Longevity expert draws link between Bitcoin and anti-aging communities

Tech entrepreneur and founder of the “Don’t Die” anti-aging regimen Bryan Johnson joined Cointelegraph at Token2049 to discuss the curious overlap between the longevity movement and the Bitcoin (BTC) community.

Johnson compared Bitcoin’s “fundamental rejection” of monetary inflation with the longevity community’s fundamental rejection of biological aging— two problems long seen as inescapable facts of life — and opined that both movements share a paradigm-shifting appeal that attracts similar-minded individuals.

The tech entrepreneur also agreed that tech developers tend to enjoy solving seemingly impenetrable problems like aging or peer-to-peer distributed cash systems.

“Talent goes after solvable problems. I think for the first time, aging is a solvable problem,” Johnson said before explaining how futuristic advances in material science could solve the aging problem.

Johnson told Cointelegraph that the ability to engineer organic material on the atomic and molecular levels will provide the necessary tools to halt or reverse the aging process.

Related: Vitalik Buterin sings at Token2049, highlights low L2 fees as ETH milestone

Crypto leaders in the anti-aging movement

In 2018, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated $2.4 million to anti-aging research at the SENS Research Foundation. Buterin first became aware of SENS co-founder Aubrey de Grey’s anti-aging work as a teenager and has been a vocal proponent of anti-aging techniques ever since. At the time, Buterin had this to say about the Longevity Foundation’s work:

Their focus on creating solutions to the diseases of aging, one of the greatest problems facing humanity, is very much in line with my goal to positively impact the lives of millions of people around the world.”

Agoric chief scientist Mark Miller, early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver, and former chief technology officer of Coinbase Balaji Srinivasan are likewise fascinated with life-extension techniques.

Balaji, who is also a venture capitalist, previously stated “The ultimate purpose of technology is to eliminate mortality and life extension is the most important thing we can invent.”

The Longevity Science Foundation — a non-profit focused on researching anti-aging and life-promoting techniques is likewise bridging the gap between the crypto community and longevity researchers.

At the Foundation’s 2022 Ageing Research & Drug Discovery conference, the organization explored how cryptocurrencies and emerging blockchain technologies could help to build alternative funding mechanisms for drug research.

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