, and other details involved in a transaction are not encrypted at all; they are published in plaintext for the whole world to see. Using instant messaging as an analogy, it’s as if your conversations were broadcast naked online in plaintext, with the participants identified only by nicknames. One can imagine just how transparent this is. I won’t arrogantly claim that “Encrypted Currency” is a mistranslation, but I have always insisted on using “密碼貨幣” (Cryptographic Currency)—currency realized through cryptography. This isn’t to be contrarian, but to reduce misunderstanding.

    Although everyone talks about privacy, the general public largely ignores it unless they feel their data is at risk of being sent to mainland China. This is something I’ve observed in daily life, especially in Taiwan. Fortunately, the Web3 development community takes existing problems very seriously. The Ethereum Foundation has even made enhancing privacy a top priority to prevent Ethereum from becoming a mass surveillance hub as dApps achieve mass adoption. I will explore this topic further in a dedicated series called “Privacy is Normal.” For now, the first thing newcomers need to understand is that mainstream cryptocurrency transactions are not encrypted.

    👉 Cryptocurrency is very secure, but not at all private.

    6. Cryptocurrency = Virtual Currency

    Another common translation for “Cryptocurrency” is “虛擬貨幣” (Virtual Currency), a term I also avoid. As its name suggests, it’s too “virtual” or insubstantial. It can refer to in-game currency or assets within tools like Alipay, but it’s rarely used to describe funds in a digital bank. In short, it’s a nebulous term. Interestingly, Hong Kong has recently followed mainland China in renaming “virtual banks” to “digital banks,” partly because the term “virtual” is considered misleading.

    You don’t need to be a linguist to know that the Chinese character for “virtual” (虛) often carries negative connotations, appearing in words like “false” (虛假), “hypocritical” (虛偽), “weak” (虛弱), and “vain” (虛榮). As for the character “擬” (nǐ), it means “to imitate.” “Virtual” (虛擬) thus refers to using digital technology to imitate a physical-world entity. A virtual flower, for instance, takes a real flower as its “ideal form” and tries its best to resemble one.

    Some might think that cryptocurrency is imitating traditional money, but I disagree—or at least, believe it’s more than that. As mentioned before, the function of money is to define, store, and exchange value. Value itself has no physical form. It’s just that before digital technology was invented in the last century, humanity had to use tangible objects for millennia to achieve the effect of exchange. Therefore, it has always been traditional currency that imitates value. With the rise of information technology and the internet, even before the blockchain was born, people were already using digital ledgers to interpret money. Banknotes and coins have become increasingly marginalized; physical existence has never been an essential element of money.

    This isn’t just splitting hairs for the sake of argument. If you believe that cryptocurrency is meant to simulate traditional currency—failing to grasp that its essence is to interpret the definition, storage, and exchange of value—you will inherit all the limitations of traditional money. This severely restricts society’s imagination for money and tokens. Setting aside use cases, consider just the verbs: beyond the traditional “spend,” “save,” “borrow,” and “lend,” cryptocurrency introduces “mine,” “burn,” “stake,” “restake,” “synthesize,” and more. Its possibilities far exceed those of traditional currency.

    👉 Words Misunderstood: Virtual From The Sociology of Blockchain: Reimagining Money, Media, and Democracy

    7. Wallet = A Container for Cryptocurrency

    In this mobile-first era, I don’t know how many people still use a leather wallet, but I believe most people understand that a wallet is traditionally a carrier for money, typically used to hold banknotes and ID cards.

    It is precisely this clear understanding of a wallet’s original meaning that causes most people to misunderstand the function of a cryptocurrency wallet, assuming it is also a container for assets. In reality, the “wallet” is just an analogy, and unfortunately, a very misleading one. Digital accounting involves no physical existence. If you absolutely must ask “where the money is,” you could say that since the ownership of value is recorded on the blockchain, the blockchain itself is the asset container—a public vault for everyone’s assets.

    As for a cryptocurrency wallet, the money is never inside it. A more appropriate analogy is a keyring. It helps users store and manage their private keys. As long as you have your private key, you can go to the “public vault” and access your own assets.

