Yao Qian: The Architect

This cartoon was commissioned by Coindesk for their year-end Most Influential People in Crypto 2017 feature. Check out their writeup on Yao Qian here.

Neo’s conversation with The Architect in Matrix: Revolutions is one of my favorite examples of a scene that becomes less substantial the longer you think about it. I’ve probably seen it at least a dozen times at this point and I’d still be hard-pressed to explain why it’s even in the movie.

That has nothing to do with my thoughts on Yao Qian or his influence on the blockchain initiatives in China, but I always jump at a chance to rant about Matrix: Revolutions.

The most memorable part of the original Architect conversation was the seemingly infinite number of screens surrounding him, each of them portraying a different immediate future for our hero. In our version, each screen shows early versions of the various characters from a new webcomic I’m developing for 2018 called CryptoStars (Check out the teaser image here). Hey, I had to fill the space with something.