When Terry is promoted to VP of Engineering, he decides to quit rather than partake in his company's capitalistic data mining practices to boost ad revenues. Determined to create a more ethical platform, he poaches his colleagues to build his own social media startup on the blockchain, promising user privacy and an ad-free experience.
Two years later, his blockchain is yet to launch, and Terry's about to miss payroll for his team. He sunk all his savings and maxed out his credit lines. Desperate to save his startup, he flies to Hong Kong to meet the only investor who throws him a lifeline. Little does he know that the too-good-to-be-true investor works for the Chinese government.
When Terry is promoted to VP of Engineering, he decides to quit rather than partake in his company's capitalistic data mining practices to boost ad revenues. Determined to create a more ethical platform, he poaches his colleagues to build his own social media startup on the blockchain, promising user privacy and an ad-free experience.
Two years later, his blockchain is yet to launch, and Terry's about to miss payroll for his team. He sunk all his savings and maxed out his credit lines. Desperate to save his startup, he flies to Hong Kong to meet the only investor who throws him a lifeline. Little does he know that the too-good-to-be-true investor works for the Chinese government.
Fake it till you make it, a mentor once said.
Terry stepped into a shiny elevator and pressed eighty-eight. The chrome-plated buttons showed streaks of a fresh wipe; the braille felt sharp to the touch. Heâd transferred on the thirty-fifth floor, as though he rode a vertical subway train up International Finance Centre Two.
âHere we go,â he exhaled, looking at his reflection. The suit jacket was too hot for comfort, but he kept it on. He wore his lucky-red tieâjust in case.
Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight.
He checked his phone and saw a missed message from Victor, his CTO. âI fixed the bug, I think the demo is good to go now.â Terry slid his phone in his pocket and sighed. Way overdue, he thought. Victorâs phrasing didnât give him much confidence either. A broken demo was worse than no demo.
Forty-two, forty-three, forty-four.
His thoughts ran decidedly faster than the elevator ride, though not as linear. He thought of his team back in Palo Alto and the countless coding all-nighters they pulled. But it wasnât enough. Theyâd run out of cash in twelve weeks. Of course, nobody knew this except for Terryâas a founder, Terry carried that burden alone. He protected his team from the dire reality so they could focus on shipping the goddamn product. Terryâs days were filled with brown-nosing investors and begging them for money; not the glamorous startup life he imagined. But he did it for his team.
He looked at the time: 5:27 pm. At an average speed of three seconds per floor, Terry calculated that he had 48 seconds to spare before his appointment. Good. He yawned to unpop his ears.
Then, for a brief moment, the gravitational force shifted. The red pixels flashed forty-eight and stayed there.
The doors slid open to reveal a tower of a man with greasy blonde hair and a slick suit that shimmered in the light. A banker. He paid no attention to Terry as he entered the elevator. Two Chinese high-heeled office ladies in swanky dresses trotted in behind him. Despite the high heels, they only reached the manâs shoulders.
âYou sit next to the guy for ten years, then suddenly he jumps ship. Can you believe it?â The man spoke with a loud Australian accent that filled the whole elevator. The office ladies nodded and smiled. âDidnât even wait for bonus season. Must be a golden paycheck.â The man put his wrists together as if being shackled and laughed.
Terry kept his head down to the floor. He noticed the manâs polished leather shoes on which he could almost see his reflection. Then he looked at his own dusty black sneakers and noticed how awkward they hid under his bunched-up slacks like two shy snails.
The man nudged him. âForty-nine for me, will ya, mate?â
One fucking floor, Terry thought.
One of the ladies laughed and leaned, hooking the manâs arm. The other lady did the same, pulling the man to look in her direction. The doors opened and the man stepped out with the command of a rook and two colorful braids of Ivy dangling on his sides.
Terry pressed the close button, but that didnât speed things up. He was certain to be late now and felt a warm pressure rising in his head. He took off his backpack, put it on the floor, untangled his tie, dabbed his forehead, and used the damp tie to wipe the dust off his sneakers. He unbuttoned his shirt at the neck and felt a brief release like a fleeting breeze on a muggy afternoon.
Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five.
The weight on his shoulders grew heavier the higher he ascended, even though he understood clearly that gravity didnât work that way. If one were to stream Terryâs thoughts onto a word cloud, it would reveal a tug-of-war between phony and money. Quite apt, as he found himself in the Asian heart of finance. His former Rubbl colleagues praised him for his uncanny ability to enter a Zen-like flow state when he coded. But as a startup founder, he felt like a pretentious phony.
Sixty-eight. Twenty floors to go.