    👉 Embedded Wallets: The Account is the Wallet, Bringing Web3 to 5 Billion Netizens

    8. Private Key = An Unlocking Tool

    Analogies help with understanding, but they often create misunderstandings at the same time. I just said a more accurate analogy for a “wallet” is a keyring, but the “key” itself is also an analogy that explains one characteristic while failing to cover others.

    Because a key in the physical world corresponds to a lock, people generally imagine their cryptocurrency is locked in a specific safe that no one else can open. But in the world of cryptography, a private key corresponds to another key, called the public key. Your cryptocurrency is simply placed at a random location, and anyone who happens to guess that location correctly can access the assets within. From this perspective, the key is more like a treasure map.

    The blockchain has no admission process. Every day, countless new and old users create new wallets. But a “new” wallet is merely one randomly generated from an extremely, extremely vast number of possibilities. There is no mechanism to ensure that a wallet address is not already in use. In other words, if you are lucky enough, you could generate Satoshi Nakamoto’s address when creating a wallet, and the assets inside would belong to you. Conversely, if someone else happens to generate your address, sorry, you’ll have to “share the wealth.”

    This may be hard to accept, especially for newcomers, but it is a fact—or at least, an accurate analogy. The system works because the probability of guessing correctly is extremely close to zero (but it is not zero). It’s like how there are so many celestial bodies in the universe that Earth could be hit by a giant meteor at any second. Humanity has remained safe so far purely because the universe is so vast that the probability of being hit is very, very low.

    In fact, the probability of Earth being hit by a meteor is much higher than the probability of your private key being guessed by someone else. Whether accepting this concept makes you feel more relieved or more worried, however, is hard to say.

    👉 The 24-Word Mnemonic Phrase: A Treasure Map in the Blockchain World

    Cryptocurrency isn’t private, traditional currency is the imitation, a wallet is actually a keyring, and a key is surprisingly a treasure map. I hope the above helps you dispel these misconceptions, rather than scaring you away just as you step into the world of Web3.

    P.S. A typhoon is battering Hong Kong, but the newsletter is out as scheduled, truly “come rain or shine.” The (world’s) information is abundant, but (this old guy’s) mind is simple. The day before yesterday, all of Hong Kong knew a super typhoon was coming, but being someone who doesn’t check social media or have WhatsApp, I was the last to know. I only went to the market in the evening to buy groceries for two days at home, only to be greeted by once-in-a-decade empty shelves. But a simpleton has his luck. The next morning, when the No. 3 signal was up but the No. 8 hadn’t arrived, I visited the market again and it was fully stocked. The vendors said that prices were sky-high the day before, but now they were selling at rock-bottom prices to clear stock before the market closed. Hong Kong people are just this efficient, sometimes overly so; and this dedicated, sometimes to a fault. Right now, there is flooding, fallen trees, and even landslides everywhere, but I know that tomorrow morning, the city will “return to normal”—shops will open, deliveries will be made, as if nothing ever happened. A sincere salute to all the medical staff, drivers, and other service personnel who held their posts during the typhoon. 🫡

  • Substance Over Form

    Substance Over Form

    In accounting, there is a principle called “substance over form.” A deep understanding of this principle not only helps in analyzing corporate accounts but can also be applied to all aspects of our lives, helping us see through the appearance of things to understand the substance behind them.

    The DAO Hack vs. Juno Proposal 16

    Let’s start with an example. Suppose Alice provides services to Bob Company Limited. The contract stipulates no salary, but instead, a monthly loan of 10,000 dollars is given to Alice at zero interest, to be repaid in one hundred years. Since there is no salary, should Alice be exempt from taxes? In reality, it’s preposterous to think any government would accept this logic. Any reasonably functioning tax authority would treat this 100-year, zero-interest loan as a wage and levy the appropriate income tax. In other words, according to accounting principles, Bob Company Limited cannot book this monthly 10,000-dollar transaction as a loan. It must be classified by its substance—as a salary. This is the accounting principle of “substance over form.”

