On September 22, 0G Labs officially launched its mainnet. This project, known as the "first modular AI chain," has finally entered the mainnet era. Almost simultaneously, Nasdaq-listed company Flora Growth announced the completion of a $401 million financing round to kickstart 0G's treasury strategy.

Since its inception, 0G has garnered widespread attention for its technological breakthroughs. Through a modular architecture and revolutionary data availability (DA) solutions, 0G can process the massive amounts of data required for AI applications at a lower cost and faster speed than its competitors. Beyond technology, 0G's more important label is its vision of making AI a public good and building an open, verifiable, and decentralized AI ecosystem. In an era dominated by giants and characterized by severe opacity, this vision is particularly rare.

The founder behind the project, Michael Heinrich, has a compelling story. Born in Ukraine, he grew up in East Berlin before moving to the United States, where he became a Stanford scholar. From elite institutions like Microsoft, Bain, and Bridgewater to being a serial entrepreneur, his life trajectory spans technology, finance, and education.

It is also noteworthy that 0G has deep roots in the Chinese community. Chief Marketing Officer Ada hails from Changsha, Hunan, and is also Michael's wife; core technical members Fan Long and Ming Wu were co-founders of the Chinese public chain Conflux; even 0G's panda mascot originates from Michael's more than ten years of Shaolin Kung Fu practice, earning him the nickname "Kung Fu Panda." This deep integration of Eastern and Western cultures adds a unique advantage to 0G's global development.

At this critical moment of the mainnet launch, Rhythm BlockBeats conducted an in-depth dialogue with Michael Heinrich to discuss his personal growth experiences, 0G's technological innovations and competitive advantages, as well as the project's special ties to the Chinese community.

Unique Perspectives Shaped by Cross-Cultural Growth

Michael Heinrich's life trajectory began in a time of significant change. He was born in Ukraine, spent his childhood in East Berlin, and moved to the United States at the age of 13. Cross-cultural migration is rare, and he not only adapted smoothly but also distilled a profound understanding of identity and environment from it. These experiences deeply shaped his subsequent thinking and entrepreneurial philosophy.

From Microsoft, Bain, to Bridgewater, Michael honed his skills at top institutions across different fields, accumulating comprehensive experience spanning technology, business, and finance. From the external drive of "proving myself" to the internal exploration of "seeking value," he gradually completed a cross-disciplinary leap in his career, laying the foundation for his future entrepreneurial endeavors.

Interestingly, he once taught a course at Stanford called "Hacking Consciousness," which was rated as the best course on iTunes U in 2014. This course explored the relationship between consciousness, technology, and human well-being, which, in a sense, resonates deeply with his current advocacy for decentralized AI.

Rhythm BlockBeats: You were born in Ukraine, grew up in East Berlin, and later moved to the United States. What experiences changed you, and how did this cross-cultural experience influence your later thinking and choices?

Michael: First of all, I found that I could see how people live in different environments. I was surprised by the vast differences in lifestyles. In Berlin, the cultural atmosphere emphasized collectivism more, while in the U.S., individualism is stronger, and relationships seem to remain more superficial—broad but lacking in depth.

Such cultural experiences shaped me to think about how to present myself and define my identity when I came to the U.S. I actually struggled when I first arrived. For example, should I speak English to my parents in the supermarket, or continue speaking German? I had to make a choice.

At that time, I was 13, and I could even decide whether to keep my accent. Should I completely become like an American, or retain some European traits? I ultimately chose to keep some aspects of my European culture because if I fully integrated and was seen as "American," I would feel a lack of integrity regarding my upbringing.

For instance, I wanted to maintain that integrity and keep a part of my culture. Another interesting point is that there were still some negative perceptions of people from East Berlin at that time. So initially, I would deliberately hide my identity as someone from East Berlin and sometimes even say I was from the West. But later, I felt that was absurd. I should be proud of my background; it’s a fact I cannot change. If others have a negative view of me because of it, that’s their issue to resolve, not mine.

Through this process, I learned how to shape and protect my identity.

This was reflected again in my twenties. At that time, I took some courses, like Landmark Education, where I realized that the stories we tell ourselves actually govern our behavior in society. For example, I used to think my father always believed I wasn't good enough, so I had to be perfect to earn his love. Later, I understood that was just a figment of my imagination. We need to learn to deal with these imaginations and understand the meanings we assign to them so that we can create a more positive reality for ourselves and society.

Overall, what I learned is to shape my identity, adapt to different environments, and make my choices.

