Neoshaman (by Russian language): a New Age ceremony leader, typically Western and urban-dwelling, who appropriates the ancient shamanistic practices and psychedelic substances of indigenous communities, popularizing their use for financial gain via cultic rituals and a guru-like persona. In 2012, Chris Young was 38 years old and down on his luck, living out of a hostel in Miami, Florida. Born and raised in nearby Louisiana, Young had recently given up his nightclub career as the party-starting ‘DJ NV,’ and the side hustles that saw him organize strippers for big events and earn a conviction for pimping somewhere along the way. Young would later say in court that he’d grown tired of a lifestyle that, he appeared to admit, was filled with drugs and promiscuity. Around that time, Young—a tempestuous man with a brown goatee and an egg-shaped head—met his future wife Verena, a wealthy German naturopath with blonde hair and a penetrating gaze. Things moved quickly between Young and Verena. Within a few months, he’d got a passport for the…
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The Solana Policy Institute aims to reform DeFi’s shadowy reputation and ensure the space remains forefront in the minds of policymakers. When Solana debuted in 2020, it set out to dominate decentralized finance. Now, five years and more than eight billion transactions later, supporters of the so-called Ethereum killer have assumed a far more ambitious undertaking: conquering the halls of Congress. However, advocating for Solana on Capitol Hill—where DeFi still suffers from its association with money launderers and hackers, despite a growing embrace of crypto—won’t be easy. Founded in March, the policy arm of the second-largest layer-1 network by total-value locked aims to represent the many pseudonymous coders and founders building on Solana and other blockchains within the sprawling DeFi sector. DeFi is a catchall term that represents a wide array of crypto-driven, autonomous financial services that do not require centralized intermediaries like banks. The nonprofit will be helmed by President Kristin Smith—the outgoing Blockchain Association CEO—and CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine, the one-time DeFi Education Fund Director. They’re two star lobbyists…