    Is the newsletter’s open rate declining, finally forcing the author to resort to analyzing public company financial reports? Unfortunately, even if I wanted to, I don’t have the skills. I bring up this accounting principle because after last issue’s A Decade for Ether, A Century for Humanity: Ethereum’s 10th Anniversary, Part II was published, reader Wancat left a comment asking why I had vehemently criticized the passage of Juno’s Proposal 16 to claw back airdrops received by a whale three years ago, yet now seem to have a double standard (my words, not theirs) by defending Ethereum’s use of a hard fork to recover the stolen funds from The DAO Hack. I initially intended to reply in the comments but found my response growing too long. So, I deleted it and simply replied that I would address it in a full article this week, experimenting with this format for deeper interaction with readers.

    With that prelude, my brief answer to Wancat’s question is this: while the hard fork for The DAO Hack is similar in form to Juno’s Proposal 16, their substance is vastly different. The former was about recovering a large sum of funds that a hacker obtained from the community by exploiting a vulnerability. The latter was about forcibly taking away a large airdrop from a whale that was obtained according to the rules set by the project creators—it was a tyranny of the majority. For details, please refer to The Ordeal of Democracy: A Wake-Up Call from Juno’s Proposal 16, which I won’t rehash here. The form is merely the method of execution; the substance is the crucial point. Therefore, my judgment on the two incidents is entirely different.

    I must emphasize that this does not mean I believe recovering The DAO Hack funds via a hard fork was a good thing. The good thing would have been to conduct proper testing to prevent the theft in the first place. A drastic measure like a hard fork is never good; at best, it was a necessary choice, the lesser of two evils. What I commend is not the method itself, but how Ethereum handled a theft that could have brought down the entire ecosystem. It neither blindly adhered to “code is law” above all else, nor did it use a centralized method to “administer justice” (it was technically impossible anyway). Instead, it made democratic deliberation the main prerequisite, attempting to find consensus through forums, polls, and other methods.

    Democratic Deliberation as the Highest Principle

    Some argue that “code is law” is the supreme principle of the blockchain, and we must accept the results of program execution, which would make the very act of labeling a behavior as “theft” problematic. I also emphasize “code is law” and agree it is the guiding principle in 99.99% of cases. But no matter how flawless a system is, at best it can only push the applicability of the principle higher—say, to 99.9999%—but it can never be the sole, 100% standard. To do so would be to chain the system to its first version of code, accepting every computational result as a “feature” and no situation as a “bug,” which is clearly not feasible.

    Even Bitcoin, which most strictly adheres to “code is law” with the fewest code changes, still needs to fix bugs and evolve with the times. Not to mention the eventual arrival of quantum computers. If “code is law” were the only principle, does that mean the community should do nothing and simply accept that quantum algorithms will eventually destroy the Bitcoin ecosystem? Clearly, behind “code is law,” we cannot erase the factors of society and humanity, including technological evolution, law, and morality.

    Form is usually objective, but substance inevitably involves value judgments. The example at the beginning was clear-cut only because the terms were extreme, making the substance of the transaction clearly a wage. If different numbers were used, the substance could become highly controversial. The advantage of being guided by form is objectivity, free from value judgments. However, we cannot ignore the importance of discussing substance for the sake of convenience, even if it leads to debate or disputes. To borrow an old saying from TVB (from before it became “CCTVB”): “Harmony is not 100 people saying the same thing; harmony is 100 people having 100 different things to say, while still respecting each other.”

    Frankly, I wrote the above with some hesitation. The hesitation isn’t about being wrong, but that explicitly stating that human factors are inevitably behind “law” can be easily misinterpreted and exploited. In a mild case, it could be used to endorse pseudo-web3 projects that are centrally controlled under the guise of decentralized governance. In a severe case, it could be used by nation-states to play the bully—using the law to control people when it suits them, and arbitrarily interpreting, amending, or enacting new laws when it doesn’t, stopping at nothing.

    Unlike the physical world, in the web3 world, the “interpretation” and “enforcement” of law are handled by code, effectively preventing human intervention—this is the true meaning of “code is law.” But at the level of “legislation” and “amendment,” both nation-states and blockchains inevitably involve human participation. The key is that the process must align with the democratic spirit, with stakeholders participating in deliberations and, when necessary, fair voting.