Rhythm BlockBeats: Having worked at top institutions like Microsoft, Bain, and Bridgewater across different fields, what drives you to continuously explore across disciplines? Have these cross-disciplinary experiences equipped you with certain skills or shaped a particular worldview? How have they influenced your later entrepreneurial endeavors?

Michael: For me, during college, I wanted to figure out where my true passion lay. I started early. I was in a virtue school, around thirteen or fourteen, often hanging out in my father's office online. Then a manager noticed me and said, "Why don't you do something useful?" I asked, "What can I do?" He said, "How about learning some programming and helping us out?" I said I didn't know how, and he replied, "No problem, I'll send you to a boot camp, and you'll learn."

After a while, I went to a Visual Basic boot camp, learned programming, and developed some early Web2 applications for SAP Labs. Because I was too young, they couldn't pay me, so they gave me a lot of free hardware, like a ThinkPad laptop. That time was particularly interesting; I experienced what it felt like to be an engineer. But for some reason, I wasn't completely satisfied; I wanted to explore more fields to find out where my true interests lay.

At that time, I was influenced by a social narrative, thinking about what people considered respectable and what industries were the hardest to enter. So I tried Microsoft, then management consulting, and later went to the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater. Initially, I was driven by a mindset of "I need to prove I'm good enough," but after going through the Landmark course, that mindset gradually shifted to "What do I genuinely care about? What do I want to contribute to the world?" So it transitioned from "What does society consider prestigious?" to "What do I think is necessary for society?" This was an important shift.

At the same time, crossing these different fields allowed me to accumulate many valuable skills. For example, product management skills, which are especially valuable in early entrepreneurship because you need to figure out what users really want, write a compelling product description, quickly test an MVP product, and then scale it rapidly.

My experiences at Microsoft and SAP equipped me with these skills. At Bain, I learned another set of skills: how to present persuasive ideas to senior management, how to break down problems, and analyze them to truly bring long-term business value.

This skill set is very useful in the later stages of entrepreneurship when the company is scaling. But it’s not applicable in the early stages of entrepreneurship, where the focus is more on testing and exploring scalable business models. If you spend three months doing complex analysis from the start, you might miss opportunities; it’s better to execute directly, communicate with a lot of people, and try an MVP.

As for the capabilities I gained from Bridgewater, they are particularly important for Web3 because this field heavily relies on financial engineering. A deep understanding of various financial products, structured products, trading operations, and portfolio construction has also influenced my thinking about capital management. One of our core values is to be self-sustaining and self-generating. Now our capital management strategy can almost offset all consumption, allowing the company to operate sustainably.

So, that’s another takeaway, not just from these experiences but also from my time at Garden. I think there’s another related question, which I can elaborate on later.

Rhythm BlockBeats: You have practiced Shaolin Kung Fu for over ten years. What prompted you to get into Shaolin Kung Fu? Has the philosophy of Kung Fu influenced your life or way of thinking?

Michael: When I was about 16, I had already entered college early. There was a Tai Chi class, and for some reason, I was drawn to it, so I tried it out. As a result, I fell in love with it and practiced for several years.

I really enjoyed the benefits Tai Chi brought me, like feeling energized and being able to tangibly experience "Qi," even making my palms warm. This experience was completely different from what I learned in science. In science, energy is material and defined, but the energy in the body exists in another form. It was this difference between "what I learned" and "what I felt" that fascinated me.

Later, I gradually stopped practicing Tai Chi, but I always missed that feeling.

In my twenties, after leaving Bridgewater, I told myself, "Why not bring this back into my life?"

But this time, I wanted something more physically challenging because, while the energy flow of Tai Chi was enjoyable, it didn't put much strain on my body, and I wanted more physical exercise.

One day, I saw an interview with a Shaolin monk who had left the temple on the Discovery Channel; he happened to be in New York at the time. He demonstrated the skills and training methods of Shaolin Kung Fu. I was shocked, especially by the "inch punch," which scientists have even measured for its impact. I suddenly realized that there was so much potential in the human body that I hadn't experienced, and I was deeply attracted to it, so I immediately sought out a Kung Fu school. The initial classes were particularly brutal; I was exhausted, but after about six months, my body gradually adapted. Each class left me tired yet incredibly alert and focused. This state made me feel that Shaolin Kung Fu was the perfect workout for an entrepreneur.

It includes aerobic training because the movements are fast and rhythmic; you constantly move, perform routines, and use weapons; it also involves strength training because some weapons are heavy and require prolonged swinging; and it has flexibility training because one of the core aspects of Kung Fu is physical agility. All the training can be completed in an hour and a half. For me, it’s the highest intensity of comprehensive training. It not only exercises the body but also brings some values into my life.

