Michael, known as Cryptocito, is a content creator and community builder in the blockchain space whose journey is rooted in a desire for personal freedom and a conviction that technology can foster greater transparency and equity in the world. From a young age, he harbored dreams of traveling the world and "to have a life where I can set the rules," rather than being "stuck for 30, 40 years in a company." This ambition led him and his best friend, Chris, to explore alternative paths, eventually stumbling upon Bitcoin in early 2017. His initial foray into crypto was driven by curiosity and a desire to understand a system that seemed "crazy" to an economics student like himself. He quickly realized a significant "blind spot" in his formal education regarding the true workings of central banks, commercial banks, and credit systems. This ignited a passion for learning, leading him to spend countless nights "reading and learning and studying, reading white papers." While an initial bull run brought quick riches, "emotions took over, greed took over," leading to the loss of "every single cent" in 2018-2019. However, instead of giving up, he and Chris "stick to the industry," convinced of blockchain's long-term potential to "impact our society, our economies and everything." He believes blockchain offers solutions to replace "human emotions through code," a beautiful idea that resonated deeply with him. His conviction was further solidified during his time in Shanghai, China, which he discovered was an "epicenter of crypto and blockchain technology." There, he transformed from an attendee to an organizer, co-founding Crypto Mondays, a community initiative that became widely successful. This experience cemented his love for meeting people and building communities, explaining, "I love to meet people... I love that. So I thought, I don't want to just attend. I want to organize events." This passion for in-person connection later inspired him to organize a conference in Medellin, Colombia, driven by his close ties to Latin America. Living in Colombia exposed him to a different stage of crypto adoption, where many were still learning the basics, allowing him to further expand his network and knowledge. The COVID-19 pandemic then prompted him to pivot to online content creation, buying a camera and microphone "right at the time when everybody did that on Amazon," leading to his current role as a YouTuber. Cryptocito's approach to content creation is deeply personal, emphasizing "authenticity" as his "secret sauce." He critiques many content creators for "chasing numbers, chase KPIs or chase the algorithms" instead of genuinely sharing their passion. For him, it's about providing "valuable content" and expressing an "inclusive mindset" to foster unity in the often-tribal crypto space. He aims to "help get rid of this tribalism in crypto," envisioning a community that is "very open and inclusive." At the core of his crypto philosophy is the belief that it can "cut out a lot of middlemen and it cuts out a lot of intransparent business models that we don't even know how the fuck they work." In the long run, he sees crypto as "designed to break up those business models and at least help some people to include them financially, to bank them without having to have a bank account," providing "financial sovereignty." He cites the extreme loan interest rates in countries like Uzbekistan or hyperinflation in Lebanon as examples of current financial injustices that crypto can address. In the short term, he is excited by the "wealth decentralization or wealth transformation" that crypto offers, creating "a lot of opportunities for small guys like myself to just change their life fundamentally and to just settle their finances at an early young age." This, he believes, allows people to "really focus on things that you actually want," pursuing passions they might otherwise be unable to afford. Elaborating on his concept of replacing "human emotions with code," Cryptocito explains that blockchain "elevates accounting from double entry to triple entry accounting." This public ledger system ensures transparency and accountability, addressing issues where "we have to trust that these numbers are even correct" in traditional financial reporting. He believes this will "change so many things" by removing "a lot of bullshits" and decentralizing power held by large institutions. DeFi, in his view, allows individuals to "be your own liquidity provider" and "generate cash flow in a trust minimized way." While acknowledging that "we'll have a balance in between" full decentralization and centralized systems like CBDCs, he believes "everything that goes at least one inch closer to decentralization is already a win." His connection to Cosmos began in January 2021, after having researched other protocols like Polkadot and Ethereum. He recognized the fundamental need for interoperability, having seen previous attempts like Icon, Aeon, and Onechain fail. He credits Jack Zampolin, a core Cosmos developer, for reaching out and personally explaining the project, an unprecedented experience compared to other large blockchain figures. Since then, he has become "getting more and more addicted to it." He views Cosmos as uniquely positioned to "establish itself as this ultimate interoperability layer, the kind of like TCPIP standard for the blockchain economy," which "inevitably" he sees as "the next big thing." He actively seeks to understand and share how "this one blockchain? Is it many blockchains?" works through his channel, leveraging interviews with core developers. Regarding the Cosmos ecosystem, he highlights the critical need to incentivize IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) relays, noting that running a relay costs "8K a month" with "no financial returns." He believes solutions must be found, potentially by linking incentives to the Cosmos Hub or impacting Atom tokenomics to ensure "real organic demand." He is a "very big fan of the whole Cosmos ecosystem" and its "exciting projects that are trying to fix real world issues." Looking ahead, he plans to organize offline "CosmoCon" events in Lisbon to raise awareness, recognizing that "you can have the best product, but if people don't know about it, then it's not worth anything." Cryptocito offers practical advice for anyone looking to learn about crypto: "just go on Telegram of the project that you like... send them a message and say, hey, guys, I would love to learn about this and that." He asserts that "most of them are even going to jump on a call with you." Additionally, he recommends finding local meetups, reading white papers ("most people haven't even read the Bitcoin white paper"), and critically, to "judge projects without using them." He encourages everyone to "use the products, dive deep into it, read the papers, and you'll understand if it's really a scam or if it's actually a solid, cool thing." He sees his own videos as merely complementary, advocating for direct engagement and personal research as the most effective paths to understanding.