    Seeing Through Form, Focusing on Substance

    Coincidentally, this week five years ago, my column in Apple Daily was titled “Stablecoin = The Value of USD + The Agility of Bitcoin.” The meaning is that the substance of a stablecoin is the US dollar, and its form is a cryptocurrency. Even though the world has changed dramatically, this understanding is sufficient to grasp the core of stablecoins. USD stablecoins have a market because the USD itself has a market. Citizens in places like Argentina, Turkey, and Russia are eager to buy it. When the USD exists in the form of a cryptocurrency—a stablecoin—it becomes much harder for local governments and banks to stop their citizens from buying and holding it. Of course, some powerful nations will still use high-tech surveillance, and they mean what they say, at least effectively restricting the masses who haven’t mastered the relevant technology to step out of their comfort zone and manage their own assets.

    Similarly, the recent discussions about whether there is demand for a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin can be partially answered by the “substance over form” principle. The crux of the matter is whether there is an underlying demand for the Hong Kong dollar itself—are there people who want to convert to or park their funds in HKD but are constrained by the traditional financial system? If so, the emergence of an HKD stablecoin would unlock previously non-existent purchasing power. Form helps improve efficiency and enhance effects, but substance is the key. Even as a big believer in cryptocurrency, I do not think a sovereign currency with no inherent market demand will generate new demand simply by issuing a stablecoin.

    Besides web3 governance and stablecoins, there are countless examples in daily life where form obscures substance. For instance, the form is an NFT, while the substance, originally intended to be cultural content, is in reality just speculation. The form is a mobile app, while the substance, meant to be a specific function expressed through the features of a smartphone, is in reality just an app created to follow a trend or secure a government subsidy. Or, the form is an election, which in substance should be the practice of democracy and the expression of the people’s free will, but in reality might be an elaborate, costly charade with candidates hand-picked by a central authority.

    Only by seeing through the form and focusing on the substance behind things can we understand the world’s underlying logic and recognize the truth.

    p.s. At last Wednesday’s offline event for Ethereum’s 10th anniversary, fifty to sixty people were in attendance. When the host, Phoebe, asked those who manage their own wallets to raise their hands, I didn’t see a single lowered hand in the room. Although I know this is just the echo chamber effect, for someone like me who has been promoting self-custody wallets for seven or eight years and is used to most people not having a web3 wallet, the sight was still stunning and left me secretly thrilled. Or perhaps “moved” is the right word; I’m not even sure myself.

  • A Decade for Ether, A Century for Humanity: Ethereum’s 10th Anniversary, Part II

    A Decade for Ether, A Century for Humanity: Ethereum’s 10th Anniversary, Part II

    In a poll from our last issue, A Decade of Ether, A Century for Humanity, when asked about the most unforgettable event in Ethereum’s ten-plus-year history, nearly half of the 56 participants were most impressed by the NFT speculative frenzy of 2021-22. This allowed the event to win by a large margin with 46% of the vote. Perhaps the reason is that NFTs were what most successfully broke into the mainstream, or perhaps it was recency bias affecting judgment. However, the event that best reflects the core values of the Ethereum community is undoubtedly The DAO Hack, which received the fewest votes in the poll.

    The DAO Hack

    Readers who have played massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have likely encountered situations where a bug in the game’s code is exploited by some players to obtain rare weapons and large amounts of in-game currency, disrupting the game world’s economy and ecological balance. Whenever such an incident occurs, the game company, while patching the vulnerability, has two choices: either accept the consequences brought about by the exploit, or roll back or alter the database to restore every player to their previous state. The former, while seemingly turning a blind eye to unfairness and economic imbalance, is also the choice that shows the utmost respect for the system’s rules. The latter, though it tries its best to make amends, inevitably raises concerns among participants about the officials abusing their power and arbitrarily modifying data.