When I was in New York, after each class, the master would say "Merry Christmas," "Happy New Year," and similar Buddhist blessings. This taught me to face whatever happens in life with a celebratory mindset. Because you never know whether what’s happening is good or bad; only in hindsight can you understand how it has changed you.

This philosophy has always influenced me to embrace everything with a celebratory mindset, because ultimately, everything is beneficial. This is one of the most important inspirations that Shaolin Kung Fu has given me.

Rhythm BlockBeats: In the process of founding Garten, you experienced a huge fluctuation from rapid growth to being severely impacted by the pandemic. What valuable experiences from this rollercoaster journey help you lead 0G Labs in navigating the volatility of the crypto market now?

Michael: I started running the company full-time in 2016 and was accepted into Y Combinator, and everything was getting better and better.

Our revenue grew from about $3-4 million to nearly $10 million ARR; it was an extremely outstanding experience. Everyone wanted to invest in us. We completed a $5 million seed round, and then more investors joined, ultimately raising $20 million in seed funding for Garten.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, with continuous revenue growth. We doubled in the first year, tripled in the second year, and then continued to double. By 2020, I was still saying in the board meeting, "This year we will be ready for an IPO, and next year we will go public." We had a large management team, and everything was moving towards scaling. I never expected that a few months later, I would have to lay off 75% of the staff because of the outbreak of COVID-19. This was something we completely did not foresee.

The lesson I learned during the financial crisis was to always be prepared for unpredictable market risks. For example, at that time, we had to quickly pull funds from high-risk positions like Lehman Brothers and restaurants. But this time, the impact of COVID was thorough and devastating. Within months, we lost 95% of our revenue, with ARR dropping to just $5 million. The company went from smooth sailing to plummeting into the abyss in an instant. It felt like flying a plane, suddenly everything went dark, the crew was in a panic, the engines shut down, the tower was unresponsive, and I had to find a way to land the plane safely. For an entrepreneur, this is the ultimate test, as it is almost equivalent to the company's "sudden death."

We originally had a $20 million term sheet that could sustain us for several more months, but as soon as the pandemic started, that term sheet was immediately withdrawn. The company quickly went from "cash-rich" to "cash-strapped." We had to cut costs as quickly as possible, reducing from 650 employees to just 35 by the end of the year.

This experience completely shaped me. It made me determined that in any future entrepreneurial endeavors, I must ensure the sustainability of the business from the start. I will consider the worst-case scenarios and risks in advance. In the crypto industry, these risks are even more pronounced because it has a fixed four-year cycle.

So this time when raising funds, I thought ahead: "How much capital do I need to survive the next bear market?" My principle is to raise funds beyond the minimum requirement. As a result, we originally planned to raise $5 million, but ultimately completed a $35 million seed round. This ensures that we have enough funds to survive regardless of the bear market cycle we experience.

At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, through smart capital management, we can basically offset all expenses. This guarantees the long-term sustainability of the protocol.

This way, we can truly think with a long-term perspective. Because our mission to make AI a public good is not a one- or two-year goal; it requires a long time to build an ecosystem. To see how AI can truly change society, or even the emergence of AGI and the widespread use of robots, is not a short-cycle matter; it takes a long time to achieve. Therefore, we must think and act with a long-term orientation.

Rhythm BlockBeats: You taught a course at Stanford University called "Hacking Consciousness." What was the original intention of this course? What do you hope students will gain from it? Is there a philosophical connection to what you are doing now in your entrepreneurial endeavors?

Michael: The initial inspiration actually goes to my colleague Riddle at Bridgewater, who introduced me to Transcendental Meditation.

At first, I thought I was just signing up for a simple meditation course, but I quickly realized there was something deeper. I began to access a level of awareness I had never realized before. The method of the course is simple: twice a day, for 20 minutes each time, effortlessly repeating a mantra. Then it takes you into a state that transcends thought, known in neuroscience as a "quiet yet alert" state.

In that state, you feel a sense of "coming home," an extreme state of joy, happiness, peace, inner satisfaction, and silence—all these qualities emerge. I had never thought that such a simple practice could have such powerful effects. It completely changed my life. I became clearer and could perceive myself in a third-dimensional way; I realized that "the true me" is neither the body nor the mind, but the awareness behind it.

By tapping into this awareness, I identified more with the role of the "observer," rather than merely existing in material reality. This awareness connects with everyone and brings a sense of peace. I could deeply feel the connection with the environment and with others. I have experienced various states of consciousness, where everything becomes more beautiful and brighter. It’s as if most of the time, you are in a "joyful peak," but this is natural and positive.

