Recorded on Feb 27, 2026
Watch the Video Version of this Interview Below
EP 009 Summary
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On X: https://x.com/djohnstonec
David Johnston on Substack
Current Projects:
Morpheus AI https://www.mor.org
Everclaw https://www.everclaw.xyz
Website:
Chris J Snook welcomed David Johnston, a polymath and chief open-source maintainer at Morpheus AI, to discuss the intersection of Web3, AI, and blockchain for wealth advisory and high-net-worth families, detailing David Johnston’s entrepreneurial history from founding Bit Angels to authoring the “smart agents paper.” Key talking points included David Johnston’s emphasis on the necessity for individuals to own their AI, using Web3 wallets to maintain control and act as a fiduciary, and practical steps for adoption, such as using dedicated hardware and open-source models like Everclaw to mitigate high costs and the risks of renting centralized intelligence. David Johnston also highlighted Bitcoin’s role as digital gold for AI agents and the regulatory optimism accelerating innovation, urging the audience to adopt AI quickly due to the rapid, exponential growth in intelligence.
Details
Welcome and Introduction: Chris J Snook welcomed David Johnston, a polymath and the chief open-source maintainer at Morpheus AI, to the show. Chris J Snook highlighted David Johnston as an ideal mind for discussing Web3, AI, and blockchain, especially for those in wealth advisory roles or high-net-worth families seeking to understand these emerging technologies (00:00:00). They recounted their serendipitous meeting in Napa Valley at a curated event hosted by Linux and the Advanced AI Society, where they reconnected after approximately eight years (00:01:07).
David Johnston’s Early Entrepreneurial Path: David Johnston’s entrepreneurial path was influenced by family members, leading them to pursue building tech companies instead of a traditional college education and middle management. At 19, David Johnston successfully raised about $6 million to start an energy company, which allowed them to leave college after only one semester, fulfilling an agreement they made with their parents (00:01:51). David Johnston’s background included dabbling in the internet, energy, economics, and finance, which provided a foundation for their future work (00:02:45).
Discovery of Bitcoin and the Launch of Bit Angels: David Johnston encountered Bitcoin in 2012, viewing it as a currency immune to political inflation and controlled by mathematics, which led them to trade their dollars for it when it was trading for $10. This move provided the capital necessary to transition into investment, leading David Johnston to start Bit Angels, the first angel group in the Bitcoin ecosystem, to fund early protocols (00:02:45). Bit Angels expanded globally, with Michael Turpin taking on the role of executive director, and the group continues to hold events worldwide, having been instrumental in the early deployment of capital around Bitcoin in 2013 (00:03:39).
Pioneering Decentralized Applications (DAPs) and Early VC Involvement: Following the launch of Bit Angels, David Johnston authored a paper describing the concept of Decentralized Applications (DAPs), a concept and language later adopted by Ethereum in their platform paper (00:03:39). David Johnston then co-founded one of the first venture capital firms, the DAPs fund, specifically dedicated to investing in protocol tokens rather than just company equity. This fund participated in early efforts, including supporting Mastercoin, which was described as the first Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in August 2013 (00:04:41).
The Factum Protocol and Multi-Coin Capital Investment: The DAPs fund ran for several years, supporting numerous protocols, including Ethereum’s white paper release in late 2013/early 2014. David Johnston later returned to the engineering side to help build the Factum Protocol in 2015, which was described as the first second layer on Bitcoin/Ethereum, predating the mainstream adoption of second layers by several years. The Factum Protocol demonstrated a path for large enterprises to use the blockchain by connecting data on-chain with timestamps, leading to its global adoption and hosting of billions of records today (00:05:39). David Johnston also became the first Limited Partner (LP) and invested in the General Partner (GP) of Multi-coin Capital in 2017, a fund that became a top-performing venture fund over the subsequent seven or eight years (00:06:33).
