Crypto Community Seeks an Edge With Mind-Bending Designer Drugs

[Celerity]

They could replace your morning coffee, so the saying goes on morning show broadcasts. Nootropics, sometimes called smart drugs, are a class of performance-enhancing supplements that are seeing widespread use in the tech and crypto sectors, and prompting much skepticism everywhere else.

https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-community-seeks-an-edge-with-mind-bending-designer-drugs



Bio-Hacking

The thousands of chemicals that could conceivably fall under the category are bought and sold online and in stores – coming in a pharmacopoeia of varicolored powders, pills and drinks – and are marketed by their ability to improve memory, mental acuity, boost energy and help users enter flow states. Though the term nootropics literally means “mind-bending,” the point is less about discovering untapped reserves of creative potential or losing inhibitions than to impose focus. “For most of nootropic history, it’s just been drug nerds sharing ideas, science and experiences with one another as a community,” CryptoDog, a crypto consultant popular on CryptoTwitter, said. But increased marketing, media reports, late-night advertising, Gwyneth Paltrow’s line of luxury Goop and an active internet subculture are thrusting these supplements into the spotlight.

Apart from college-aged students looking to balance curriculum and social life, CryptoDog thinks it’s a class of drugs designed for the modern, ultra-competitive corporate landscape. “If you don’t work extremely hard, you won’t make it into the top 1%. And as the world becomes increasingly less easy in comparison for the 99%, there’s more pressure,” he said. High-achieving executives, developers and traders in the crypto industry take these neuroenhancing drugs to achieve more, process more information and work longer hours. It’s become part and parcel to an industry that seeks the disruption of all others. “Being in frontier tech means you’re (a) more exposed to new ideas and tools, (b) in a community where experimentation is normalized and widely and openly discussed and often encouraged, and (c) more willing to try new things,” Meltem Demirors, CEO of CoinShares, said in an email. “And so many investors and entrepreneurs dabble with new tools like nootropics.”

CryptoDog was first exposed to nootropics about a decade ago through online forums, and since taking time off from a pharmacy PhD program – at a leading, though unnamed U.S. university – has started his own nootropics and wellness business. “I split my time between crypto and my nootropics startup,” he said, calling from Hong Kong at 1 a.m. his time. In addition to managing the U.S.-based nootropics startup, CryptoDog said he has done consultancy work for data analytics firm Glassnode as well as the crypto exchange OSL, among others. It’s a hustle that probably wouldn’t be possible without his “stack,” or personalized cocktail of nootropics, which includes L-theanine, alpha GPC, huperzine A, theacrine, beta-hydroxybutyrate and caffeine. “I think everyone is trying to get ahead because we all constantly feel behind,” he said.

Stacking

CryptoDog’s interest in nootropics and crypto pair well, and not just because he discovered both at about the same time in his life. “We’re tinkerers. Biology is just the living version of computer science, DNA is just code.” Like the hacker ethos that runs through crypto, nootropics users believe that the human brain is a piece of software that can be improved upon through chemical upgrades. “The body is just a really complex computer that we’re writing code for, writing molecules that can come in and change how it operates,” he said. Taking this metaphor further, the key to both industries is to do your own research, or DYOR. Different people will respond in different ways to different substances, to say nothing of the rampant scams – from miracle pills to get-rich schemes – that pop up in any emergent field. “You read as much as you can, figure out as much as you can, and if you are brave, you try it out and see if it works for you,” CryptoDog said.

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