This profound transformation made me want to bring it to more people. So I founded the course "Hacking Consciousness," hoping students could experience that beyond the material world we see, there is a "dimension of consciousness." I wanted to introduce the perspective that consciousness is everything, and we need to understand the world from a different angle.

The philosophy of this course connects to my current work in that if we want society to truly thrive, we must elevate ourselves. If AI is going to take over a lot of the work we don’t want to do, what can humans still do? Our nervous system allows us to "transcend," and in the future, we will have more time to focus our attention on "transcendence" until we reach self-actualization and enlightenment, experiencing these states of being. This way, we will be truly happier, rather than forever chasing "the next 100x return." More importantly, we need to ask: What is the happiness that truly belongs to me? How can I become the most complete version of myself in reality?

Making AI a public good is paving the way for this possibility. As part of this, I also hope to inspire more people to practice these techniques, such as Transcendental Meditation and other forms of cultivation.

0G's Technological Innovations and Competitive Advantages

At the intersection of blockchain and AI, technological updates are rapid, but there are not many breakthroughs that can truly solve practical problems. 0G Labs stands out in a competitive field due to its unique technological architecture and deep understanding of the pain points in AI applications.

The key innovation of 0G is its modular architecture. This design allows different components to be independently optimized and scaled, finding a new balance between performance, cost, and security. Especially in the field of data availability (DA), 0G has proposed a revolutionary solution that can process the massive amounts of data required for AI applications at a cost far lower than its competitors.

What’s even more noteworthy is that 0G is not just a technology platform but a builder of ecosystems. On the first day of the mainnet launch, it attracted over 100 ecosystem partners, which is extremely rare in blockchain projects, reflecting the team's long-term thinking and planning for ecosystem development.

Rhythm BlockBeats: 0G is positioned as "the first modular AI public chain." Can you explain 0G's modular architecture to an audience without a technical background using a simple analogy, and why it is so important for AI?

Michael: The modular architecture can be understood like this: if we use a statue as a metaphor, there are two ways to create a statue. The first way is to carve it out of a solid block of concrete, resulting in a fixed statue. The second way is to build the statue using LEGO blocks.

If you use a concrete block, once it’s carved, it’s almost impossible to modify; but if it’s LEGO, you just need to remove a few pieces and replace them with new ones to easily adjust it. This is the flexibility that modularity brings. It allows the system to be more customizable, and you can freely choose the components that suit you best.

For example, you can use a storage network on our Layer 1, but if the entry platform wants to use something else, that’s completely fine.

This modularity is especially important for AI. Because in different systems, certain components may be critical, such as needing a specific fine-tuning engine or a particular model. On 0G, you can completely choose the most suitable parts to match, and our design exists for that purpose.

Rhythm BlockBeats: Data availability (DA) is currently a highly competitive field in blockchain, with strong competitors like Celestia and EigenDA. What is the biggest difference in 0G's DA solution? Why are you confident that 0G's solution outperforms competitors in both performance and cost?

Michael: There’s not much to say about this because it’s actually quite simple and straightforward; our performance has improved by thousands of times.

Last year, we achieved a throughput of 20 MB/s. In the consensus layer, we expect to reach 50 GB/s. Moreover, this can continue to scale, and we can even build multiple consensus layers. In fact, this means we can achieve an unlimited data availability solution.

In other words, this allows you to build anything on Web3, even applications that could only be realized on Web2, including AI workloads. For example, tasks in AI data centers typically require hundreds of GB/s or even TB/s of performance throughput, and we can cover that.

So right now, we are basically: the fastest, highest performance, lowest cost, and also the most secure solution. All of this stems from our architectural design, which is built from first principles, specifically thinking about and constructing for extreme application scenarios like AI.

Rhythm BlockBeats: 0G's vision is to "make AI a public good." With so many AI giants currently in the field, what do you think is the biggest challenge in realizing this vision? How will 0G gradually break the black box in the AI field?

Michael: The biggest challenge we face is that traditional hyper-scalers play a game of raising as much capital as possible and then piling a lot of computing power into data centers to train models with that power. But we want to play a different game, making AI a public good. We hope the community can actively participate, contributing data and computing power to build models together.

Imagine a future where there are millions of "expert models" created by experts in the community. For example, I might not want to use Claude to write code, but instead, I want to train a Solidity programming model together with friends who know Solidity best. We contribute our data and code snippets to train this model. Such expert models can surpass the current state-of-the-art models in various dimensions.