Influence of Homeschooling on David Johnston’s Development: Chris J Snook noted David Johnston’s ability to execute bold ideas and raise significant capital at a young age, prompting a discussion on what gave them an early advantage (00:07:38). David Johnston attributed their primary advantage to being homeschooled for the first six years of their life, which fostered a dedication to following their own interests in subjects like history and computers (00:09:17). This environment allowed them to spend time with competent adults, such as their father’s engineering friends at NASA, which they noted is highly beneficial for the intelligence and development of children (00:10:00).
Biodeiesel Company and Economic Insights: David Johnston’s high school experience was spent building tech companies due to boredom in public school, leading them to incorporate their own online publishing company in Delaware (00:10:59). By age 19, David Johnston had conducted thousands of hours of research and concluded that oil prices would rise significantly, seeing an opportunity to produce biodeiesel at a lower cost than conventional diesel (00:11:52). This led to the construction of a 5 million-gallon-a-year biodeiesel facility in Maryland, which was David Johnston’s ticket to dropping out of college (00:12:46). Their extensive study of economists like Hayek, Mises, and Rothbard provided a foundation for being receptive to Bitcoin as an alternative to the Federal Reserve system in 2011/2012 (00:13:37).
The Second Life Analogy and Uncensorable Currency: David Johnston noted that the timing of their interest in economics coincided with the ultimate proof point of the current system’s failings during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) (00:14:33). David Johnston discussed their experience building a company within the virtual world Second Life in 2005/2006, which collapsed overnight in 2007 when regulators mandated the shutdown of all financial activities due to licensing requirements (00:16:08). When David Johnston encountered Bitcoin in 2012, they immediately viewed it as an “uncensorable Lynden dollar,” an unstoppable asset without an issuer or central company that could be shut down by regulators (00:17:21).
Friction and Innovation in Bitcoin’s Early Days: David Johnston explained that early Bitcoin developers were hostile to the idea of building applications (DAPs) on the network, viewing such uses as potential attack vectors or spam (00:19:23). This friction led Vitalik Buterin to offer a paper proposing scripts on Bitcoin to expand its functionality for smart contracts, an idea the core developers rejected. This environment of pent-up demand for smart contracts led to the creation of Ethereum, which was initially discussed in a small Skype group. David Johnston concluded that this specialization worked out for the best, with Ethereum becoming the leader in smart contracts and Bitcoin serving as digital gold (00:23:07) (00:24:55).
The Convergence of AI and Crypto and the User Experience Problem: David Johnston expressed excitement about the current moment of convergence between AI and crypto, noting they had been waiting for AI to become good enough to solve crypto’s biggest problem: the user experience. They posited that AI, as the “last user interface,” can abstract away the technical complexity of smart contracts, allowing billions of people to use crypto without even realizing it (00:32:27). AI agents, which cannot easily obtain bank accounts or credit cards, can use crypto such as USDC for fast, instant, and programmable spending, making crypto mainstream (00:33:27).
The Smart Agents Paper and Ownership of AI: Chris J Snook and David Johnston agreed that convergence of AI on Web2 infrastructure presents significant risks, potentially weaponizing ad spend and forcing users to “lease back their cognition” from centralized platforms (00:35:11) (00:41:17). To address this, David Johnston wrote the “smart agents paper” in early 2023, emphasizing that individuals must own their AI, which requires a Web3 wallet and holding the private key. David Johnston stressed that centralized AI models work for the platform owners (e.g., Google, OpenAI) and not for the user; the solution is an AI that acts as a fiduciary to the individual, achieved through smart contracts and Web3 tools (00:37:12).
Practical Steps for AI Adoption and Risk Mitigation: David Johnston recommended practical steps for high-net-worth individuals and family offices interested in AI, which included spending approximately $600 to purchase a Mac Mini to run an agent on dedicated hardware (00:46:06). This dedicated setup should treat the AI like an employee, giving it its own email and GitHub accounts with separate credentials, rather than providing it with root access to the user’s primary laptop (00:46:55). They advised that users must be specific about the desired outcomes, as agents can be overly creative in their accomplishment of tasks (00:47:44).