It was too late to review the flashcards upon which he collected the toughest questions venture capitalists have asked him. Instead, he widened his stance and raised his arms above his head and arched slightly backward as he took a few deep, diaphragmatic breaths. A power pose that elevated his serotonin levels which exuded an air of confidence, or so he was told, but all he could see in the ceiling mirror was a sea star out of water.
The red LEDs flashed eighty-eight, a little too eager, like the Chinese character for double happiness.
Terry retracted his limbs and stepped out onto the polished concrete floors. Looking left, he saw a granite wall with large red letters carved into it that read Tiger Ventures. The wall had a rippled texture that looked like it once featured a waterfall. He turned right and walked down the hallway, footsteps squeaking, approaching an oversized marble reception desk. Or was it faux-marble? He peeked over the tall facade, only to find an empty office chairâwhich appeared hardly used.
Floor-to-ceiling windows ran around the sides of the reception area. Atop Hong Kongâs second-tallest skyscraper, Terry expected dreamy views of Victoria Harbor with Star Ferries skidding to-and-fro beneath the watchful gaze of Lion Rock. Disappointed, all he saw was an oppressive fog that cocooned the office, veiling the world in infinite uncertainty. He thought he was in an air fortress that hid in the clouds.
He stared into the sheer grayness and felt an inexorable worry that his Chinese parents would disown him if he failed and lost face. âDonât worry. I got this,â Terry said to his reflection in the windowâthose were the last words he said to his parents two years ago.
Terryâs father had migrated from China to Canada the moment he found out his wife was pregnant with Terry. He promised Terryâs mother that he would build a new life for them before Terry turned one year old. Like an entrepreneur, he was an optimist, and like an entrepreneur, he grossly underestimated how long it took. He found work toiling in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant in Winnipeg, washing pans and doing dishes. He slaved for a few years until he finally saved enough money to escape the harsh winters and drive to the coastal city of Vancouver to open his own restaurantâwith the help of a loan from the Yong clan in Chinatown.
He was finally ready to bring his wife and Terry over to Canada. When they reunited at the airport, his wife had strands of gray hair and her skin looked drier than he remembered. Terry, who had just turned six, hid behind her and peeked shyly at his father from between her legs. âGo on, thatâs papa,â Terryâs mother said. But Terry shook his head and cried at the sight of his fatherâs pleading face as if he saw the face of a begging stranger.
It had taken his father a quarter-century to build a stable life for his family and save enough money to pay for Terryâs tuition at Stanford. So when Terry broke the news one Christmas dinner that he quit his high-tech job in San Francisco to chase his startup pipe dream, his father was furious.
â99% of startups fail. Go do it, prove us wrong. But just know that you donât have our blessings,â he said as he clutched his wine glass, which surprisingly withstood the pressure of his grip. âOnly a fool would throw away money like that.â His mother bit her lips while she hid behind her phone.
âItâs not all about money,â Terry said. He felt guilty as soon as he said it, for he knew from how little money they came. âEach night, you and mom waste away on your stupid devices, mindlessly consuming slop recommended by my stupid algorithms, purposefully designed to hijack your attention and suck your souls dry. Why? So the executives and investors become billionaires. Now thatâs money for you.â
Silence fell upon the room. His father looked at his mother with wide eyes that seemed to inquire how and when their son had strayed from his Chinese upbringing, to defy filial piety in such blatant ways. For a moment, Terry regretted speaking his truth. His mother had always taught him that honesty was the best policy, but whenever he applied this maxim, it never failed to backfire.
âDonât worry,â Terry continued, spilling words too proud for his own good, âI got this.â
Alas, that was two years ago. He had not spoken to his parents since.
The sound of someone clearing their throat sounded like a snowplow scraping the pavement. With a start, Terryâs mind kicked into high gear. He stepped back from the window and followed the sound into an airy space occupied by a monstrous boardroom table. Office chairs lined the mahogany on all sides. In a blink, he estimated capacity for fifty. He counted ten chairs along the short side and fifteen on the long side. Indeed, it added up, and he felt an odd, fleeting sense of control over the situation.
A short, burly man in a black suit sat on the far end, sunk deep in the office chair. Two round spectacles hung low on his nose. Thick eyebrows pointed inwardsâthe man had the gaze of a wolf that made Terryâs heart skip a beat.
Terry walked around the table with long, confident strides that started to feel unnatural halfway because the walk was so damn long. He forced a composed smile to hide his eagerness as he approached Mr. Chow; Terry saw that he wore a red tie and felt a prick of regret that he had taken his own off.
He was still undecided on the first words. He swung between an appreciative âNice to finally meet you,â and a casual âNice to meet you.â The first option came with a subtle ego-stroking praise, which he understood to go a long way in Chinese culture. But it would irreversibly place him on a lower plane. He wanted to be level with any would-be investor. Was that too much to ask? He wasnât in a position to bargain, but nobody needed to know that.