This is completely different from black box models. Companies like OpenAI or Anthropic leave you completely in the dark about where the model's data comes from, who labeled it, and you can't even be sure if your input prompt has been altered. I spoke with a friend at DeepMind who has been there for 15 years. He said that due to certain ethical filtering mechanisms, your input prompt is modified before it is sent to the model. In other words, the prompt you input may no longer truly belong to you.

There are countless issues of opacity, and users can only place their trust in a single company, which is the essence of black boxing—very troublesome. I will elaborate on this in another question.

In the architecture of 0G, everything is transparent, with complete provenance and verifiability. You can clearly see which model did what, where the inference requests came from, how the training process was conducted, and what results each piece of data brought. Because of this, you can actively remove negative attributes from these models.

This value proposition is especially important in AI applications that require societal-scale impact, such as logistics systems, transportation systems, airports, and so on.

Rhythm BlockBeats: 0G's technical team is very strong, with co-founders Fan Long and Ming Wu being well-known technical experts in the industry. How did you get to know them, and how do you collaborate with them?

Michael: Our initial acquaintance was through my classmate Thomas at Stanford. I have known Thomas for about 12 years. In 2022, he called me and said, "Hey, Michael, we have made quite a few crypto-related investments over the past few years. Five years ago, I invested in a company called Conflux. Ming and Fan want to do something on a larger global scale; would you be interested in meeting them?" I said it sounded interesting, and we could chat.

We spent about six months in what I call "Founder Dating." In the end, I concluded that this was the best engineering team I had ever encountered, and we had to start doing something together. This was the starting point for 0G, in May 2023.

Initially, everything started from the team, and we were exploring each person's strengths. Ming is now the Chief Science Officer, mainly responsible for research direction; Fan thinks more about deeper research questions and where the protocol should advance; I also engage in some research, but I focus more on ensuring that research results can be implemented in production and expanding the entire engineering team around that core.

My role is to clarify what we want to build and what our vision for the realistic development of AI is.

Rhythm BlockBeats: The 0G ecosystem attracted over 300 projects early on. In your view, what kind of AI applications are you most looking forward to seeing on 0G? Can you paint a couple of specific scenarios for us?

Michael: My view is that saying "I am running an AI company" now is like someone saying "I am running an internet company" back in 2000. Ultimately, every aspect of the world will be integrated with AI. For me, any use case involving AI can connect to our infrastructure. This is our fundamental perspective; AI will eventually permeate everything.

In specific scenarios, considering that Web3 is currently mainly focused on trading and finance, I believe the first applications to explode will be related to finance and trading.

For example, there are already some on-chain agents that help users find optimal yields across different chains. This is very useful because, as an individual user, I don't want to check 100 chains every day, looking at various yield indices to compare which one has the highest yield and which one balances yield and security better. AI agents can automatically complete these tasks for me.

Another example is more complex investment strategies, such as using a looping strategy to enhance returns. Suppose I hold a token that represents a market-neutral hedge fund with an annualized return of 12%. I can leverage it to amplify returns. But the problem is that I need to keep an eye on it to ensure that the cost of leverage does not exceed the returns of the hedge fund. An AI agent can fully automate this monitoring and rebalance when necessary. It can even automatically discover the most suitable leverage opportunities across different chains, which usually requires a lot of manual involvement.

In the future, we may not even need to provide it with specific inputs one by one. You just need to tell the agent, "Be my portfolio manager; this is my risk preference, and this is the return rate I hope for," and then it can operate on your behalf, like a personal financial advisor. Over time, we will see more user experiences abstracted by AI, with complex processes being automated.

First and foremost, I am most looking forward to these financial and trading scenarios. After that, I hope to see more "societal-level" applications. For example, managing my factory through agents. How can I ensure it remains compliant, and how can I ensure it delivers on time? These will be new challenges that need to be addressed in the future, but ultimately, we will head in that direction.

Rhythm BlockBeats: You mentioned that running a simple AI model on Ethereum could cost around $1 million in gas fees. What would be the similar cost on 0G? What new possibilities will the significant advantages in performance and cost bring to Web3?

Michael: On 0G's shared infrastructure, we can deliver AI applications at a cost reduction of up to 95%. This means that even smaller enterprises can train their models and run inferences here. This creates new possibilities for them to develop small expert models for others to use, thereby further promoting AI as a public good.

For example, if I remember correctly, Grok's training used about 200,000 H200 chips, each with about 60 TeraFLOPS of computing power. In contrast, an iPhone has about 2 TeraFLOPS, meaning there is a 30-fold difference between the two.