Open-Source Models vs. Closed-Source Alternatives: David Johnston noted that people are setting up agencies to help high-net-worth individuals adopt agents like OpenClaw, which gained significant attention around January 27th (00:42:18) (00:48:33). David Johnston revealed that their family office was spending up to $250 a day on Claude credits due to its powerful and addictive nature. To cut costs, David Johnston recommended rolling out a version called Everclaw that integrates Morpheus, allowing the use of open-source models, which cut their bill by 90% (00:49:58). They explained that open-source models like Meta’s Llama series, image models, and coding models like GLM5 are quickly reaching parity with closed-source models like Claude 4.5 (00:52:38).
Metrics for AI Performance and Starting Strategy: David Johnston explained that a good metric for AI model performance is the ability to complete long tasks measured in human time, citing that Claude 4.6 can complete 11 to 12-hour tasks with a 50% success rate, or one to two-hour tasks with a 90% success rate, in minutes (00:53:44). David Johnston advised new users to start with an open-source model that they can own, as people tend to continue using the platforms they start with. They emphasized that if users start with a credit card subscription to a proprietary service, the pain and difficulty of switching and recovering data later on will be significantly higher (00:57:20).
Owning Intelligence vs. Renting Intelligence: The discussion centered on the importance of owning one’s AI agents and personal data stack rather than renting services from cloud providers, especially for high-net-worth families and family offices. Chris J Snook advised treating an AI agent like an employee or even a “half-drunk intern,” emphasizing that one would not hand over critical personal architecture, entity structures, or trust codes to an unchecked new hire (00:59:15). David Johnston stressed that renting intelligence means handing over core competency to a third party whose interests are not aligned with the user, potentially allowing them to model and use one’s intellectual property, trade secrets, relationships, and network for their own purposes (01:00:05).
The Value of Network and Capital Control: The network, relationships, and context of high-net-worth individuals are their most valuable assets, and giving this information away compromises their core competency (01:00:53). David Johnston believes the difference between people who own their intelligence and those who rent it will be literally 100x, as ownership provides the infinite ability to leverage one’s network, knowledge, and capital. Chris J Snook noted that many high-net-worth families conceptually struggle with the idea of owning their intelligence, similar to initial resistance to understanding Bitcoin’s value proposition (01:01:53).
The Manipulation Risk of Renting AI: David Johnston warned that if a person rents their intelligence, they are not getting pure intelligence but rather information that someone has paid for them to hear or see. Agents acting as a firewall are necessary to protect users from the manipulation and advertising attempts of other high-IQ agents, citing a personal experience where an advertisement manipulated their behavior on Google Maps (01:03:29). Chris J Snook highlighted the rapid advancement of AI, which is doubling output complexity and reducing time quickly, making it difficult for humans to keep up and increasing the risk of sophisticated scams that mimic friends or family members (01:04:44).
The Inevitability of AI Adoption and Control: The speakers concluded there is no opting out of the AI revolution due to the exponential growth in computational capacity and intelligence. Chris J Snook emphasized that families, who are accustomed to control and ownership, must make the difficult mental shift to recognize they can only create certainty by owning their agents and integrating them into their personal architecture, thereby having control over the agents and family members they care about (01:06:29). David Johnston used an example with their ten-year-old daughter to illustrate that AI effort will reach 2,000 hours of work per 15 minutes by the end of the year, underscoring the rapid, unavoidable nature of the change (01:07:33).
Redefining Humanity and the Barbell World: The positive side of this technological shift is the opportunity to redefine what it means to be human (01:07:33). Chris J Snook proposed a “barbell world” where a person either leases or owns full automation at scale, allowing them to be totally unplugged and fully engaged in their humanity, experiencing in-person life without constant concern for the technological “overlord” because they have contained it (01:08:43). The premium for in-person events will significantly increase as online content becomes flooded and potentially worthless due to AI, making relationships and in-person experiences paramount (01:09:33).
