On July 14th, the first “Global Web3 Eco Innovation Summit – Singapore” (GWEI 2022 – Global Web3 Eco Innovation Summit -Singapore) was held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center in Singapore. Co-hosted by Fintech Node (SUSS NiFT) and Babbitt’s new overseas brand “The Way of DeFi”.
This summit is sponsored by OKX, the world’s leading Web3 ecological builder.
In the afternoon roundtable on Web3 Infrastructure: Now and the Future, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik, DFINITY Foundation CTO Jan Camenisch, Consensys Strategic Sales Director Marouen Zelleg, Avalanche Asia Head Wilson Wu, and Photon Storage CEO Zuriel had a great conversation, and Blockcast founding member Anndy Lian hosted the roundtable.
The following is the content of the roundtable organized by the way of DeFi (with some deletions):
Question 1: What do you think about the data part in Web3? And how to generate more value from data on the blockchain?
Alex Svanevik: I think the unique feature of the entire blockchain industry is transparency. If you compare it to traditional finance, or if you compare it to Web 2.0 or Web 1.0, you have a lot of information. With the blockchain, you have a lot of transparency.
So when something catastrophic happens, this transparency is great; an example that comes to my mind recently is the de-anchoring of the luna UST; we want to understand what is going on there, and who are the main parties? There are a lot of conspiracy theories about which entities were involved in this incident because you have this transparency. You have data from the blockchain that we can investigate in a short amount of time. If you compare it to Lehman Brothers during the last financial crisis, imagine how many doors you had to knock on to get the insight you needed to know what was actually going on.
And blockchain is also helpful for more positive purposes like understanding what people are actually buying and selling on the blockchain. If you want to trade NFTs, you might want to understand what are the biggest influencers of purchases? If someone has a good track record of investing in NFTs, maybe you want to keep track of the next series of NFTs they are minting or trading. The same thing happens with DeFi. If you want to know who were the first pioneers to use DeFi protocols, so here are a few different ways I think blockchain data transparency can help investors.
Question 2: Marouen, do you think wallets will be the core traffic portal of Web3? Are you laying out any other Web3 infrastructure besides MetaMask?
Marouen Zelleg: The mission of Consensus is essentially to build the decentralized Internet that we are all pursuing. We have two main directions. The first is users who really pay attention to this Internet, and the second is the developers and builders of this Internet. . So MetaMask obviously plays a big role on the user side. The main idea and the driving force behind it is to really create a safe zone where users can interact with Web3. This could mean that you can easily and efficiently trade your assets but also create some kind of safe space to avoid scams and malicious interactions on this decentralized network.
On the other side of building this internet, Consensus is actually more focused on infrastructure and tools for developers, so we have a platform called Truffle Suite that allows people to roll out their smart contracts really fast. The other part is security and due diligence done on smart contracts. Finally, because of the nature of Web3 and its interactive requirements for the blockchain, we are really very focused on providing the infrastructure business, so one of the products is called Infura, which is essentially an API that allows developers to A reliable way to interact with the blockchain.
So, we look at the industry as a flywheel, we want to enable people to build good applications, and then users can interact with it with the right tools. And obviously, MetaMask is a big portal, so we’re going from users and Looking at the problem from a developer’s point of view and trying to simplify the flywheel.
Question 3: The public chain is the foundation of Web3, it has been developed for many years, and the public chain is a very competitive market, then, Jan Camenisch, Zuriel, Zuriel and Wilson, can you share with us how you position yourself in Web3 your public chain?
Jan Camenisch: Yeah, I think we all seem to be embracing Web3, which means the user owns the application, and that means the blockchain is the best platform because the application can be tokenized, and then the user can Governance with these tokens. I think it’s also important that you can go further because the entire application itself is actually running on the blockchain, which is what we’re looking at with internet computers, making sure the application is unstoppable; the blockchain actually Web services can be provided directly to users, so with your phone, with your browser, you can connect an Internet computer to the blockchain without an intermediary.