To put it in perspective, Grok's training is equivalent to using 6 million iPhones. What would happen if we could mobilize the computing power of 6 billion iPhones? That would be a thousandfold increase in computing capability. Can you build larger models? Yes. Can you build more expert models? Of course. Once everyone participates, the total computing power will significantly increase because it is shared across communities.

Typically, the bottleneck for computing power lies in cost. But here, not only will there be advantages in performance, but also in security. Because you don't need to pair a nuclear power plant next to an AI data center to meet energy demands; instead, you can distribute the load across the entire network.

This is the new possibility that a shared architecture can bring.

Rhythm BlockBeats: Can you introduce the current consensus mechanism CometBFT, and the transition to DAG consensus mentioned in the roadmap? How much of a performance boost will this transition bring to 0G? What technical challenges are behind it?

Michael: CometBFT itself doesn't have many highlights. We made a lot of modifications to it, creating a more streamlined architecture that allows each shard to run the CometBFT consensus mechanism. Currently, each shard can achieve about 11,000 TPS, and it is fully compatible. We completed the design and implementation in just a few months.

Next, if we add a DAG-based mechanism, we expect the performance of each shard to increase tenfold, which would be sufficient to support large-scale Web2 applications. For example, one shard could support applications the size of WhatsApp, Facebook, or WeChat in China.

This way, anyone can build the applications they want on Web3, just like developing on Web2, but at a lower cost and with comparable performance.

Of course, achieving all of this comes with many technical challenges that require very hardcore systems engineering work. For instance, under multiple consensus mechanisms, we must ensure that each consensus mechanism can maintain the correct security state; we need to ensure that validators have the same shared stake; and we can also introduce additional security through re-staking mechanisms, such as bringing in security from Ethereum or other chains. These aspects still need further resolution.

Another challenge is that we hope to achieve "any iPhone or any consumer-grade device can participate in AI" in the future, but the current validation methods do not allow for that. We currently rely on TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), which only exists in high-end server GPUs like H100 and H200, which ordinary consumer devices cannot afford.

If we want devices like iPhones to participate, we need a new software layer or different validation mechanisms. We already have an early attempt that shows promising results; the current overhead is about 2.4 times that of TEE, but it can be scaled to iPhones or edge devices.

So this is actually a technical challenge we must solve on the AI side. In other words, we are always walking on two legs: one side is deep breakthroughs on the blockchain side, and the other is deep breakthroughs in AI research. Only by making progress in both dimensions can we truly drive the future we envision. This is also what makes it exciting.

The Deep Integration of Eastern and Western Cultures

One of the most striking features of the 0G project is its deep roots in the Chinese community. This is not only reflected in the team composition, with CMO Ada and technical core members Fan Long and Ming Wu all having strong Chinese backgrounds, but also in the project's cultural philosophy and development strategy.

This integration of Eastern and Western cultures is not accidental; it stems from Michael Heinrich's own cross-cultural upbringing and his profound understanding of the advantages of different cultures. From the choice of the panda mascot to deep collaboration with the Chinese developer community, 0G is building a truly global decentralized AI ecosystem.

Rhythm BlockBeats: 0G has a very close connection with the Chinese community. 0G's CMO Ada is from China and is also your wife. Does this family background influence 0G's view and strategy towards the Chinese market?

Michael: Indeed, this has influenced my view of the Chinese market. Because methods that work effectively in Western markets, such as communication styles and negotiation approaches, do not necessarily work in the Chinese market. What can build trust in the Chinese community is often different from that in Western communities.

In this regard, our efforts are crucial. For example, we have brought in suitable team members like JT, Vanessa, and many other partners to support different aspects and collectively build a community that is truly passionate about 0G.

At the same time, we are also promoting education and courses in China to help people continuously learn while participating in and contributing to the network. This way, community members will have a sense of shared "ownership" and work together to drive future development. This is our strategy in China.

Rhythm BlockBeats: How do you and Ada collaborate in work and life? As a CEO with a German background and a CMO with a Chinese background, what unique advantages or interesting sparks does this cross-cultural combination bring to team management and marketing?

Michael: I think this is very complementary because we combine the strengths of both Eastern and Western cultures, forming a synergy.

From my perspective, a unique advantage is that I am sometimes willing to take bigger risks. For example, when Kaito was just launched, we were one of the first companies to make it onto the leaderboard. At that time, I directly said we should go all out, invest heavily in the community. As a result, we secured the top spot on the voting leaderboard for the first time. This kind of "all in" approach is my style, while her style is relatively more cautious and risk-averse.