    In 2016, Ethereum, which had been online for less than a year, faced The DAO Hack. It was just like an MMORPG with a critical vulnerability. Fixing the bug was a given, but as for whether to accept the consequence of 3.6 million ETH being stolen or to modify the code to recover the funds, the community was deeply divided and engaged in a fierce debate. Interestingly, the initial catalyst for Ethereum’s main founder, Vitalik, to realize the ills of centralization was his experience playing World of Warcraft. In a 2009 update, the game’s developer, Blizzard, removed the damage component of the warlock’s Siphon Life spell, effectively crippling his character’s power in an instant. In an MMORPG, the game developer is God, with the absolute power to modify characters and all sorts of data. Seven years later, Vitalik—later known affectionately (and sometimes jokingly) as “V God” in the Chinese-speaking world—had switched from the role of a player to that of a blockchain developer. What was his proposal for handling this incident?

    First, let’s clarify the scale of The DAO Hack. 3.6 million ETH was worth “only” about 50 million US dollars at the time, not even qualifying as a major theft in blockchain history. However, that was based on the market value and US dollar standard of the time. Calculated at the current rate of $3,878 per ETH, this sum would be a staggering $13.96 billion. In comparison, the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, which occurred in February of this year, involved assets stolen from Bybit valued at “only” $1.46 billion at the time. Even at current coin prices, this is six to seven times smaller than the scale of The DAO Hack. Furthermore, consider BitMine, the institution that currently holds the most ETH, with a position of around 560,000 ETH—less than one-sixth of the amount stolen. Comparing these numbers isn’t to say that principles can be cast aside if the scale is large enough, but when making such a difficult decision, it’s impossible not to consider the amount of money involved, especially when the scale of the theft is large enough to cause the entire ecosystem to sink without a trace.

    The final outcome is well-known to many. The event split the community into two factions. One side held “code is law” as its highest principle, preferring to let the “cracker” walk away with the funds (some would even argue that the morally charged term “cracker” shouldn’t be used). The other side, which included Vitalik, advocated for adding code to prevent the hacker from withdrawing the funds, allowing users to get their money back. Although forum discussions and one-coin-one-vote polls showed the latter opinion was more mainstream, the faction advocating for no changes also garnered enough support from miners. This ultimately led to a hard fork, creating two parallel worlds. The former became Ethereum Classic (ETC), while the latter is the Ethereum and ETH that the public knows today.

    I joined the community too late to have personally participated in The DAO Hack. Looking back at the records, I agree with the handling of the situation by adding code to stop the “cracker”. On the surface, this contradicts my previously emphasized stance of “code is law,” but in reality, it reflects a deeper understanding of “law” and, in my view, marks the beginning of Ethereum’s human-centric approach.

    Humanism is Needed Behind “Code is Law”

    Whether in a democracy or an authoritarian society, no one would deny the importance of law. Yet, their interpretations can be worlds apart. The former, rule of law, uses law to check government power and prevent its overreach. The latter, rule by law, uses law to control the populace and consolidate governance. In the former, the law reflects the will of the people, and the legislative process is authorized by them. In the latter, the law reflects the will of the regime, serving the administration; there is even “legislation by decree,” where new laws are enacted first and “deliberated” later (this is different from the “legislate first, then review” proposed during the Sunflower Movement, as it refers to new legal articles being promulgated and taking effect immediately, with “deliberation” to follow at a later date).

    Returning to The DAO Hack, the act of adding code to recover the stolen ETH is not enough on its own to determine right from wrong. We must consider whether the community, in its crisis management, adhered as much as possible to democratic principles—encouraging expression, communication, and discussion—rather than acting autocratically or as a “tyranny of the majority” in the name of efficiency. By the same token, “code is law” alone is not a sufficient reason to reject all needs to modify code. It’s impossible to avoid making a judgment on whether a certain action is an attack or normal usage, let alone treating a bug as a feature. Otherwise, if human judgment were to be completely excluded, wouldn’t the first version of the code become an eternally immutable law after its public release, never to be updated?

