The Rise of Longevity Tech: My Visit to Zuzalu

Sunday - May 21 2023, 22:59 UTC - 1 year ago

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Vitalik Buterin started an event in Montenegro called Zuzalu in 2023. The two-month event features various speakers on the promise of longevity technology and a discussion about the potential of a longevity-focused sovereign state. The conference had a mix of entrepreneurs, investors, and people dedicated to healthy longevity all from around the world. Each weekly session has a different theme, ranging from synthetic biology to public goods.

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What if I told you there’s a group of people who think death is morally bad—that we have a moral duty to find ways to slow or reverse aging? Who seek to create a new state with its own laws that expedite the development of longevity drugs, partly by encouraging biohacking and self-experimentation? .

A community of such individuals have been living together in a resort in Montenegro for the past seven weeks. They’ve been sharing ideas, collaborating on projects, running hackathons, and having plenty of parties. They call their gathering Zuzalu. Last week, I went to see it for myself.

Vitalik Buterin started Zuzalu in Montenegro in 2023

Zuzalu is the brainchild of Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the cryptocurrency Ethereum. But the co-organizers of the event stress that it’s a collaborative endeavor. One of the organizers, Janine Leger, who works at the blockchain platform Gitcoin, says the team wants Zuzalu to be a decentralized community, with little to no hierarchy.

I was just a visitor to Zuzalu for a few days. The residents will stay for two months. Each week of the event has a different theme, ranging from synthetic biology to public goods. I arrived in time for the longevity biotech conference.

Janine Leger is one of the co-organizers of Zuzalu and works at the blockchain platform Gitcoin

The conference itself featured talks on the promise of psychedelics, phages, lab-grown sex cells, and the partial reprogramming of cells to a younger state. There was a real mix of people at the event, which attracted people from the crypto and Web3 communities as well as those dedicated to healthy longevity. In one session, the speakers asked the audience how they would describe themselves. A third said they were entrepreneurs, and 19% said they were investors. When people were asked where they were from, Russia was the most popular answer.

The two-month event is divided into weekly sessions dedicated to different themes such as synthetic biology, public goods, and longevity biotech

A couple of sessions were dedicated to discussing what a new, longevity-focused state might look like. Some participants want to create a sovereign state where like-minded individuals would be free to self-experiment with unproven treatments that they believe might help them live longer, healthier lives. Some want to remove regulatory restrictions that they believe hold back the development of longevity treatments and devices. The drug approval process we have at the moment is too slow, they argue.

The speakers at the longevity tech conference discussed the promise of psychedelics, phages, lab-grown sex cells, and the partial reprogramming of cells to a younger state

For me, Zuzalu provided a fascinating glimpse into what feels like another world. Keep an eye out for a longer piece on the event in the coming days.