However, I also appreciate her perspective. Because in certain situations, being overly aggressive is not a good thing; it is more appropriate to build a reputation gradually, especially in different cultural environments. This dynamic is valuable because we can continuously debate what the right choice is in specific contexts. Her thinking has helped me better understand the concept of "global thinking, local action."

This is indeed a good summary. For instance, in the U.S. or German markets, I have more say; whereas in the Chinese and Asia-Pacific markets, I completely trust her judgment and handling.

Rhythm BlockBeats: The mascot of 0G is a very cute panda. We know this idea comes from your nickname "Kung Fu Panda." Can you share the origin of this nickname? Why did you choose to incorporate this personalized story into the brand image?

Michael: We watched "Kung Fu Panda" together and both really liked it. Since then, she started calling me "Kung Fu Panda" because I practice Shaolin Kung Fu. By the way, I had already started practicing Kung Fu and watching Kung Fu performances before the movie was released. In any case, perhaps because I have a larger frame, she calls me "Panda." And I care for her a lot, so I call her "Little Rabbit."

We thought it would be fun to use a panda as the brand mascot because of this origin. We always believe that a brand must be personalized; a brand cannot be separated from its founder because the founder sets a large part of the company's tone, its temperament, how people communicate, how the outside world talks about the brand, and what the brand represents. So incorporating the panda into the brand felt very natural.

The panda itself represents peace and happiness. It is also an international symbol of China, symbolizing friendly relations and respect. In Asia, especially in Japan and South Korea, people particularly love pandas. Whenever there is something related to pandas, everyone gets very excited. We even envisioned a "Space Panda," hoping to bring this joy, excitement, peace, and friendliness to space, extending into a future of AI coexistence.

The community's response to the panda has been very positive. In fact, the initial panda design was created by a community member. We held a competition and selected a winner from the community submissions.

Rhythm BlockBeats: The technical team of 0G has deep ties with the Conflux project in China. What impact has this had on you?

Michael: We have a deep connection with Conflux. Conflux is both an investor in 0G and an advisor, having a very positive impact on us. Both Ming and Fan have a very strong professional background in decentralized systems, with research experience not only in technology but also in AI. Ming even wrote some of the earliest AI algorithms while at Microsoft Research.

With such technical expertise, combined with five years of practice in the Web3 industry, it has been very helpful for my initial growth as an entrepreneur. I started entering this field around 2013 when I bought my first Bitcoin through Coinbase. I also participated in many ICOs, such as buying tokens at a cost of 4 cents during Binance's ICO, which yielded very good returns.

At that stage, I knew I would definitely join Web3 in the future because I loved the explosion of creativity and wanted to be part of that expanding environment. For me, this has had a positive impact from an entrepreneurial perspective and has helped me continuously advance on my growth path in Web3.

In terms of advisory services, Conflux's engineers also support us in the development of some core technologies. This is very helpful for accelerating progress because building a high-performance distributed system is not an easy task.

Such a level of expertise is possessed by only a few thousand people worldwide. Our team has about ten people, and with the support of Conflux, we can advance technology implementation more quickly.

Rhythm BlockBeats: You also collaborate with organizations like HackQuest and TinTinLand to launch a large-scale Chinese developer growth program. Why do you place such importance on Chinese developers? What are your expectations for the Chinese developer community?

Michael: As mentioned earlier, our philosophy is "global thinking, local action." From the perspective of the developer community, there are many developers in China who are very concerned about Web3 and AI technologies. We hope to collaborate with the best developers globally. Given our cultural background, it naturally becomes easier to attract Chinese developers and establish deeper collaborations with them.

Therefore, we hope to find the most suitable partners in China. We have indeed met some excellent partners through events like hackathons. We continue to see that China has a large and vibrant community that can work with us to build truly interesting applications on 0G.

Rhythm BlockBeats: For a Chinese developer who wants to BUIDL in the 0G ecosystem, what advice do you have? What unique support will 0G provide for them?

Michael: The entry point for developers is builder.0g.ai, along with our technical documentation site docs.0g.ai. This is the initial starting point where you can learn about how 0G operates, what you can build, and the directions you are interested in.

In addition, we have some extra support. One is the accelerator program, which will have a Demo Day where you can showcase and raise funds. The other is the Guild on 0G program, which is more like customized support. If you have a specific project you want to develop with us, we will provide resources and assistance for that.

Additionally, we have an $8.888 million ecosystem fund to support and nurture the best entrepreneurs and builders in this field. Over time, we will launch more projects to truly support developers from the early stages.

