Author: Tian Daxia (@Web3Donny)

On the day of the interview with Guo Yu, he had just returned to Tokyo from Hokkaido.

It was May of this year, and the rainy season in Tokyo had just begun. When he spoke about the summer in Hokkaido in the video conversation, his tone carried a rare lightness.

“I prefer the summer in Hokkaido to the winter.”

Guo Yu mentioned that in winter, Furano is crowded with tourists admiring Christmas trees, while in summer, Furano is filled with rolling green hills. He and his friends drove along undisturbed roads, hiked, soaked in hot springs, and briefly escaped Tokyo's humidity in the dry, cool air.

Guo Yu in Hokkaido

Three months after the interview, Guo Yu's travels extended to Tanzania, Sri Lanka, and back to his "happy hometown," the Maldives. After he concluded his trip to the Middle East, I reached out to him again.

Travel has become a part of his daily life, and he seems accustomed to marking the passage of time with new geographical coordinates.

This former internet entrepreneur and digital nomad appears to be perpetually on the move. More than five years into retirement, his understanding of "freedom" seems clearer:

“In the past, I thought financial freedom meant absolute freedom, which was actually a mistaken judgment… The most important thing is that we need to realize this issue and its significance early in life.”

Guo Yu

Who is Guo Yu?

Guo Yu became well-known to the public in 2020. That year, he wrote a line in a resignation letter—

“I chose to retire at the end of 28, to embrace the mountain springs and the winds of the canyons, to feel the seasons of spring, autumn, winter, and summer.”

Four months later, this letter was suddenly unearthed, igniting a heated discussion online: some envied him, some questioned him, and others viewed him as a representative of the "lucky ones" in the internet entrepreneurship boom.

The words “young,” “retired,” and “financial freedom” became labels attached to him. He became the “escape template” that countless young people imagined.

At that restless juncture in the post-pandemic era, he became the most vivid “counter-example” on social media—someone who turned and exited amidst the tide of the times.

Childhood and Growth

Guo Yu spent his childhood in the mines of Jiangxi. As a left-behind child, his winter and summer vacations were often extremely lonely, with his only solace coming from the Christian books left by his grandmother and the self-expression that writing provided. These words and faith became the most important spiritual outlets in his early life.

Later, he attended Shenzhen Senior High School. The education here made him realize for the first time that “choice is more important than effort.”

In this school, many classmates were children of entrepreneurs, anxious about “if they couldn’t get into an Ivy League school, they would have to go back to inherit the family business”; meanwhile, Guo Yu was facing the reality of “his father being bedridden.” The open atmosphere and diverse values of Shenzhen shaped his character of “never accepting fate.”

For him, destiny is not predetermined but a process that can be continuously rewritten through choices and practice.

Guo Yu in high school

Later, he successfully entered Jinan University, majoring in politics and administration. However, Guo Yu quickly realized that this major would not support his future livelihood. So, he began to self-study programming.

“At that time, there was no other way; I had to find a path that could support myself.” With this persistence, he smoothly joined Alipay under Alibaba after graduation, where he accumulated his initial industry experience.

In the wave of the internet gold rush, Guo Yu seized his opportunity and became part of the “options myth.”

In 2014, Guo Yu's startup was acquired by ByteDance, and he officially joined this startup, which was valued at only $500 million at the time. From then on, his life was thrust into a whirlwind of wealth and dreams.

As an early employee, he devoted himself to the development of the company's core projects. ByteDance's valuation skyrocketed a hundredfold in six years, and the early stock options he obtained soared in value.

Investment and Crypto Experience

In the past decade, he first rode the wave of the internet to achieve financial freedom, then turned into a calm observer in the crypto field, experiencing several cycles of the crypto market, and now his perspective is increasingly clear.

Recently, he wrote a passage on Twitter that resonated widely within the crypto community.

He wrote: “Many friends in the crypto circle have no concept of money; today they go all in on this, tomorrow all in on that. Spending years trading, staring at screens, and being glued to computers can easily lead to a loss of touch with reality. I still recommend that everyone read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles. Spend money on life experiences; luxury goods can be bought, money can be earned, but don’t get trapped in it.”

A brief statement sparked resonance both inside and outside the circle. After the black swan event on October 11, many people lamented that it seemed everyone had begun to lose touch with reality, forgetting that money can also be spent on “living.” Money can neither be spent nor earned endlessly, but the life lost cannot be regained.

Guo Yu's crypto journey began in April 2013 when he was at Alipay and was drawn to the heated discussions on Hacker News about Bitcoin breaking the $100 mark, leading to discussions in internal tech sharing sessions.

