Shenyu's Latest Interview: Builders, Long-Termism, and Investment Philosophy in the AI Era

Author: Da Qianzi, PANews

Recently, Cobo co-founder Shenyu and Jilian Technology founder Jin Ming engaged in an in-depth conversation about AI, entrepreneurship, investment, Bitcoin, Web3, Agents, and life's mission.

Shenyu is an early participant in the crypto industry, involved since 2011 and one of China's earliest Bitcoin evangelists and participants. Jin Ming is a member of China's national freediving team and founder of Jilian Technology, long focused on video AI technology R&D and commercial applications, with investments from Alibaba, Yunfeng Capital, and Megvii.

From the sense of mission of entrepreneurs to the relationship between humans and technology in the AI era; from freediving and death anxiety to investment frameworks and asset allocation; and on to BTC, RWA, Agents, and the future of Ethereum, the two engaged in a deep discussion revolving around technology, capital, and individual life experiences.

Shenyu believes that one of the most important changes brought by AI is the drastic reduction in the cost from idea to implementation. In the past, an idea might remain forever in one's mind due to high execution costs; now, AI is compressing and structuring vast amounts of human knowledge and making execution capabilities available to individuals at extremely low cost. Technological development has thus made human will more important. But he also admits that AI has opened up many possibilities, yet has not found a sufficiently large, systematic endeavor. He still defines himself as a Builder, believing that "in some sense, living means that because of your existence, the world has a few more possibilities."

This Builder mindset also permeates his investment philosophy. Shenyu believes that good assets do not need to rely on ongoing narratives; compared to broad diversification, he prefers to concentrate on a few assets he truly understands, because human energy is limited, and what truly matters is understanding the underlying logic of assets.

In the next phase of Web3, the key direction Shenyu is observing is Agents. He believes that ecosystems like Ethereum may not be primarily for human use in the future, but for use by Agents.

The following is the full interview, organized by PANews:

In the AI Era, Human Will Is Becoming More Important

Jin Ming: Your last interview was ten years ago, in 2017. At that time, you had a classic quote: "With so much money, I suddenly don't know how to spend it."

Shenyu: Now I know how to spend it. Essentially, I think human will is becoming increasingly important. With the advent of the AI era, many things that used to require a lot of time and cost can now be done quickly as long as you have an idea. This change is huge.

Things we couldn't even imagine ten or twenty years ago can now be delivered quickly with just an idea, as backend execution costs have dropped significantly.

Jin Ming: That is, from an idea to final implementation.

Shenyu: Right. Before, you had a seed, a dream, but it might remain just a dream forever. Now backend costs are dropping rapidly, and AI has compressed and structured vast amounts of human knowledge, allowing you to access these capabilities at low cost. I feel like a lot of possibility space has opened up.

From Mission to Confusion, Builders Are Also Searching for Answers

Jin Ming: Are you satisfied with your current life? Do you feel happy and joyful every day?

Shenyu: It's okay, but there's still a bit of confusion. Unlike the early days of entrepreneurship, when the sense of mission was particularly strong. Now I've entered a chaotic state: you see AI opening up many possibilities and feel this is the best era, but you don't see a particularly clear path. Whether it's the sense of mission or specific business paths, I haven't fully figured it out. So now it's more about exploration and self-improvement.

Jin Ming: When you first started your business, how did you define your sense of mission?

Shenyu: At that time, you saw a window of opportunity, which generated a very strong creative impulse. You felt that if you didn't do this, you would definitely regret it for the rest of your life. It was as if a force was pushing you, and you couldn't escape it, so you went out and did it.

Jin Ming: The huge demand you saw back then was mining?

Shenyu: The earliest was actually in 2013, and the core was the issue of computing power. At that time, mining was earliest in the United States, and later began migrating to China. When China first started making ASIC miners, the machines actually still needed to connect to mining pools in the United States to mine. There were two problems: first, network issues—international internet had latency and packet loss, leading to poor mining efficiency; second, the settlement method of the entire mining industry at the time was unreasonable. So what we did was solve these two problems.

Essentially, you saw a market gap, a niche market with some unmet needs, and you had the ability to meet them. That generated a very strong impulse to build it out.

Jin Ming: After such a long period of accumulation, what do you think your mission is now?

Shenyu: I think it's still about making things. I've always defined myself as a Builder. Since the AI era began, I've made quite a few small tools and dashboards, but I haven't found that truly big, systematic thing yet. I'm still observing.