In his final approach, he stretched out his hand in a well-rehearsed gesture and said, âNice toââ
âSocial network on blockchain. Cannot work.â Mr. Chow said abruptly, leaving Terryâs hand hanging mid-air. Mr. Chow had a brash voice that meant business and a buzz cut to go with it.
âSorry?â Terry said as he scrambled to sit down. It was his Canadian reflex to apologize whenever he felt uncomfortable.
âMany tried. Why waste time?â
Terry wasnât bothered by the directness nor by being cut off mid-sentenceâhe had grown accustomed to that from pitching hundreds of VCs. It was the unexpected attitude from Mr. Chow, whom he imagined to be friendly and cultured based on his emails:
TerryâIâm the GP of a $800m fund that invests in transformative blockchain startups. As the sole partner, I personally source all deals and can make a decision very quickly. Please allow me to introduce myself.
I led the Series A of Cryptobase, now Chinaâs largest crypto exchange. I also invested in Bityuan, NFT-Go, and twenty-one other disruptors in the blockchain ecosystem.
I saw you pitch at the Southwest Crypto Conf last year. Iâm impressed and would like to discuss investing. There are many ways I can help you.Please send over your deck and letâs set up a meeting. I can arrange for you to meet me at my Hong Kong office.
In a single email, Mr. Chow said all the right thingsâwords like music to the ears of any founder. Refreshing, unlike the hordes of Ivy League analysts Terry met with, droning on about their VC fundâs founder-friendly approach while asking basic questions that displayed their lack of empathy for the founderâs plight as they themselves had never built a startup before, obliviously wasting the one resource every founder scrambles for: time. Nothing friendly about it.
Now he wondered if Mr. Chowâs email was generated by AI.
âWhy? You saw my prototype,â Terry said after a few beats, baffled but ready for battle.
âPrototype is toy. Different in production. Scalability is key problem.â Though his English was heavily accented, Mr. Chowâs logical reasoning was so sharp that it cut through the noise of his terse, laconic style; he seemed to care little about grammatical conventions. âMay work with thousand users, but break for billion.â
âItâs a good place to start,â Terry said. âWeâll figure out the scalability issue when we get there.â
âThis is not software. Cannot just deploy new backend. Once the blockchain is live, you cannot change it. Decentralized, remember? Like launching rocket to Mars, if you find something broken after lift-off, itâs too late.â
âI thought blockchains support updates.â Terry did not intend for it to sound like a question.
âYou risk splitting blockchain in two, like rocket that sheds fuel tank; one goes to Mars, other falls into orbit around Earth and floats like a zombie.â
Terry knew this and felt regretful for speaking before thinking. He was ad-libbing. Nothing was going according to the scripts on his flashcards. He was, however, impressed by the depth of Mr. Chowâs knowledge.
âThat is problem one,â Mr. Chow continued as he raised one finger, then flicked a second finger in the air, âProblem two is you donât have right team, right experience. You and your friends built software at Rubbl. Never built blockchain rocket before.â
Terry opened his mouth and then closed it, suppressing the burning urge to defend his team that he felt indebted to.
A third finger flung up. âProblem three: you have no money. Thatâs why youâre here. But thatâs easiest problem to fix.â Mr. Chow put his hand down and placed it on the table on top of his other hand. âWhat will you do if you raise money?â
Terry felt a surge of energy. Partly because it was a flashcard question. Mainly because the question implied that Mr. Chow was still considering an investment. His enthusiasm for the fundraising processâand startup life by extensionâwaned like the long-tail of a positively skewed distribution curve. He had learned to latch on to every glimmer of hope like his sanity depended on it.
âWhen we raise three million dollars,â he said with a rehearsed casualness, âwe will hire more engineers to finish the remaining features. We will launch in three months, first targeting the early adopters in the blockchain community. Once we seed the platform with a core group, weâll incentivize the referral process with tokens to create a viral loop.â
Terryâs voice trailed off towards the end of his script. He had repeated the same stale pitch to his team more often than he cared to admit; the words had lost all meaning, even for himself. Also, Mr. Chow, only seconds ago, had told him all the problems with his approach, yet he stubbornly stuck to his goddamned script.
âYour prototype. How many users?â
âAbout a hundred. Signups that is. Maybe twenty are actually active. Although, most of those are friends and family.â Terry swallowed. Why did he have to be so darn honest? He couldâve said a hundred and left it at that.
Mr. Chow stared at him, with a frown that showed a common understanding that the answer was indubitably terrible and warranted no reply.
