The first film and television NFT project "The Future is Now Film" is famous for telling the major events of the blockchain in the past five years.

The project recently released two new episodes that focus on Web3 and emerging technologies and highlight their potential to drive the global economy.

Miguel Francis-Santiago, founder and CEO of "The Future is Now DAO" and follow-up author of the series, has over 20 years of experience in media and film production.

In this interview, he reveals what the Web3 industry has in store for Africa and why the African region remains the undisputed leader in global crypto currency mass adoption.

It also shows how the crypto industry has changed in the recent bull market and the subsequent bear market.

The latest issue of The Future is Now introduces us to the African blockchain world, as well as the current development trends and challenges encountered in Africa, and also mentions opinion leaders and successful entrepreneurs in the blockchain market.

Q1: Why did you turn your perspective to the African market? Why do you find it fascinating and worthy of attention?

Miguel Francis-Santiago: To be honest, the idea was inspired by my good friend Eman Pulis and his blockchain event brand AIBC in March 2022 in Dubai.

From Akon to Congo's Queen Diambi, as well as many companies with operations in Africa such as Sierra Leone's 3air (Blockchain Internet) and Ethiopia's Revoland (learn-to-earn GameFi) participated in the event.

For me it's an African event like never before and Dubai is the perfect meeting place in the Middle East and North Africa.

We are standing in the midst of a shift in the world order. The continent has been torn apart by this order for years, systematically deprived of everything from resources to education and technology.

Queen Diambi shares a great example in the latest episode of our film series, Saving the Future, that prior to colonization, Africa was one of the more advanced civilizations, albeit ruled in a very fragmented way, which is similar to Many people think otherwise.

Now Africa has all the talent and people necessary to bring Web3 and blockchain further to the masses.

Did you know it is the country with the highest BTC usage? Because Africa embraced BTC out of necessity and sufficiency, unlike in the Western world where everyone has a debit card and a form of transaction for goods and services.

Q2: What did you see through the cinematic lens? Will Web3 boost the economies of these countries?

Miguel Francis-Santiago: I think Web3 is just another layer of the real world with a new blockchain-based internet of money with intrinsic, immutable properties.

According to the policy of the World Economic Forum, COVID-19 has facilitated the digitization of the world in a more centralized way than ever before, essentially reducing the carbon footprint and bringing the masses further into the digital world.

Yet Web3 is easily manipulated by companies that are loyal to these global megatrends, such as Meta or Google.

We all know the pros and cons of a centralized platform that basically has algorithms that limit your freedom of speech, track your every move, and feed you AI-based information and possibly even manipulate your public opinion.

If you add a CBDC and a social credit rating penalty system to a Web3 social media platform like Facebook or Twitter, I believe the move will go awry very quickly.

In other words, the truly decentralized Web3 and the truly decentralized Crypto currency do not belong to some centralized companies.

They should be the real answer to unemployment, poverty, and other problems related to Web2 and the old world order, as we see today that dollar inflation and global geopolitical issues are actually inflated bubble-filled Ponzi schemes.

Q3: What is the adoption level of Crypto currencies in Africa? Is it really that common to own Crypto currencies out there?

Miguel Francis-Santiago: Yes, as I mentioned before, why Africa and especially Nigeria have the highest usage of Crypto currencies is simply because it is necessary.

People there used to trade cell phone airtime as a monetary medium, it was worth more than actual fiat currency! Because within minutes of a transaction you can be talking to someone or browsing the Internet.

So local people are basically already using utilities for digital value exchange, like many of the Cryptocurrency projects I've come across at AIBC.

For example, 3air pioneered the blockchain Internet through microwave technology in Sierra Leone, and mesh-network providers can also produce 3air tokens.

They can then use it as a convertible currency, or to trade with other community members in the city. Sierra Leone is just the company's first pilot city.

Another great example is L2E, a GameFi business model where learners get paid in Crypto by learning how to use GameFi tasks, such as Jimmy Zhao and Revoland, who are currently pioneers in Nigeria and are also featured in our film innovators.

