Notes on Turning Thirty-Five Today is my 35th birthday. Life has felt like someone pressed the fast-forward button: at the start of the month, the total supply of stablecoins broke through US 80 billion; on the 24 th I rang the opening bell for Tron; and this week I’ll move into Astronaut Village to prepare for an upcoming spaceflight. Yet, to me, all of it still seems a little late. Take the space launch as an example. When I bought a seat on Blue Origin’s NS-16 mission in 2021, fewer than 200 people in human history had been to space. Four years later—now boarding flight S-34—I’ll become traveler No. 682. Back then, commercial spaceflight was still under Russia’s monopoly; today, Blue Origin and SpaceX have each flown 18 missions, and a brilliant era of private spaceflight has begun. Going public told the same story. Since starting the company in 2012, our IPO plans were delayed over and over for all sorts of reasons. We could only watch as friends rang the exchange bell one after another—“while beside the wrecked ship, a thousand sails pass.” I nearly gave up; I resigned myself to fate. In the end, though, we still reached a new all-time high. The entire blockchain industry followed a similar path. If we were still rookies in 2012, by 2017 we’d entered deep waters, facing pressure tests from every side. The strain was so immense that a single day in crypto felt like a year in the real world. What recognition we enjoy now is less a triumph than a hard-won breathing space wrested from the world, skirmish by skirmish. All of this has simply been gritting our teeth and waiting for change. There are still heroes in this world. Times make heroes, and heroes make the times; it’s hard to tease the two apart, like rivers and mountains bound together. A president’s decision roars like the Yangtze hammering against the cliffs, swept into the torrent of history—fortune and timing beyond human control. The grand trend is set, yet with every ounce of strength left we should chase the foe across the passes—into the capital, into the capital, into the capital! After the turmoil of 1644, the Ming dynasty still dragged on eighteen more years. If the broom never reaches, the dust will not sweep itself away. Ten thousand years is too long; the contest now is for a thousand days. The world is impatient for stories of youth fulfilled. Not everyone is Yamal, lucky enough to debut early and endure the grind. When we’ve weathered countless storms and washed away the dross, stepping into mid-life to shoulder great burdens, people marvel that Pulisic is only 27. Next year brings another World Cup. How can it be that you’re only thirty-five? A good meal is never late; the winning goal so often comes in the second half. Now—it’s your turn to take the field.(H.E. Justin Sun 🍌)