    It is common knowledge that Taiwan is a society that emphasizes sentiment, reason, and law, often in that order. When practiced well, this manifests as human warmth; when abused, it becomes perfunctory, where the law is not followed. During the 2014 Sunflower Movement, breaking into the Legislative Yuan was, objectively, illegal. However, law enforcement and the judiciary considered the overall context and the sentiment and reason beyond the law, respecting the public’s will by exercising discretion. This reflects a people-first, human-centric approach. In contrast, some societies exercise prosecutorial discretion for the powerful and well-connected while stressing to citizens that “the law is the law.” And if no law is broken, they can tailor-make new ones with extreme speed. This is an abuse of sentiment, reason, and law, and it is why humanism must underpin the principle of “code is law.”

    “…Participation in an illegal assembly is punishable by a maximum of 5 years in prison. Participation in a riot is punishable by a maximum of 10 years…”

    In the physical world, everyone is born a citizen of Country X. A few who wish to be citizens of another country can choose to emigrate, but most can only sigh, “In my next life, I won’t be a citizen of Country X.” The digital world is different. Blockchains are permissionless ecosystems. If you have a major grievance, you can always “vote with your feet.” If the dissenting voices reach a critical point, it can even result in an effect of “forking the government.”

    Back then, for Ethereum to modify its code to handle The DAO Hack, it would have been absolutely impossible to rely on the will of the Foundation or Vitalik alone had the miners not agreed and cooperated by upgrading their nodes. The subsequent fork into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, and which ecosystem would ultimately become more vibrant and enduring, was also the result of the entire community’s continuous “voting” through their actions. After The DAO Hack, Ethereum has thrived through difficulties to this day. Meanwhile, Ethereum Classic has suffered multiple 51% attacks, and its current market value is less than 1% of the former’s, a fact that reflects the community’s choice.

    Human-centric Technology

    Ever since Nokia, the “dumb phone” maker, used “Connecting People” (or more literally, “Technology always comes from humanity”) as its advertising slogan in the 1990s, the saying has become deeply ingrained in the public consciousness, as if it were an indisputable consensus. However, an advertisement, after all, only seeks to create an image. “Human-centric” becomes just a slogan, and its actual meaning is often a matter of divided opinion.

    The most common and resonant understanding of “human-centric” is “easy to use.” There’s nothing wrong with this understanding; tech products should be intelligible to grandmothers and children alike—who could object? From this perspective, one must admit that blockchain is an absolute failure. And Ethereum, with its massive architecture that includes L2 designs, is even harder to use than other blockchains. Even for someone like me who uses it daily, I spent a whole day last week on an incompatibility issue between a smart account and a multi-sig wallet interface. Imagine how it is for a newcomer. The weakness of a poor user experience cannot be denied. Fortunately, the Ethereum community is actively confronting this. After successfully scaling, it has begun to gradually improve the user experience through updates like smart accounts.

    However, ease of use isn’t everything, nor should it override higher values. For instance, WeChat is very easy to use, but it lacks end-to-end encryption and its payment system is completely centralized. This is not what a human-centric approach should look like. A truly human-centric approach doesn’t just cater to the interests of developers and venture capitalists, let alone those of powerful nations or governments. It also cares for the underdogs, the marginalized, the disadvantaged, and the long-term well-being of all humanity. It pursues not short-term price surges, but sustainable and affordable transaction fees. It considers not just efficiency and cost-effectiveness, but also privacy and resilience. It cares not just about humans, but also the environment and other species.

    I am immensely glad that the core values demonstrated by Ethereum over the past decade—from not kowtowing to VCs and distributing the initial ETH fairly at the start, to spending years on development to switch to PoS and reduce energy consumption by 99%, to sacrificing short-term gains by moving most transactions to L2, and to recently investing significant R&D resources into technologies like zero-knowledge proofs to enhance privacy—all embody the humanistic spirit I aspire to.

    Although it may seem obvious in hindsight, it is in fact incredibly difficult. Consider the pressures: Tron stands undefeated by aligning with a powerful state; Solana achieves powerful performance by slightly sacrificing decentralization; ETH’s own token demand has fallen sharply in the short term due to the L2 architecture. In such a fiercely competitive business environment, to resist the temptation of short-term profits, withstand voices of doubt, and still show humanistic care is a rare and precious quality.