Actually, after being on the front lines and building many things, you end up with a lot of confusion and bewilderment. So you have to supplement a lot of knowledge from human history: how did similar things happen in the past? How did philosophers think? These things come back to influence you. Standing at this moment, you can see many possibilities unfolding in the future, but you haven't found that specific path yet.

Searching for Life's Mission

Jin Ming: In my sharing yesterday, I talked about purpose awareness, the sense of life purpose. I compared it to a balance scale.

Many people initially want to create big things and leave a legacy; on the other end of the scale are experience and happiness—many young people feel life should be about pursuing happiness. If placed on this scale, where are you now?

Shenyu: I neither particularly want to leave something behind nor particularly pursue experiences. I've also used AI to analyze many psychoanalytic things, but essentially I'm a person with an intrinsic drive to build. I just want to build things. When something is made, I feel great. I want to present something, because I feel that in some sense, living means that because of your existence, the world has a few more possibilities.

Jin Ming: That's actually quite far to the left, quite legacy-oriented. There's an interesting phenomenon in psychological research: many people want to be Builders. And a potential psychological trait of Builders is a tendency toward anxiety. Because your life purpose is to keep building. When you're not actively moving forward, not building, you easily fall into an anxious state. Have you experienced this? How do you usually deal with it?

Shenyu: Definitely a bit, but now I switch. Since childhood, I've had ways to clear my mind, like keeping animals and pursuing hobbies. So basically every week I enter this state. You have to let yourself clear your mind. When you're diving, how do you fight fear?

Rediscovering Fear at the Limit

Jin Ming: When you hold your breath, your body constantly sends you signals, and at that moment it's actually a battle between rationality and emotion. The most straightforward metaphor is that freediving is very much like a spiritual practice. First, you enter the water with a mindset of knowing the outcome. You have to keep telling yourself: you are safe.

The human brain is actually very smart. Humans are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. For example, on land, it's very hard to actually hold your breath until you die. When you reach the limit, the brain may briefly black out—BO—entering a short state of shock. After about ten seconds, the airway reopens, and the person naturally inhales.

But why might someone die underwater? Because after losing consciousness underwater, when the airway reopens, what's inhaled is not air but water. So ultimately it may be drowning. That's why freediving training always requires a buddy, a training partner.

But from another perspective, it's also a great spiritual practice. You constantly give yourself complete positive affirmations: what you're doing now is meditation, you're entering flow; you are healthy and safe; your brain is very smart.

And at first, no one can hold their breath to the limit. In the first ten sessions, two months, three months, most people can only reach about 50% of their limit. As training increases, you gradually approach 70%, 80%, even 90%. Often, what prevents beginners from surfacing is not physical limits but unfamiliarity with their own bodies. As you become more familiar with your body, you trust yourself more and get closer to your limit. So the whole process is not as much of a struggle as imagined; often it's very peaceful.

Shenyu: Doesn't this process free you from the fear of death? Or rather, make you face death more directly?

Jin Ming: That's a great question. I think after long-term freediving or breath-hold training, my fear of death has indeed diminished significantly. I haven't really thought carefully about why. At first, during the first breath-hold or the first few training sessions, I still had fear of death, but now it's completely gone. Even in daily jokes with my parents, I say that I feel my life experience is already very complete and abundant. Even if an accident happened tomorrow and I were gone, I would feel I've been very happy. Before, I would have thought, of course, the longer you live the better, and death is a very regrettable thing. But now I'm not so afraid of it. Are you afraid?

Shenyu: I think on some level there's still anxiety. Or rather, bystanders might tell me, and my Agent companions would tell me, that I actually have death anxiety.

AI Agents Are Becoming the New Information Gateway

Jin Ming: What channels do you use to collect information every day?

Shenyu: Almost all AI. When I open my eyes, AI tells me it has read everything I did yesterday. Now I have three AI Agents. One Agent is pragmatic—it tells you what to do; one is more feminine and soft, probing your inner depths; and one combines what you did yesterday to point out blind spots it observed.

For example, it might tell you: there's a good book in history, and a certain chapter discusses a problem that ancient people also encountered, and it fits your current state well. Would you like to spend 15 minutes reading that chapter? Then three things pop up, and you can go read them directly.

Additionally, I have a note-taking system. They use evolutionary thinking to connect things I've paid attention to in the past with things related to my life. In a sense, my attention is a "God" that determines which viewpoints or propositions survive. AI generates a batch of new things every day, then selects one and tells me: there's an article you can read. So now I hardly read things directly. There are also daily reports and long articles filtered by AI, which AI processes first and then hands to me. I usually quickly compress them into PPTs to read.