But the blockchain has to be efficient and scalable; for example when it scales to the level of Facebook, the entire blockchain needs to scale. Another thing that I think is very important is that when users interact with applications hosted on the blockchain, the threshold needs to be lowered, and users should not need to buy tokens before interacting with these applications.
At ICP, we do this with what’s called a “reverse gas model”, where the app has to pay for it and can raise money from users.
Wilson: Since Avalanche launched mainnet in 2020, we have made significant progress in infrastructure, product building, and community building. I always try to tell people that if you look at a new ecosystem, it’s more like a city, so if you think Bitcoin is like Beijing, Ethereum is like Shanghai, and the new L1 is more like Shenzhen.
In order to build an ecosystem, you need to do two things well, one is you need a lot of good partners, basically good projects that really push the use case of the token, not just the money game, and the second is the user. So in the initial stages, we’ve spent a long time building an organic user base driven by committees. Then on the product side, we have developed our core strengths in the consensus mechanism, and we always describe consensus as the engine of a car or like the chip of a mobile phone. So what we want to do, not just make phones, what we want to do is make chips that you can use to make Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and so on, to create this diversity and real use cases where people are using it. Because its demand comes from users, and we provide such an infrastructure.
And after building the core, we have the C-chain using EVM on it, you can run it on a normal machine and deploy any existing contract. But what about others who want to massively scale? We have subnets that allow them to scale on top of consensus, which can build things for very little cost. You can use EVM, you can use other virtual machines, or you can even build your own virtual machine on top of it machine, so it opens the possibility for the user to enter.
And then, for usability, I think the next phase, we should move in the direction of making it easier for users to use and adopt, such as building an overlay bridge. Zuriel: Alan Turing built his automatic computing engine in 1948, and eight years later, IBM introduced the world’s first hard drive, and the computing part naturally seems to evolve faster than storage because it makes people realize first To its power and storage helps to compute to be applied to more fields. At the end of the day, computing and storage are the two pillars of any Silicon Valley business, and the most profitable products of Google, Facebook, and TikTok are all built on big data and artificial intelligence.
The blockchain industry already has a lot of protocols working at the computational layer like Polygon, Solana, Avalanche and my favorite ICP, they all do it well and people create millions of NFTs on top of them, I recently I understand that some music companies want to put the copyright of music into NFT. If you buy an NFT, you can share a portion of the song’s copyright revenue and a small percentage of the composer’s copyright revenue. One problem that remains is that the revenue for the song still comes from a centralized company. If songwriters can upload their music onto a high-performance storage protocol, it can handle the load of being streamed directly by millions of listeners.
Photon will no longer focus on smart contracts but on providing high-performance data storage services. We are symbiotic with all non-storage blockchains, most of our adopters are Dapps from compute chains, for example, you can create a Web3 YouTube and put all business logic in ICP, but all video streams are Will be processed by Photon. We promote our ecosystem by focusing on innovative projects in other blockchains, and if any of them have a brilliant idea but are having trouble with hot data information structures, we will help.
Question 4: Which one do you think is more promising, a native Web3 project or a Web3 project transformed from a traditional industry? Why?
Alex Svanevik: First of all, I think there are a few different ways of looking at this. Maybe we can make an analogy that in the 90s and early 2000s, newspapers had to decide whether they wanted to participate in the Internet. In hindsight, it became clear that the right thing to do was to go online and create a digital newspaper. But at the time, what some newspaper companies actually did was spin-off separate entities from their main entities, which basically disrupted their own businesses. So traditionally, if you wanted to sell your house, or your car, you would put an ad in the newspaper. So this sentiment is going to pop up online very quickly, and you’ll see classified sites and so on, and I think, in a way, traditional financial firms are facing a similar dilemma today.