Scarcity of Trust and Attention: Chris J Snook used the collapse of Borders Bookstore due to Amazon’s “endless aisle” to illustrate how economics shifted the burden of discoverability onto others, noting that modern publishers often avoid betting on new authors due to financial risk (01:09:33). In the current AI-driven world, the noise level is too high for humans to keep up, making discoverability, trust, and human agency the premium resources. Since there are only 8 billion humans, people become an “organic scarcity” whose attention and trust are harder and more expensive to earn than ever before (01:11:24).
AI’s Potential to Create Jobs: David Johnston presented an optimistic view that AI will likely create more jobs than there are people on Earth, with 100 billion agents trying to engage with eight billion people in an open market. They suggested that if humans correctly structure this environment by owning and keying into their AI, which looks out for their best interests, the outcome will be an amazing abundance (01:12:29). Chris J Snook agreed that the future of investment will be in tools that make it easier to discover, trust, and verify information, helping humans understand their place in the new world (01:11:24).
Bitcoin as Digital Gold for Agents: The conversation shifted to Bitcoin, which David Johnston views as a proven replacement for gold that serves as a long-term store of value. David Johnston noted that agents have already begun to transact with each other using Bitcoin and that its AI-native qualities make it easier to manage than physical gold (01:13:32) (01:15:08). Agents will likely find an efficient path to stability by utilizing Bitcoin’s proof-of-work infrastructure, and they could also make Bitcoin node maintenance trivial, leading to a renaissance in the number of operational Bitcoin nodes (01:16:13).
Intent-Based Agents and Network Effects: The speakers discussed the importance of “intent-based” agents, which are controlled by their human owners with specific goals, as opposed to fully autonomous agents, which are compared to a virus. David Johnston emphasized that agents will reflect the intent of their owners, and the owner is in control of the agent’s “birth” and value set (01:17:28). They also pointed out that agents will not magically rebuild the established infrastructure of Ethereum and its layer twos, such as Base, which already hosts most AI projects, wallets, tools, and has the necessary liquidity and network effects (01:18:57).
Regulatory Optimism and Innovation Acceleration: David Johnston expressed optimism about the regulatory environment, noting that initial AI “doomer” talk and lobbying efforts to restrict open-source AI were largely pushed back (01:24:08). The U.S. government subsequently wiped away restrictions on November 24th, leading to an uncensored and permissionless AI environment that accelerated innovation (01:25:00). Chris J Snook likened the rapid pace of change to the earlier days of crypto, stating that a day in AI now feels like a year (01:25:59).
The Importance of Proximity to Intelligence Explosion: David Johnston emphasized that a person’s “proximity to the intelligence explosion is everything,” and the month they onboarded with AI tools will significantly matter, similar to how the year one got into crypto mattered a decade ago (01:27:50). Chris J Snook urged people to get involved now because they have literally hit the “28th day in intelligence,” referencing the exponential growth of a penny doubled daily, and that a year from now, the world will be largely unrecognizable (01:28:26).
Advice for Parents in the Age of AI: When discussing advice for parents, David Johnston suggested that parents need to go up the learning curve themselves and then extend that knowledge to those close to them, including their children and parents (01:30:16). They noted that the era of the “solopreneur has arrived,” citing the creator of OpenClaw, who went from nothing to a $10 billion exit in 90 days, demonstrating that if a person can articulate what they want to accomplish, they can build whatever they can imagine using these tools. Chris J Snook agreed, highlighting the importance of teaching children to think for themselves, advocate for their unique sense of self, and apply their individual perspective to the world using this new level of intelligence (01:31:17).
Contact Information for David Johnston: David Johnston provided their contact information, noting that they post on X under the handle DJ Johnston EC. David Johnston is highly approachable, an open book, and publishes a lot of articles and speaks at conferences, building everything in public due to their focus on open source development (01:33:00). They also provided URLs for Morpheus, app.morpheus.org, and Everclaw.xyz, mentioning their goal is to translate engineering developments to capital folks and investors (01:33:58)