    I hope that in the next decade, two decades, or ten decades, Ethereum will continue to uphold its long-term vision, prioritizing resilience, privacy, and the public good. May it be a century for humanity, transcending the narrow vision of nation-states to work for the well-being of all humankind.

  • ckxpress.com 20th Anniversary: My Brief History of Blogging

    ckxpress.com 20th Anniversary: My Brief History of Blogging

    On April 21, 2005, I registered ckxpress.com and set up my personal website. It has now been 20 years, during which I’ve published 1,250 articles totaling 1.18 million words. Although the domain still has seven years until expiration, I just paid for an additional three years of registration fees to hold ckxpress.com for another 10 years. If it weren’t for the limit set by ICANN, I might have registered it for another 100 years.

    Blogging Resume

    If I were applying for a job as a blogger, my resume might look something like this:

    Curriculum Vitae – chungkin Express

    • Blogspot: 2003 – 2005
    • ckxpress.com on WordPress: 2005 – present
    • Medium: 2014 – 2020
    • Matters: 2019 – present
    • Substack: 2020 – present
    • Paragraph: 2024 – present

    If you were the employer, would you perhaps find me fickle for changing jobs so often and toss my resume aside after a glance? Hold on, please let this applicant explain.

    In October 2003, I started contributing to the Telecom section of the Hong Kong Economic Journal (HKEJ). The column name, “Made in Hong Kong,” was so old-fashioned I don’t want to admit it. At that time, Mark Zuckerberg was still studying at Harvard, social networks hadn’t emerged yet, but Web 2.0, centered around UGC (user-generated content), was quietly unfolding. Blogspot (Blogger), founded in 1999, had gathered a group of users who enjoyed writing online over several years before Google acquired it. In the same year, I registered ckxpress.blogger.com, kicking off the chungkin Express blog, where I posted my column articles weekly. Considering this brief history, and even adding my personal website hosted by the Computer Science Dept during university (cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~ckko), my blogging journey extends far beyond 20 years.

    Also in 2003, meanwhile, WordPress was just established. After adding plugin and theme, it gradually gained popularity. As someone who always advocated for self-hosted websites and owning one’s domain, I set up ckxpress.com using WordPress in 2005. Although WordPress remains vibrant today with continuous updates and improvements, it is, after all, a product of over twenty years ago. The barrier to entry is relatively high, and both its underlying PHP language and basic product assumptions are somewhat outdated. However, it relatively remains the most free and extensible content management system. That’s why I’ve continued to use it to this day and will keep an eye on its development, especially regarding Web3 aspects.

    The decade following 2003 was a golden era for the internet, emerging after the dot-com bubble burst in 1999 and several years of quiet building by entrepreneurs. Web 2.0 brought significant innovation, making UGC and social networks mainstream, but it hadn’t yet evolved into an oligopoly. Readers could receive my new articles (more often, just ramblings) from ckxpress.com via RSS. They could also read and comment on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, creating a balance between personal space and a public forum. In 2013, Google shut down Google Reader, single-handedly burying the open ecosystem, marking a watershed moment as the internet gradually transformed into walled gardens.

    Web2 is Broken, Yet Web3 Isn’t Mature

    In 2014, as problems caused by social media algorithms and closed systems became increasingly severe, I started paying attention to writing platforms and joined Medium, founded in 2012. Besides publishing my column articles on my personal website, I gradually began syncing them to Medium as well.

    Medium’s founder, Ev Williams, was one of the original founders of Blogspot. After making money and exiting, he established another writing platform. He was someone who couldn’t stand the deteriorating quality of online content and tried various ways to maintain the quality of Medium articles. He used traditional manual curation, abandoned the advertising model he once used, and introduced a paywall and membership system starting in 2017. I paid to become a member right from the start when there were no benefits and joined its partnership program as soon as it began. At its “peak,” I earned HK$1,000 in a month. However, since I’ve always been unwilling to put my articles behind a paywall, I stopped locking articles after a short period and last updated on Medium in 2020.