At that time, most transactions were completed through OTC channels on Taobao, and he joked that he even bought Ripple promoted by Sun Yuchen.

During the ICO boom in 2017, he first attempted to write smart contracts. Even after “retiring” from ByteDance and moving to Japan in 2020, he still published a long article on the Mirror platform in 2021, reflecting on the technological trends he missed.

If ByteDance's wealth allowed him to “retire” early, then the crypto world was a spiritual playground that kept his technical intuition and intellectual vitality alive before and after retirement.

Now, he resembles an observer and chronicler who has stepped back. He admits he did not participate in the frenzy over new-generation Meme Coins like Trump Token but “wants to document this” because the younger generation is far more sensitive to opportunities than his peers.

The significant drop in the crypto market on October 11 prompted Guo Yu to systematically elaborate on his observations of the industry over the past decade on Twitter. He systematically explained his understanding of Bitcoin's price discovery mechanism and divided this process into three stages.

The first is the “ancient OTC trading stage.” He personally experienced that period when OTC trading was the dominant model, and prices were very dispersed; the mining costs of mining farms determined the real price foundation of Bitcoin for a long time.

The second is the “centralized exchange order book stage.” OTC was replaced by more efficient order books, but this also brought problems. Some exchanges introduced futures and even perpetual contracts as their main business, and the price model no longer adhered to the basic logic of supply and demand.

The third is the “Wall Street turnover stage after Bitcoin ETF approval.”

Guo Yu believes that from that moment on, Bitcoin lost its original purpose: “to help everyone resist the unlimited expansion of debt.” Because, since that moment until now, Bitcoin has been continuously exchanged into the hands of Wall Street every day.”

He observed that the spot inventory and trading volume of CEX sharply declined thereafter, and its trading volume could no longer reflect the real price of Bitcoin. He predicts that Wall Street's next step will turn mainstream tokens into interest-bearing assets, leading to price stabilization.

“I believe the story of Bitcoin has now entered its final chapter; the four-year cycle has ended.”

He wrote this conclusion on the night of the crash, “Unfortunately, this is not its true design purpose. But it is still a good story.”

Unlike many short-term profit-seeking players, Guo Yu still retains the early crypto assets he bought and has never liquidated them.

He humorously states that the reason is quite simple: “Liquidating and paying taxes is too troublesome, and I have enough money to spend.”

Travel, Love, and Daily Life

If the crypto world is his “spiritual playground” in retirement, then the journey in reality is his way to reach freedom.

Travel and hot springs are important parts of his life. During the pandemic, he traveled almost all over Japan, staying in 530 hot spring inns. When discussing local specialties, he dissects them like a precise algorithm: Kurokawa Onsen in Kyushu is known for its scenery, Kusatsu Onsen emphasizes pH and minerals, and the mixed bathing culture dates back to the Meiji era.

In Tokyo, he maintains a state of “comfortable detachment”: cleaning his room in the morning feels like meditation, and he limits himself to two hours of market watching at night; during travel, these routines are completely broken.

Writing is a consistent habit for him. Childhood diaries, high school essays, and now Twitter records. Although the form has changed, the essence of recording and reflection remains the same. He has written for City Magazine, documenting stories about Japanese hot springs. He even openly writes a “love diary,” candidly discussing open relationships.

The year 2020 was the period when he faced the most online controversies, and the overwhelming comments brought him considerable distress. Now, he has established a coping mechanism: "Unless it involves family or partners, I basically do not respond."

This shift can be seen as a strategic form of self-protection. While living in Tokyo, he enjoyed the status of an “invisible person”: self-checkout at convenience stores, registering at hot spring inns under a pseudonym, with no one paying attention to his identity.

His MBTI is INFJ. Introverted and restrained, but not someone who locks himself in a room. On the contrary, his life checklist is filled with “fun plans”: getting a sailing license, learning to ride a motorcycle, and trying some unimagined adventures.

Freedom and Arrival

He claims he is not a born “lucky person,” but rather someone who built his path to financial freedom step by step through self-learning programming, seizing industry opportunities, and making rational investments.

That’s why he decided to gracefully say goodbye at 28, settle in Japan, write, travel, and live a different kind of life.

Now 34 years old, Guo Yu is still on the road. You can see on social media that his journey has never ceased.

The difference is that he is no longer obsessed with chasing “the next destination.”

For him, every departure is not to escape the past but to arrive at a more authentic self.

In the utopia of “retirement,” he uses freedom as the only coordinate, integrating wealth, technology, travel, and intimate relationships into a flowing route.

On this route, he seeks not only his own wave but also a way of existence that transcends time and identity.

This is the true meaning of freedom: not to escape from something, but to learn to place oneself in the continuous arrivals.

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