Metamask founder Joel Dietz is a true renaissance man

Joel Dietz, founder of Metamask and founding member of Ethereum, is a romantic at heart. He creates an art called ‌ “Cryptoapollo”, which reflects the interface between traditional art and technology.

“I have a very classically romantic personality that is difficult to bring into the modern world, as romantically inclined people can be stifled in the modern economy, but I also love avant-garde architecture and sculpture,” explains Dietz.

“And like any technology enthusiast, I always try and research the latest technologies like VR. My art is mostly digital, although I’ve played around with physical works, ”he said.

He was a multi-ethnic and Renaissance man whose passions included art, poetry, and cryptography. He wears his heart on his sleeve, gets bored easily and never stops learning.

Kindergarten programmer

When he went to kindergarten for the first time as a child, Dietz immediately informed his mother that he wanted to be taught at home instead. She agreed and the decision was quickly confirmed.

Dietz began computer programming at the age of six, won a scholarship at Arcadia University to study computer science at age 13, and subsequently received awards for his programming from Salesforce, Google, and Topcoder.

After a short academic career in which he studied comparative poetry and mythology, Dietz joined the Ethereum team on day one, which among other things created the first educational channel for smart contracts (EtherCasts), wrote the first Ethereum DEVGrant and metamask at Devcon 0 – this is already his third channel of crypto-related browser extensions.

Dietz is also very interested in the development of governance and legislation related to cryptocurrencies. He did his first academic paper on “crypto-economics” in 2014 at the University of Notre Dame, where he conducted the first non-profit online voting for the Bitcoin Foundation and generated a series of transactions – and co-hosted the first crypto and legal conferences in Harvard and at MIT. He is currently a Connected Science Fellow at MIT and an industrial advisor at Notre Dame.

His most recent projects include a recently launched Layer 2 solution for the NFT industry called ArtWallet, which currently has a market cap of $ 600 million. He’s also working on a platform to build Metavers called Meta Metaverse – the foundation he set up before Facebook was renamed Meta.

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His academic research interests focus on the combination of blockchain network topologies and herd intelligence (self-organizing systems), particularly how the fundamentals of organizations can be used to drive global innovation. In addition, he studies three-dimensional philosophy (how biological and social systems come together), the development of law (legal history), data-driven innovation approaches and smart city data architecture.

Model sculptor

Dietz dated a sculptor, Marianna Costi, who influenced his appreciation for the physical arts. It also became the model for her fresco, which resembles the Archangel Michael in Florence and hangs on the wall of an unnamed church in Italy to this day.

“I expressed this appreciation for sculpture at the Burning Man Festival in 2014, where I designed and commissioned a huge metal sculpture that resembled a Spartan warrior mask. , for my first large steel art installation, ”he recalls.

His personal life also intersects with the arts. His aversion to erotic photography led him to host an erotic opera with like-minded people on his birthday. The operatic genre was chosen because of his admiration for the Egyptian opera “Akhenaten” by Philip Glass.

“Philip Glass, on the other hand, was inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and I am not the only one on how to connect with ancient Egypt and its teachings,” he said.

Dietz also dealt with poetry and published a book with the title Monkey love in memory of a woman he flirted with at the time.

“In the end it was a failed love affair, but the poem reflects my free-spirited nature. I think poetry is a way of delving into the details of emotions. “

Comprehensive view Metamask

And so the holon system can be compared to the human body – where the various autonomous organs work together as a whole. This is how Dietz describes elegant organizational design. His research culminates in an academic book that can be downloaded for free from Academic.

“The way we make decisions, even at the cellular level, is very complex,” he said. Philosophically we can consider ourselves as autonomous individuals, but we also exist as part of larger social organizations, from family groups to cities to nations. I see it as a series of nested systems, each with their own level of complexity. ”

As a logical extension, Dietz argues that the liberal movement does not reject overarching authorities – like the Catholic Church – but rather demands that people consider how they consciously or unconsciously participate in various organizations.

Dietz argues that John Locke, the Enlightenment philosopher often referred to as the “father of liberalism,” was actually hostile to authoritarian mechanisms that force people to act without thinking about their own actions.

“Self-reflection is the key to understanding how we act and how we can optimize engagement in our best interests.”

Self-reflection is used in Dr. Seuss’ little-known, often forbidden book is even better described. The Book of the Battle of Butter.

“It’s an anti-war fable in which two people live on either side of a wall and spread their neighbour’s bread on the opposite side of a slice of bread. The controversy escalated into a feud from slanderous words with sticks and stones to bigger and bigger weapons, ”explained Dietz.

“The senseless escalation of aggression can be contained if we stay away from senseless violent tendencies that are not conducive to the growth of this planet – and think about their involvement.”

code

Like most of Dietz’s passions, his interest in crypto is driven by a love of difference: his interest in the history of cryptography. He stated that the founding director of the National Security Agency formalized cryptographic research during World War II and after the Cold War. Dietz, in turn, was influenced by the American author Edgar Allen Poe and in particular by his short story “The Golden Bug”, which tells of hidden treasures and clues.

“The history of hidden messages is much broader than the formal science of cryptography. Cryptography as a mathematical discipline is a subset of the way hidden messages are passed, and much of the foundations of that science are not really based on mathematical systems. “

“In fact, the concept of number theory, which is based on modern cryptographic systems, is completely unproven. The idea of ​​chance in number theory that prime numbers have no pattern is unproven – it’s a working hypothesis at best. ”

According to Dietz, working on unproven mathematics leads to applications that can also be unproven.

Bitcoin initially didn’t interest him

Despite his ability to look around the corner, Dietz was initially skeptical of Bitcoin. When he read the first technical articles, he said it would remain a nerd currency without mass use.

As he watched more and more projects struggle for survival, especially other forms of digital currency, he gradually realized that the new enemy was regulation – for anyone trying to move money. .

He sees the struggle between old money and old people, new money and young people.

“Children will create amazing things. You will develop more and more complex platforms and applications. Well, I don’t expect it to go smoothly – on the contrary. It’s going to be a steroid problem because things are moving so fast. “

Dietz is now well integrated into the NFT and has an agency, 1ofONE, which represents a large number of celebrities. He recently did the Mike Tyson Drop which has proven very successful and he is very enthusiastic about the speed of growth.

This white gloved service is run on OpenSea, in collaboration between Tyson and renowned digital artist Cory Van Lew. It has been dubbed “The Worst NFT Collection on the Planet” and captured some of Tyson’s most impressive moments in the ring. Eleven unique NFTs were minted alongside six regular NFTs, with coins ranging from 50 to 250. Launched in early September, one of them sold out within an hour at a price of no less than 5 ETH, and Tyson promised a “bigger and worse …