    For a while, around 2018-2019, many authors from Taiwan and Hong Kong joined Medium. However, Medium eventually discontinued its Chinese version and Chinese-language articles had virtually no chance of exposure, and income dwindled. Consequently, most authors migrated away although very few resisted the paywall like I did,. Hong Kong authors mostly moved to Patreon, while some Taiwanese authors shifted to vocus.cc. Speaking of Vocus, I used it for a period, but somehow I couldn’t log into my account anymore, nor could I Google my articles. I can no longer recall specifically when I started posting or when I stopped.

    After Medium came my old friend, Matters. Matters was founded in late 2017, around the same time as LikeCoin. Naturally, I started using it from the beginning, syncing articles from ckxpress.com, totaling 276 articles to date. Matters’ most prominent feature is that all articles are stored on the “decentralized storage” IPFS, offering a degree of censorship resistance. Secondly, of course, is its integration with LikeCoin, attempting to generate income for authors based on individual articles without resorting to a paywall.

    As social networks became increasingly difficult to navigate, I started using Substack (founded in 2017) in 2020, sending out monthly ramblings to friends. Then, in mid-2021, after Apple Daily was shut down, ending my columnist career, I took the plunge and started the DHK newsletter on Substack, which has now reached its #201 issue. In 2023, I even invested 5,000 USD to become a micro-shareholder. Substack has lived up to expectations, attracting more and more readers and authors in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Its features are comprehensive, and the interface is well-designed. I can hardly imagine what breakthroughs Substack could still achieve within the current system; I would describe it as the “Web 2.0 ceiling.”

    Yet, foolishly perhaps, last year I moved my newsletter again, from Substack to Paragraph, a platform designed with Web3 principles at its core. Honestly, Paragraph is far less mature than Substack, especially with very few Chinese users. Since the move, my subscriber count has seen almost no growth. But I don’t regret it and will continue to stay with Paragraph to support its decentralized storage, content-unit-based creation, and open-content monetization mechanisms. Matters and LikeCoin strived for similar goals but didn’t fully succeed. Now, other entrepreneurs are continuing to explore this path, and I hope to participate as an author, helping to promote this model.

    The Value Proposition of Web3

    This blogger applicant may seem fickle on the surface, but from start to finish, I have been pursuing an autonomous, open, and sustainable environment for writing and reading. Besides, although I often “moonlight” elsewhere, my “main job,” ckxpress.com, has never been interrupted for 20 years. You could call me a loyal employee, right?

    Dear employers, when someone uses a single platform long-term, it often signifies vendor lock-in that stifles innovation. The truly ideal ecosystem should be like portable phone numbers or email addresses – no matter how many times you switch service providers, your identity, data, and social graph can come with you. This portability, composability, and perpetual data storage are the core pursuits of Web3.

    I’m not sure if I’ll still be using Apple, Google, or OpenAI in 10 or 20 years, or if I’ll still be struggling with compromising with Meta’s algorithms. But I can assert that unless the internet or I disappear, the ckxpress.com website will continue to operate. No, even if I disappear, ckxpress.com will remain unaffected. I plan to upload myself to the cloud before I die and find a way for an AI ckxpress to operate decentrally after my death.

    p.s. Due to space limitations, saying ckxpress.com has been built on WordPress for 20 years skips many technical details. In reality, it involved multiple evolutions: from initially renting a virtual machine and installing Linux, Apache, etc., myself, to later opting for the convenience of hosting on WordPress.com. Then, as cloud services became popular, I thriftily rented a low-end EC2 instance on AWS. Later still, tired of management, I switched to a cloud service providing a complete WordPress environment. Most of the time, I’d rather pay a bit more for simplicity, but sometimes the opposite happens – I get the itch to handle the underlying infrastructure myself, even obsessively avoiding server restarts to solve problems. My longest EC2 uptime was 1051 days. However, regardless of how many times the backend has moved, for readers, it remains ckxpress.com. The URLs for all articles have remained unchanged, and SEO hasn’t been affected. This is the beauty of portability, and why I so strongly advocate for owning your domain. Only what you can take with you can truly be called ownership. Unfortunately, this kind of autonomous internet user is becoming increasingly rare.

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