Building an Investment Framework Starting from DeFi

Jin Ming: But this approach is more about processing existing information. A lot of information happens in real time—for example, a conflict suddenly breaks out a second ago—and getting that through AI may not be timely enough.

Shenyu: I don't care. The most important information will come to you; you'll definitely see it. I don't do short-term trading either. I realized early on that I have no talent for it. Making simple decisions is easier, but for longer-term things, I might be more suited.

I really started investing after playing with DeFi. DeFi essentially helped me fill in the gaps in my investment knowledge. We went from the "underground Federal Reserve" all the way to seeing how traditional finance was invented, covering two hundred years of development. In that process, you generate a lot of questions, and then you go back to supplement history and financial knowledge. It was only then that I began to invest seriously.

I was just lucky on day one—somehow I got a decent methodology and walked a path that wasn't too wrong. But it was only after that wave of DeFi that I began to build my own knowledge structure and investment framework. Before that, I didn't have a complete investment framework.

Jin Ming: So during your long period of mining, you didn't really form an investment framework.

Shenyu: At that time, I didn't even think I was investing. It was just a vague intuition: I should hold some Bitcoin, with a bit of position management thinking.

I'm an ISTJ personality, and many things are abstracted through practice. I first form some frameworks, then train my intuition; in the process, new questions arise, and I abstract new frameworks. The investment framework gradually formed this way.

From DeFi to RWA, Re-understanding Financial Products Themselves

Jin Ming: Very few people form an investment framework from DeFi. Because DeFi is often essentially "mine, sell, withdraw," which is a completely different logic from investing.

Shenyu: But what you need to look at is what functions these financial products actually provide and how they meet market demand. It's actually building a financial market from 0 to 1 on-chain. What I'm looking at is this process, not that we're doing arbitrage or mining in DeFi—those are more muscle memory, intuitive things.

But in this process, you accumulate a lot of experience, which is valuable; at the same time, you accumulate a lot of questions, which are equally valuable. At first, you may not know why people need these things, but later you figure it out, and when you look back at history, many things connect.

Jin Ming: So this round of RWA on-chain, including bringing US stocks on-chain, essentially extends your ability to understand financial products from DeFi to traditional finance.

Shenyu: Right, it's like US stocks are shoved in front of you again, and you have to figure out the logic behind US stocks.

Jin Ming: But ten years ago when you were mining, you never thought about holding US stocks, right?

Shenyu: Even when people came to borrow money from me to trade US stocks, I didn't quite understand. I can only say I was lucky to have walked a path that wasn't too wrong. At the time, I was actually clueless and hadn't figured it out. Later, a lot of questions arose, and with AI, learning speed became very fast—I could quickly go through a lot of books and materials to understand why these things happen.

Good Assets Don't Need to Constantly Seek New Narratives

Jin Ming: You've been involved with Bitcoin for over ten years. How has your view of BTC changed?

Shenyu: No change—still digital gold. In this world, assets you can hold without intermediaries—other assets basically have one, two, or even three layers of intermediaries.

Jin Ming: Many people in our group are quite pessimistic now.

Shenyu: BTC's value precisely emerges in extreme situations. So when the market is thriving, it's normal for people not to care about it.

Jin Ming: Do you agree with the view that BTC, under classical liberal thought, greatly enhances the capabilities of sovereign individuals?

Shenyu: A core aspect of sovereign individuals is the ability to dispose of assets. AI brings enhanced capabilities, and BTC is a core asset in the sovereign individual's asset disposal methods. Both are very important.

Jin Ming: Some friends around me were very bought into BTC early on and had strong faith. But I feel that after this cycle ends, many people start to feel they can't see new narratives.

Shenyu: Good assets don't need narratives, and the longer they last, the more they prove something.

Jin Ming: I think there may be only two important narratives in this round of Web3. One is the full-asset arbitrage done by Ethena, and the other is RWA on-chain. But both are still in early stages and not yet truly mature.

I actually think that a truly explosive ToC application in Web3 has not yet appeared. I'm not talking about products used by investors and traders today, but products that ordinary C-end users can use like WeChat—things that truly change people's lifestyles. I think that hasn't appeared yet.

Shenyu: I've long held a view that ecosystems like Ethereum may not be for human use in the future, but for use by Agents. It may ultimately be a network, and humans may not be the most suitable end users. When we use on-chain products now, the requirements for users' professional ability and security awareness are often too high. If humans directly become end users, the barrier is still relatively high. But if Agents become the middle layer, it might be a better presentation.