If you are not yet ready to join these programs, you can start by participating in our hackathons to get involved. Then we will support you through the entire project lifecycle until you build a highly scalable product on the 0G chain.

My expectation for developers is that they can gradually complete the entire process and ultimately become the best version of themselves, becoming outstanding talents and builders. All of this will be achieved through the 0G platform, along with our mentoring, support, and funding.

Rhythm BlockBeats: In the future, what kind of brand image do you hope 0G will have in the minds of users in the Chinese community? Beyond being a technologically advanced public chain, what culture and values do you hope to convey?

Michael: Beyond technical capabilities, we also hope to truly embody and convey a sense of "togetherness" in terms of culture and values, akin to family, community, and a sense of responsibility to society.

We do not want to just talk about "safe and transparent AI" verbally; we want to internalize it as part of our identity and daily actions. To achieve this, we must build together with the community because only in this way can we create an AI that everyone participates in. We do not agree with a future where a few companies control all AI and thus almost control the entire business, reaping all the benefits; that would lead to massive job displacement and people being forced to rely on UBI.

What we hope to see in the future is that people contribute to AI, whether by providing computing power, data, or participating in other ways, and receive rewards for it. In this way, the goal of people's work will not just be "to make a living," but for self-actualization (whatever that means for each individual).

Perhaps some people contribute their computing power or data, and their greatest joy in life is cooking; that is their life’s pleasure. We should absolutely make such a life possible. A deep awareness of social responsibility is part of our overall path. We hope to be at the forefront, driving everyone towards a more prosperous life.

I believe AI should be seen as an accelerator that allows us to do more and achieve more. Treat it as a component for dialogue, brainstorming, and collaboration; while also thinking about how to ensure that this component is not your enemy but always stands by your side. This also requires a coaching approach to thinking and feedback. So we need to start putting this into practice now. Treat "learning" as a skill to learn AI, learn how to provide transparency and verifiability in a decentralized way, and learn how to collaborate with it or respond to it; regardless of whether we are ready today, tomorrow will come.

It is best to be prepared now and start learning, embracing it, and co-creating with it, rather than passively responding and letting it take control of our lives.

Rhythm BlockBeats: What social status do you think decentralized AI will have in the future?

Michael: I believe that in the future, different types of AI models will coexist.

For example, lightweight AI can run on edge devices like your phone, which can handle tasks like ordering food or booking travel locally. For more complex tasks, such as writing research reports or conducting deep searches, you would still use centralized AI. However, when it comes to highly secure scenarios, such as logistics systems, airport scheduling, or government or administrative systems, decentralized AI must be used because only it can guarantee security, transparency, and verifiability.

Therefore, the future landscape we see is one of coexistence.

However, in societal-level AI applications, especially those that do not require human input and can make autonomous decisions, sovereign AI agents must operate on decentralized AI frameworks. The reason is simple: only on decentralized AI can we establish coordination mechanisms. This way, when certain agents exhibit undesirable traits or negative behaviors, we can quickly take action, such as reducing their incentives through punishment mechanisms or directly removing them, forcing them back into expected behavior patterns.

The New Starting Point for Decentralized AI

Through this in-depth dialogue, we see a complete Michael Heinrich. From a child growing up by the Berlin Wall to a scholar teaching consciousness courses at Stanford, and now an entrepreneur immersed in the decentralized AI ecosystem. His life trajectory seems to span multiple fields, yet it has a clear core: the exploration of human potential, the integration of technology and humanistic care, and a dedication to building a better world.

The significance of 0G goes far beyond technological breakthroughs. In the context of increasingly centralized and opaque AI, it proposes the vision of "making AI a public good," which is not just a technical project but an experiment about the future shape of society.

With the mainnet officially launched, 0G has entered a new phase. It now has over 100 ecosystem partners, an $88.8 million ecosystem fund, and a team that integrates Eastern and Western backgrounds, laying the foundation for achieving grand visions. More importantly, 0G's deep connection with the Chinese community gives it a unique advantage in the process of globalization. In a world that increasingly requires cross-cultural collaboration, 0G is demonstrating how to harness the power of different cultures to create greater value.

As Michael said in the interview: "Be prepared now and start learning, embrace it, and co-create with it, rather than passively respond and let it take control of our lives." This is not only a reflection on the future of AI but also a reminder to everyone that in an era of rapid technological evolution, actively participating in and shaping the future is more important than passively accepting it.

This article is based on an exclusive interview with Michael Heinrich, founder and CEO of 0G Labs. The interview took place in September 2025, coinciding with the launch of the 0G mainnet.

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