Q4: In one of your past interviews, you mentioned that you wanted to stay out of politics. But don't you think that blockchain and decentralization are largely a more rational distribution of power in any area of ​​politics, running a country, and financial systems?

Miguel Francis-Santiago: Of course, in most of my films, I think my concept of a worldview free from this authoritative control is always there.

As a Russian-American, I grew up between these two superpowers, both of which were hostile to each other. However, hegemony is much more than that.

As Nick Spanos mentioned in our latest AIBC summit, "Saving The Future," if you know how the dollar's printing press and token economics work, it will be "you'll never buy rubbish money”

I think our industry is very aware of this, which has also prompted the industry pioneers to change in a good direction.

AIBC founder Eman Pulis looks at Crypto through the Japanese concept of Ikigai, which means - do you like what you do? Are you good at it? Is it good for the world? By doing this, are you able to live the life you want?

Eman founded a venture capital fund called Ikigai Ventures to find these values ​​in teams and startups and help them get where they want to be, which I think is how we start to create a more equitable and inclusive world method.

ACTAFinance has teamed up with Christof Waton, who appeared in the movie, to bring DeFi services that combine into an ecosystem that essentially transcends the limits set for the world by USD token economics.

With the support of the Philippine government, Jin Gonzalez has built an entire eco-district to provide tax-free, portable citizenship to innovators in emerging technology fields.

These are the solutions I would say because they actually help us out of a world order that is proving to be failing. A new world can only be built on the ashes of an old world, which consumes itself and collapses upon itself.

You entered the blockchain world in 2017, when the Crypto market was showing extremely strong growth. Then witnessed the cold winter of Crypto currencies, a new bull market cycle, and now ushered in a new round of recession.

Q5: In the past five years, how has your attitude towards this topic changed?

Miguel Francis-Santiago: I think my understanding of BTC is relatively mature.

BTC’s first massive boom in 2017, which made national headlines, was followed by a notable crash, which then slumped for several years, dropping as low as $3,800 in 2020.

I think this is actually a reset of the Crypto world, but it will create the illusion that it is in decline.

Lots of people left, some good actors in this Crypto drama, but mostly bad actors who need to be kicked out anyway.

In short, Crypto currencies bring themselves down to a price point so that more people join.

What we see today is a more mature response to global trends, plagues, conquests, wars, and poverty ravaging the world, yet BTC has remained around $20,000 during this time.

Of course, bear markets always weed out companies that needed to hedge or didn't deliver on their promises, and that's certainly a good thing.

But given the world events I described above, the maturity of the Crypto market and how it reacts to stock market crashes and bubble bursts like LUNA, the current reaction can only be described as doing what it takes to make Crypto as reliable as possible.

People are working, building and developing it.

As my good friend Brock Pierce likes to say, bull markets produce fallacy and bear markets produce fruit.

Q6: How would you describe The Future is Now Film in a few words?

Miguel Francis-Santiago: Our audience has grown quite a bit over the last 5 years, and as you know our series "The Community for the Community" aims to bring together film, storytelling, public relations and TFIN DAO Consulting division to scale blockchain.

Our main goal now is to create a community of innovators, capital, and tools that expand the future for everyone that is now part of the DAO.

AIBC 2022 Summit Saving The Future and WOW 2022 Summit World of Web3 were both filmed in Dubai, but the content, information and verticals are completely different.

AIBC is about Africa, Middle East and banking the unbanked (providing banking services for the unbanked), while WOW is about Web3, almost the whole film is about the metaverse and the expectations of the Dubai government to actively make it a metaverse.

In the past 5 years, we have interviewed thought leaders from all over the world, such as Akon, John McAfee, Larry King, Justin Sun, Tim Draper, Brock Pierce, Queen Diambi, etc.

I would invite these disruptive technologies to join us through the Web3 world. And I hope that people can gain an in-depth understanding of the world of blockchain through our website, and realize that the transformation of BTC has happened all over the world.