Jin Ming: If in the future, what runs on Ethereum and Solana are mainly Agents, then the entire Agent ecosystem is developing rapidly. How do you see the future of ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana?

Shenyu: I'm currently observing one point: whether Agents can achieve large-scale adoption in ecosystems like Ethereum. If that point truly arrives, it might be a turning point.

Jin Ming: I think one value of Web3 is greatly underestimated. From 1.0, 2.0 to 3.0, "readable, writable, ownable" may essentially change the way social wealth is distributed. If we put finance into this framework, my ideal Web3 finance is like this: today, Chinese people participate in A-shares through trading software, and a large part of the transaction fees generated ultimately goes to platforms like East Money and Hithink RoyalFlush, not to the participants themselves.

But one of the core values of Web3 is that participants can simultaneously become owners of benefits. For example, if you trade on Binance or Hyperliquid, the platform earns fees because of your trading, and as an ecosystem participant, you may also share in the value of platform growth through tokens, buybacks, etc. You are both a participant and a shareholder. In the Web1.0 and Web2.0 eras, you were more just a participant; in Web3, you can potentially become both a participant and a shareholder. I think this is actually one of the core values of Web3, and it shouldn't only happen on-chain.

Theoretically, in the future, all money-related fields worldwide could see this model: you are both a participant and can receive returns, while also enjoying the dividends of ecosystem development. But currently, this mechanism has not been truly applied at scale beyond Web3.

Shenyu: I think it will appear in the future. For example, data in the AI era could itself generate similar mechanisms. The possibility of technology diffusion has already opened up. When it can be adopted at scale may require solving many problems and time. But the possibility is already there. We've already seen successful demos in some edge scenarios, just not yet large-scale applications.

Gold or BTC?

Jin Ming: What do you think of gold?

Shenyu: I don't pay much attention to these. Bitcoin is better gold.

Jin Ming: I think the commonality between the two is consensus, but the groups forming consensus are different. Bitcoin has formed a partial consensus at the sovereign individual level, while gold has formed a stronger consensus at the sovereign state level, especially among central banks. Global central banks are still continuously buying gold.

Shenyu: Essentially, it can be divided into two camps. One is "digital currency + AI" represented by Bitcoin, and the other is traditional "gold + industrial manufacturing power." If we look at it on a spectrum, we might lean more to the left.

Jin Ming: Do you remember James Tobin's Nobel Prize-related theory? According to that view, we can buy both Bitcoin and gold. Because the two have positive correlation in some cycles, but over the past year there has even been some negative correlation. If you want to enjoy the so-called "free lunch" in financial markets and achieve well-diversified portfolios, you should hold more low-correlation or even negatively correlated assets. What do you think?

Shenyu: I don't think truly negatively correlated assets exist. Many assets do diversify under normal conditions and have low correlations, but they always share a few common core constraints. When those core market variables undergo systemic changes and the entire market enters extreme conditions, basically all assets behave similarly.

Jin Ming: But there are counterexamples. For instance, oil and many credit assets are inversely related in some phases. US Treasuries also often show inverse relationships with credit assets.

Shenyu: But there can also be a double kill of US Treasuries and stocks. So I think what truly needs to be resisted is the most extreme situation. Often you think two assets are negatively correlated, but in the most extreme situation, it may not truly protect you. So I'm not a typical diversification advocate; I'm more of a concentration advocate. Because you simply can't understand that many things, and human energy is limited. Since I haven't fully figured out the underlying logic, I'd rather concentrate assets on a few things I truly understand.

Investment Is Ultimately a Combination of Personality, Cognition, and Position Management

Jin Ming: I find this point very interesting. I think some things don't require you to fully understand them. For example, gold—although you don't study it, it has formed a long-term consensus among many sovereign central banks. Since this consensus exists, holding it long-term can also be part of a well-diversified portfolio.

Shenyu: But when it drops, it affects your mindset. So the simplest way to not let these things affect your mindset is to not hold them. When Bitcoin drops, you won't panic, and you won't have too many psychological fluctuations. But the premise is that you have faith. And to truly have that faith, you need to complete a lot of preparatory work.

Jin Ming: For ordinary people, the bigger barrier is that most are not professional investors. Position management, drawdown control, and mindset management are hard for them to handle calmly.

Shenyu: Is this also related to training? Is a sport like freediving more about training or more about innate personality?

Jin Ming: I think it might be both. I believe that in the future, sports may become a necessity for many people. Many will increasingly focus on health and wellness, then truly immerse themselves in a certain sport and gradually become "athletes" in some sense. It brings a sense of achievement and also makes you happier.