In my opinion, I believe blockchain will be the financial structure of the future. If that’s true, then basically, if you’re running a bank, you have to accept that or you’re going to be left far behind because blockchain could be a way to replace legacy technology. However, when it comes to Web 2.0 companies, I think it’s hard to judge. Obviously, there are a lot of very strong companies in Web 2.0 that have evolved in terms of technology, so if you switch to Web3, will the metrics be noticeable? Upgrading, this is not clear. But I do think that the user is the basic premise of the asset owner. Eventually, if you’re doing a game or a social network, users may start demanding that they own these assets themselves.
Jan CamenischZuriel: We see that some Web 2.0 companies may be being replaced by Web3 applications on ICP, and now we have medium and Reddit and LinkedIn dapp alternatives, some of which have been successful in a short period of time. For example, we have DSCVR, which is a clone of Reddit and already has about 90,000 users. On the other hand, if you don’t allow some web 2.0 services to connect, we won’t build Web3 properly because the internet is a common operating system, one thing that can call other things, we need to do the same on Web3, So I think it’s important. But on the other hand, smart contracts also need to be able to call, and if you have a centralized exchange, which is where you rely on price data, then you need to be able to call and get the data, right?
Maybe it shouldn’t be done as it is today, as oracles add another trust assumption, something that needs to be built into the blockchain natively.
Wilson Wu: Let’s talk about the Web3 experience; my first exchange account with Bitfinex, it took me two months for KYC registration, I got an email, and they told me that I passed the verification. I’ve forgotten about that account, and I’ve also experienced centralized wallets being stolen in the past, which required me to learn how to use cold wallets or something like that. Getting into Web3 the wrong way is a very painful process for the average person.
So, I think the opportunity for the next 6-12 months is in Web 2.5, and I’ve been talking to a lot of web companies, large groups, internet companies, and these are the people who are being urged to join Web3, but they’re in an awkward position. Existing Web 2.0 companies, if they want to move to Web3, who will lead the charge? Will they start a new entity? Or an old leader to do it? So I think the opportunity is actually in Web 2.5. Why do you say that? We’ve seen a lot of cases where some companies said, let’s move to Web3, but in reality, they only moved 2.2 or 2.3, they tried to move a little, but users didn’t see much change, so why try? And for the Web3 guys, they’re going to think it’s still a Web 2.0 product, so these are very awkward situations that I think Web 2.0 companies should avoid. So when you really want to do it, you have to do at least 2.5, or 2.6; at least you have a breakout.
Zuriel: I think bitcoin or Ethereum is valuable because there is a strong consensus; another way to express consensus is how many people use or trust it, NFTs have made a great contribution to the industry because it enables musicians, artists, sports and luxury goods and other industries are beginning to adopt it.
If we want Web3 to continue to grow, we need to strengthen consensus. Projects transformed from traditional industries have natural business logic, loyal users, and contribute to Web3 education, they may not create revolutionary products like Uniswap, but they will bring billions of users to Web3 , and the next Uniswap will be built by one of billions of users.
Question 5: Web3 is a grand vision. How long do you think it will take to get to the real Web3 era?
Alex Svanevik: It’s hard to say. It depends on how you define it. Actually, I think Web 2.0 will coexist with Web3. But I believe in 5 years, it will become more common to own your digital assets, for example, in games.
Jan CamenischZuriel: I think this has already happened, we have seen the first batch of dapps, and more and more will happen.
Marouen Zelleg: 4 years, 2 months and 7 days, it depends a lot on what happens in our world in the next few years, it will speed up or slow down, we will see.
Wilson Wu: I would suggest that if you look back at the big Web 2.0 companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and look at their monthly charts over the past 15 years, going back to 2000, you’d see the growth of Web 2.0. So that’s going to give you a clear vision. We’re growing, but I think we’ll probably cut that process in half, so I think it’s another 7-10 years to develop it.
Zuriel: I think it will take 4-5 years when zero-knowledge-proof technology becomes more mature.
Original Source: https://blockcast.cc/news/gwei-2022-the-present-and-future-of-web3-infrastructure/
Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.
Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.
An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.
