I've been doing my best to stick to a schedule, but I've still been slacking a bit. I was lying the last post I wrote, I was writing it while I was in Hong Kong but I hadn't updated people on Beijing. Needless to say, I'm delayed writing about my experiences by at least 2 weeks at this point. So let me do my best to not slip behind by 3 weeks here.

Ever since leaving Beijing at the end of June, the team has been living in Hong Kong the majority of time; briefly broken up by a quick trip to Singapore. In Hong Kong we have office space that we've paid for, but the main reason we're here is working on closing funding with investors. My first experience in Hong Kong was the humidity stepping out of the airport the first time. My second experience was staying in a seedy little hotel room in Kowloon. It was windowless with thin walls, and decent floor space considering it's Hong Kong.

The trip to Singapore wasn't done on a whim, nor because the team wanted to take a quick vacation. Saito is trying to find a long term HQ. Heading to Singapore gave us a chance to explore the viability of the city, specifically to discern the atmosphere around blockchain/crypto projects.

Now, Hong Kong isn't really a contender for a HQ due to how ridiculously expensive it is (not that Singapore is that much better). Both cities share a colonial history and some similar city-state government structure, though Hong Kong's autonomy is weaker. The general view comparing both is that Hong Kong is often believed to be more lively and dynamic, but as well less friendly and grittier. Singapore on the other hand is seen as being more sanitized and a little less exciting, but overall more spacious and generally a more pleasant environment.

The general view comparing both is that Hong Kong is often believed to be more lively and dynamic, but as well less friendly and more gritty. Singapore on the other hand is seen as being more sanitized and a little less exciting, but overall more spacious and generally a more pleasant environment.

Overall, I have to say that I probably enjoy being in Singapore a bit more than I do Hong Kong. To me, Singapore feels less claustrophobic while still retaining a stellar public transportation and food culture. It doesn't contain the same grit and dynamism that Hong Kong has, and while still expensive, the cost of living overall in Singapore is cheaper with access to better living conditions for less. Both countries are tropical areas with Hong Kong technically being larger than Singapore. This often is cancelled out by the fact that Singapore's layout is far better distributed than Hong Kong is, with the latter having specific pockets of high density areas and other areas completely taken up by the massive hills on the island.

Until the team makes a decision, I'll be living in Hong Kong for the next couple of weeks, plugging away at the project that keeps on giving. For those who are new, or those who emphasize the travel part of this blog over the tech side, Saito is a blockchain network that is looking to address the problems of blockchain scalability through changes in economics rather than technology. My little blurb about the project may change every blog post, but overall I think that I'm doing a decent job condensing the whitepaper into different sentences every couple of weeks. Saito progresses steadily as the team is rolling out TN2 (pre-alpha testnet) and starting to detect bugs while we're scaling.

With the testnet coming up on the horizon, we have people excited to get their hands on Saito tokens with the hopes of becoming filthy rich through gains like we had in Q4 2017. Some people, who probably care more about me than the project, have mentioned that they want to purchase some Saito "just for jokes", or "as something fun". That's all fine and dandy, but I would strongly recommend you to take this project as seriously as I have. Serious enough that I'd move away from my friends and family for months at a time. Saito's intention is and has been to change the world, and you're going to want get on the train before it leaves the station.