AI translated#Podcast

Alex Petrov: Meditation is better than psychedelics

05.07.2025 ForkLog

Interest in biotechnology and biohacking is a logical next step for cryptocurrency business owners. Hyperfusion CIO Alex Petrov spoke to ForkLog about promising avenues in these fields, as well as climbing Everest, microdosing, ayahuasca and the military uses of biotech.

ForkLog (FL): Alex, hello. Why is the crypto community turning to biotech, and why did you take an interest in it personally?

Alex Petrov (A.P.): I became interested in biotech, development practices and yoga because they are the necessary foundation for a fairly active lifestyle. When you run a business, you focus more on how you eat and how you structure your routine.

I think for the crypto community this is a perfectly normal evolution, because those who started with small projects now run fairly large companies. Brian Armstrong, for example, has significantly changed his lifestyle as Coinbase has grown.

You cannot separate mind from body: if the body feels bad, the head will not work well.

FL: What do you think of using the DAO model to fund research?

A.P.: On the one hand, this format makes it possible to raise money and carry out research that few would otherwise take on.

For pharmaceutical companies, vitamins alone can bring in several times more, and more easily, without doing research for 20–30 years. People want simple things: to organise their lives better, get sick less, solve day-to-day problems. In this case, a DAO, as a distributed community, can help pool money for such research and incentivise it.

The challenges for DAOs, as I see them, are that many studies can take decades, and people are impatient by nature. Many do not become investors precisely because they do not think long term. For most people, the planning horizon is five years at most.

Serious research takes decades and is painstaking day-to-day work. Most DAOs are quite young, and investors are impatient: they want quick results and soon lose interest.

FL: Are crypto projects in biohacking viable — like STEPN, which monetised walking, or Rejuve.ai, which pays users to research their health?

A.P.: I consider STEPN pretty decent because it has a connective idea, a certain logic — unlike many ICOs, hype projects or memes where, essentially, there is nothing beyond a picture. In principle, many fitness trackers try to create a similar community, where people run and post their results. In such an environment you can ask questions, improve your technique and expand your domain knowledge.

I have not studied the second project in detail, but I can say that collecting large health datasets will help us understand better what is happening with our bodies. Without statistical data it is very hard to take the next step and understand how certain mechanisms work — including protein research.

FL: Is it possible to implement decentralised collection of large volumes of data, or is dependence on big pharmaceutical companies insurmountable?

A.P.: This is precisely where a DAO can help, because for large pharmaceutical companies this is not an end in itself. They can collect data as needed by running studies on focus groups.

But to move science forward we need very large volumes of granular data on bodily indicators throughout the entire life cycle. At the same time, we cannot collect these data just like that; Apple or Fitbit, for example, cannot collect them.

Moreover, collecting data from running trackers is quite a bad and dangerous thing. There is a case when the location of a highly secret military base was leaked through Fitbit.

Watches and devices we wear that collect all the information, in essence, intrude deeply into our lives. A DAO or blockchain will allow data to be anonymised automatically at the point of collection, or execute smart contracts that will pull only the necessary data and place them into a specific database — for example, on blood pressure or blood indicators. As a result we can obtain a database that enables a great deal of statistical research.

FL: Recently, the British startup Portal Biotech raised $35 million to develop portable AI sensors for pathogen detection. Do such developments have potential?

A.P.: Based on the documentation I reviewed, they are more interested in a full-size single-molecule protein sequencer. These are high-precision studies that can greatly expand our ability to influence these proteins, including making changes at the cellular level — essentially reprogramming cells without intervening in DNA.

Such research is not unique, but there have not been many breakthroughs over the past 10–15 years. Portal Biotech’s technology could potentially have several applications. We will be able to treat genetic diseases, make people stronger and healthier; military use is not excluded — creating universal soldiers whose reaction, speed and endurance are tens of times higher.

FL: Where do you draw the line between safe bioneurohacking and dangerous practices?

A.P.: If you do not understand how it works and do not follow basic principles, it is naturally very risky. I am very sceptical when people start running their own experiments.

When people just gather — and I have often seen this at crypto parties — and suggest trying some substances under the pretext of biohacking, it is very dangerous and must not be done.

First, these are not medical professionals; second, you have not examined the person, do not know their diseases, deviations or nuances — it is unknown how this will affect them. If something goes wrong, there are no doctors nearby.

Even performing pranayama breathing practices incorrectly can irreversibly damage your brain or other organs, and there is no way to restore that with any procedures; it directly degrades a person’s quality of life and cognitive abilities.

FL: Is the month-long acclimatisation climbers undergo during the Everest ascent sufficient, or are there long-term risks?

A.P.: There is less oxygen on Everest, and the proportion of gases changes during the ascent. For example, in bodybuilders with heavily overdeveloped muscle mass, a lack of oxygen means some organs and body parts begin to starve severely, proteins break down and tissue necrosis starts.

As a rule, people prepare to climb Everest for one to three years. There should not be excess mass. It is desirable to have good muscle tissue and a good circulatory system — daily physical exercise and running help with that.

If you are unlucky and statistically belong to a group that loses consciousness even at 19.5% oxygen content, then Everest is probably not for you.

FL: In Silicon Valley, many practise microdosing. Is it an effective tool to hack your brain?

A.P.: There are statistics from medical research, including on LSD, which was very popular in the 1960s–70s, showing that it strongly activates neurons and greatly increases the brain’s creativity, but it also has very strong side effects. And if a person has unresolved psychological illnesses or disorders, there is a risk that after such practices they will emerge.

Therefore, before you start microdosing or more serious practices like ayahuasca, start with simple basics — try meditating.

Meditation will help you address these problems much faster. You can stimulate neurons and biological functions without microdosing by changing your eating habits, daily routine, and mental and psychological health.

For more, watch the full episode of “Podcast Society”.