In an era of unprecedented and accelerating technological breakthroughs, trust appears to be at an all-time low around the world. People have material comforts at their fingertips that would have been unimaginable a generation or two ago. Yet amidst this abundance, people are increasingly deprived of meaning and purpose. We have become materially rich and spiritually poor.
Those who are driven to create something new in the world often emerge from interesting backgrounds. They are products of their time. And while I claim no extraordinary achievements or special insights, I think it’s fair to say that my own journey as an entrepreneur has been shaped by the forces of discontent around us and the search for something for real. And I’m here to tell you: truth and trust can be found in the most disparate places, from ancient monasteries to the Ethereum blockchain.
I grew up in a communist state. Not the Soviet Union or Cuba, but the Indian state of West Bengal, which, under India’s federalist constitution, followed a strict communist ideology that affected our perception of money, property, and even religion and individualism. It is safe to say that my worldview, from the beginning, was shaped by this totalizing and centralizing atheist ideology, an ideology that promised freedom from the burden of capital acquisition. For years, I never questioned it.
But, like most people coming of age, I eventually challenged conventional wisdom by learning to listen to my instincts of doubt and uncertainty. I began a search for truth which led me to question the vision of the world around me. I began to wonder how much I could trust him.
This is the beginning of a search for confidence that will prove to be a lifelong journey.
A journey begins with a single step
I have always been captivated by technology, immersing myself in programming early on, fascinated by its logic and potential. I believed that even if all else failed, logic would still work and that I could trust it completely. So I eventually left home to study computer science at a university. And as I learned more, something else began to motivate me: a call to understand the spiritual and existential questions that communism rarely addressed.
This led me to the next step in my journey. I became a Buddhist monk.
During my university studies, I also entered a monastery. Thanks to my programming experience from a young age, I was able to skip college classes and return to the great and mystical Himalayas. There, I spent months in isolation, meditating in caves or sitting with spiritual texts, while studying the meaning of community and human trust. My teachers introduced me to the practices of creating our own “time” as an ancient practice for human unity.
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Time, I realized, is one of the fundamental but mundane ways people measure and honor the invisible threads that connect them. Time ultimately tells us what deserves our trust. Buddhism teaches that time is precious and limited and that each moment should be dedicated to a greater purpose. That the meaning of life is to live life meaningfully, always keeping in mind the passage of time. This understanding would shape the philosophy that still guides me today.
Back in the fray
Eventually, my spiritual mentors encouraged me to use my skills and knowledge beyond the monastery walls. It was time – pun intended – to move on.
If you were looking for a 180-degree change from the environment of a Buddhist monastery, few places would be a better fit than New York. So I naturally decided to make it my next destination. I worked in finance for American Express and then for Nasdaq, where I was immersed in a world governed by financial markets and global stock exchanges. The culture shock was immense; the relentless pursuit of profit was shocking.
I quickly found myself on the front lines of Occupy Wall Street. The protesters, rallying against financial inequality and corruption, awakened in me a curiosity about alternative financial systems. That’s when I first encountered Bitcoin. Even then, I sensed a glimmer of potential: a way to challenge institutions that people no longer trusted, to offer a new path rooted in a radical overhaul of technological and financial systems.
The purpose of blockchain has often been obscured amid periodic “crypto bubbles” defined by a rush for personal gain. But for me, it’s a distraction. Blockchains have never been primarily a wealth transfer tool. They are timekeepers. Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, himself called it a “time warp” – a record of truth over time, a ledger that connects us across times and places in a history of shared trust . As they say, time is money, and sometimes cryptocurrencies take this form.
Putting it all together
Today, I dedicate my time to promoting the utility and adoption of blockchains. I believe this technology offers us the promise of regaining confidence in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. My challenge is to create tools demonstrating that blockchains are not limited to financial engineering. Properly deployed, they can support a new information infrastructure built for the 21st century with a sense of time suited to our age of acceleration and speed.
People sometimes ask me why I decided to leave monastic life in search of material success. The answer is no. I am still a monk. In Buddhism, no one assumes that leaving the monastery means abandoning one’s spiritual activities. Think of it this way: a pianist doesn’t stop being a musician because he leaves the conservatory. They simply choose to focus, for a while, on something else. So I am still a Buddhist monk. I also happen to be a co-founder of a blockchain company.
Anuj Das Gupta is co-founder of Smart Transactions (STXN), a company specializing in verifiable time machines on Ethereum.