After a pause, just long enough to signify a switch in topics, Mr. Chow shifted in his seat and leaned forward on his elbows. âWhy Populink?â
Flashcard question. Terry lengthened his spine and answered in a single breath, speaking as rapidly as he could, stretching for other ways to impress. âPopulink is a social network on the blockchain with privacy as a given, which allows you to control your data. With Rubbl and others, users have no idea that they are being mined for their data, often illegal, so that they can serve personalized ads. And alsoââ
Mr. Chow put his hand up. Terry stopped talking. Terry stopped breathing, too. âAnswer with headline. Why Populink?â Mr. Chow leaned back into his chair and watched Terry intently.
âWhy?â he stammered. âItâs disgusting to see how much ad revenue these companies rake in.â Terry heard his voice rise, though not out of nervousness this time but out of raw anger against capitalism. âItâs like the Internet, should be free to anyone, like the open-source movement. For the sake of justice.â Terry retreated to the vagueness of the abstract, wishing he could simply dissipate into the enveloping fog.
âJustice?â Mr. Chow said mockingly with a slight perceptible smirk. âYou have no idea, do you?â The corners of his mouth rose, revealing creases on his face like the folds of an old leather wallet. His stare reminded Terry of his fatherâs gaze of disapproval. It seemed like the formalities had come to an end. Breaking the tense silence, Mr. Chow stood up and buttoned his suit jacket.
Terry swung his backpack over his shoulder, carefully avoiding eye contact lest he revealed his dejection. It was beyond doubt the worst of his pitches. He had received forty rejections in the last month alone, but it didnât make it any easierâespecially as Mr. Chow was his last chance at saving his company, at saving his team, at saving his face.
Sunk cost is a bitch. If he had a failed prototype, giving up wouldâve been easy. But instead, he had something; it was working, to an extent, with the promise of really working right around the corner. That was the curse. Always right around the corner. Except the problem was, he could not see what was around the corner. And he could only go around a couple more corners before his personal line of credit maxed out. Aside from his savings, he had risked his reputation, friendships, and even his relationship with his parents. He was too far gone; to fail was no longer an option.
Lifeâs not all about the ascent, a mentor once said. Then why was this urge to succeed so irresistible? Ambition was hard-coded in Terry; who did the coding was unclear.
âTerry,â Mr. Chow said as he straightened out his sleeves. âLike I said, I can help. I can fix your problems.â
Terryâs ears stood up like two eager meerkats. What did he say? Terry thought of his mother at the airport, and he thought of the force with which she unlatched Terryâs little hands from her trousers and the pressure of her pushing palm behind his back. Go on, she whispered. Terry met Mr. Chowâs arresting gaze and held it like a TCP handshake, ready to listen.
âI invest eight million dollars. Three not enough to build rocket. Three conditions. One: you move your company to Hong Kong. Two: you sign NDA and go absolute stealth. Three: you hire new CTO. I know someone who can fix your problems, build right team. Come back tomorrow same time. You need to meet. I will bring term sheet.â
Milo C. Kingston's Blockchained is a techno-thriller that weaves technology, cybercrime, finance, and suspense into a fascinating story about blockchain networks and cryptocurrency. It is a heart-pounding plot that warns of the real dangers of digital currencies and artificial intelligence, offering enough technology-related action to satisfy readers who love tech-industry thrillers.
The story is very fast-paced with frequent plot twists and short chapters. The author skillfully intensifies the suspense as the characters confront the hidden perils of digital finance, deceit, corruption, and fraud. Fans of corrupt corporate schemes, government interference, cryptocurrency, and cybercrime will find this book to be absolutely addictive.
Many scenarios were so authentic that they represented reality more than fiction. The book's modern context makes it relevant for anyone trying to stay updated on the latest advancements in digital assets and cryptocurrency. Kingston explains blockchain principles in a non-technical manner that allows even readers with minimal understanding of this technology to keep up and enjoy the story.
Seeing how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) works from the inside was fascinating. The CCP exerts a lot of influence at all levels of Chinese life, and they are heavily invested in emerging technologies, so it makes the story even more realistic.
I loved watching the main character, Terry Yong, begin his career as a struggling young entreprenuer with the philosophy of âfake it âtill you make it" and then grow into the man he ultimately became. I loved the sweet little technical analogies he used to describe his budding romantic relationship with Dr. Kitty Lam. I liked Kitty, but she had too many flaws for me to trust her. Kitty eventually makes a shocking confession that evoked an audible response from me.
Blockchained is a timely and energetic thriller that successfully combines blockchain networks, cryptocurrencies, and AI with suspense and intrigue. Enthusiasts of bitcoin narratives, cybercrime stories, and fast-paced technological fiction are likely to derive much enjoyment from this book. Blockchained is definitely a 5-star read!