When these things combine, it's actually a relatively complete trading lifestyle. Combined with your own lifestyle, Bitcoin drawdowns, for Class A investors, might actually be better opportunities to accumulate. For example, when Bitcoin is at $120,000, you might find it hard to buy; I myself wouldn't particularly want to accumulate above $100,000. Because I feel it hasn't given me an opportunity. If it drops below $90,000, I'd feel the opportunity has come. Buy at $90,000, $80,000, $70,000, $60,000, gradually buying. Because I'm still bullish long-term.

Is AI a Cycle or the "Water, Electricity, and Coal" of a New Era?

Jin Ming: From the current logic, I think calling AI a pure cyclical stock is inaccurate. I believe AI will definitely become the most important productive force of the next era and replace a large number of things in today's world. This change may be even greater than the Industrial Revolution. If this assumption holds, then AI is not a simple cycle but the "water, electricity, and coal" of a new era. Of course, if this assumption doesn't hold, you can completely treat it as a cycle. The key lies in your judgment of this assumption itself.

Shenyu: But look at history—many things are isomorphic. During the 2000 internet bubble, everyone also thought the internet was definitely the future. At that time, network infrastructure was the core, and everyone bought Cisco. As a result, Cisco later went through a long period of valuation digestion. Could something similar happen?

Jin Ming: We can only say everything has probability. But I think if the AI era truly arrives, the demand for storage will be enormous. Currently, we mainly have conversational robots, plus some programming robots. But the truly huge storage demand in the future may come from embodied intelligence—real robots. Today, our homes don't yet have truly embodied intelligent robots, and robots in work scenarios are still mainly concentrated in a few factories. A large number of white-collar office scenarios have not been truly replaced.

Furthermore, in the future, the human brain may also need more external storage. For example, a person's brain might have multiple backups, or through brain-computer interfaces have additional "external brains." These demands have not truly occurred today. But if the AI era truly arrives, the demand space will be very large. So the key actually comes back to one assumption: do you believe the AI era will definitely arrive? I think it definitely will. And the robot thing is no longer a completely wild assumption. Looking down the chain of existing human technological development today, we can already see the possibility of massive production.

How to Screen Core Assets?

Shenyu: Actually, this comes back to trading lifestyle. Your personality preferences influence what investment philosophy and framework you choose; ultimately, they affect your position management and mindset management.

Jin Ming: Everyone is indeed very different. But ultimately, those who do well are those who can develop a set of things that are internally their own and suitable for themselves. Including the T0-level assets you mentioned, the definition is actually not the same. In my framework, what you consider T0-level assets might only be T2 or T3, because they might still be very avant-garde.

Shenyu: Our approach is roughly three layers. First, we might discover an anomaly: this company is a bit strange. We won't take a heavy position at first; we might buy no more than 2%, or even normally just a few thousandths, as an observation position. Then we spend time and energy to study it thoroughly. If we think its logic is correct, we might upgrade it once, from a few thousandths or a few percent gradually to a mid-single-digit asset allocation, but generally not exceeding 10%.

Going from around 10% to around 20% as a core asset actually requires a "leap of faith." Because once you truly enter a core position, what you rely on is not just fundamentals and logical deduction, but also something akin to faith. You need to see a sufficiently large vision that can support a huge TAM (total addressable market), and it must also have very good business logic and a true key chokepoint.

So in summary, our current core framework is: monopoly + growth. The most core assets must have a particularly large TAM and need a sufficiently large vision to drive them. Otherwise, there's no way to put them into the core asset allocation.

Jin Ming: According to your framework, what do you currently consider the most core assets?

Shenyu: Currently, what we've included are mainly Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tesla. SpaceX is still in the timing and observation stage and hasn't been upgraded in yet. Ethereum is still in there, but we've recently been discussing whether to downgrade Ethereum from this layer.

Jin Ming: Is there also an identity issue here? I remember a year ago, when you cleared out Ethereum, I said in the group "sleeping better," and you also said you slept better, right?

Shenyu: Right, because I stopped DeFi mining. But the core logic we see now is that Agents may run on Ethereum in the future. Of course, this logic hasn't been falsified yet.

Jin Ming: But why can't Agents run on Base? Why can't they run on Solana?

Shenyu: They all can. But Ethereum's ecosystem might be a better match. Its underlying layer still has a lot of decentralized infrastructure. Although over the past period, these things may not have truly materialized, the Foundation is also trying to push in this direction. For example, building registries and ecosystem infrastructure around Agents. Although nothing particularly big has truly emerged yet, at least some work has been done, giving the market a bit of hope.