Crypto’s Billionaires and the Battle Against Aging
It seems that attaining vast wealth in the cryptocurrency sphere isn’t always enough. For many of crypto’s elite, the next frontier isn’t another digital asset; it’s the pursuit of longer life. Figures like Vitalik Buterin, Balaji Srinivasan, Brian Armstrong, and Roger Ver are among those pouring resources and thought into the world of longevity and biohacking.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Buterin’s interest in anti-aging research was piqued, leading him to declare aging a humanitarian disaster.
Buterin’s actions matched his words. He donated significant sums to organizations such as the Future of Life Institute, SENS Research Foundation, and the Methuselah Foundation. Roger Ver, a Bitcoin pioneer, intends to undergo cryogenic preservation when he dies. Others, like Tron founder Justin Sun and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, have also contributed millions.
Hoskinson has invested heavily in a Wyoming clinic set to begin a trial evaluating a combined stem cell and hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. He’s even volunteered as the initial test subject. His rationale? “If my hypothesis is right, we can reverse ageing by over 10 years… It would be nice to live a little longer and be healthier.”
Beyond the Money: Time as the Ultimate Scarcity
So, what fuels this unexpected alliance between the world of digital currency and the fight against aging? Benji Leibowitz, from the longevity research token platform Pump.science, suggests it’s a natural progression. Crypto millionaires, having overcome the scarcity of financial resources, recognize time’s value.
“A lot of us start off trying to solve the money problem, and then when people solve that and resources are no longer a scarcity, then they realize that time is now their scarce resource, and so they want to try to trade their financial resources for time,” Leibowitz explained.
He adds that the audacious spirit of cryptocurrency, where individuals aim to “engineer your way out of anything,” is at play. This combination of “Wild West attitude combined with infinite resources and scarce time” drives the pursuit.
Balaji Srinivasan, former Coinbase CTO, echoes this sentiment. He’s incorporated longevity into his Network School program. Furthermore, tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who has made significant efforts to eliminate aging, shared with the Magazine that if he hadn’t been so engaged, he would have been all in on crypto.
“Bitcoin fundamentally rejects inflation, and I fundamentally reject aging. We basically accept these slow boil deaths, and we both reject the slow boil death.”
Crypto Leaders Investing in the Future
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong dedicated 2% of his exchange stake to longevity research back in 2022. His subsequent co-founding of New Limit, which aims to extend lifespans, demonstrates his firm commitment to the field. According to Armstrong, longevity research is “tractable” and could see significant breakthroughs in the next decade.
Armstrong has also supported the Dog Aging Project, which is conducting clinical trials to slow aging in canines. Co-director Matt Kaeberlein noted Armstrong’s thoughtful nature and his deep interest in epigenetic reprogramming, which New Limit is studying.
Kaeberlein, a respected longevity researcher, has observed increased funding from the crypto community. He notes that tech giants like Jeff Bezos and Google have also invested in longevity research, highlighting a connection between the tech, crypto, and longevity communities. These communities share the ability to “think outside the box” while also defying conventional approaches.
Addressing the Challenges of Aging Research
Dr. Max Unfried, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Center for Healthy Longevity, cautions that while Big Tech and crypto donations are welcome, they can give a misleading impression of adequate funding for longevity research. He points out, for instance, that the National Cancer Institute receives much more financial backing than the National Institute on Aging.
“There’s a perspective of aging (research) by a lot of people, (that) a lot of money should be there, he says, adding thats far from the reality. And I think thats why crypto comes in, where you actually can get some money from crypto for research that would not get money by traditional routes.”
Several DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) have emerged to address this funding gap, often promising to tokenize the resulting intellectual property. VitaDAO, which has 10,000 members, funds longevity research and is linked to platforms like Molecule and Pump.science. Other specialized DAOs are working on biological replacement parts, cryogenics, biohacking, and using crypto to crowdsource health data.
While these projects don’t involve massive amounts of money in crypto terms (VitaDAO, for example, holds about $6 million in liquid assets), they are significant in the underfunded longevity research space.
The Hacker Mindset and Biological Innovation
Alex Miloski, co-lead of the Web3 pod at VitaDAO, believes the crypto community’s hacker mindset is conducive to accelerating developments in biotechnology. Longevity, which he describes as an attempt to almost “hack biology,” is an area that resonates with this approach.
This hacker ethos is directly reflected in BiohackerDAO, which was formed after a group of biohackers met at the Vitalia longevity pop-up city in Honduras. The DAO, composed of people from their early 20s to their late 60s, works across crypto, technology, and health startups. They use their resources toward self-experimental practices and measure their biological data.
In November, the DAO raised $1.3 million on Juicebox and discussed and voted on project and experiment support. They have investigated the cognitive effects of intranasal insulin and the impact of EMF radiation on sleep. The DAO launched the Intra platform, which provides a tokenized marketplace for fitness tracker data.
Mgoes also believes that the crypto’s community’s libertarian ethics align with self-autonomy over the body. By reassessing traditional limitations, they can take a fresh approach to the problems of health.
Transhumanism and the Future of Longevity
These ideas connect with transhumanism, which seeks to use technology to surpass human biological limits. SingularityNet founder Ben Goertzel, a transhumanist, believes artificial intelligence can help achieve Longevity Escape Velocity, which is the hypothetical point where medical science can extend lifespan by over a year for every year lived.
Cordeiro, inspired by the crypto community’s futuristic thinking, believes longevity and living forever are subjects of interest.
Kaeberlein, while not objecting to transhumanism, cautions against overstating progress. “There’s nothing about biology that tells us its impossible to stop aging or even reverse aging. Its just we havent done it yet,” he stated. He worries that the focus on distant possibilities obscures those, such as 20-year lifespan extensions, that are much more realistic.
“Were not close to 500 years. I think were pretty close to 20 years. And so thats my concern that it can diminish the impact.”
