Migrating to WEB3 (3): What is the Appeal of WEB3?

On 25th May, we are honored to invite 6 great people: Johnson, VP of Initiate Capital; Jake Choi, MD of Casper; JZ, Community&Ecosystem Manager of NFTGo; Cine, Overseas Marketing Manager of XT.com; Martin, Community Lead of Meson Network; Eskil Tsu, Co-Founder of Go+ Security. Thank you for all your sharing, and here is the AMA recap.

Nancy: Welcome everyone to our latest AMA session. I’m Nancy.

Under the trend of the Metaverse, web 3.0 has also become a hot topic. Web 3.0 became a high-frequency word in the recent U.S. House of Representatives hearing on crypto finance. According to Google Trends data, global searches for the term “web3” have surged in past 12 months.

Although Web3.0 is still a prototype, the proposal of this concept has brought a great leap to the blockchain industry, especially the application level. Under the vision of Web 3.0, many solutions and protocols have been born that carry this concept.

Regarding how to define the future development of Web3.0, HyperPay invited Initiate Capital, Casper, NFTGo, XT.COM, Meson, Go+ Security for further answers. Let’s give our warmest welcome to our guests~

1. Thanks for your coming. To begin with, please give a brief self-introduction.

Initiate Capital

Hi everyone. Very glad to be here today. I am Johnson Li from Initiate Capital. We are an investment fund focus on Web 3.0.

Although we are relatively a new fund to Web 3.0 world, but our team has over 10 years’ experience in Web 2.0 mainly focus on digital media & entertainment. For Web 3.0, we have backed projects such as StepN, Mask Network, RSS3, Meson Network, RCT.ai, HelloWeb3, ShowMe, SeeDAO, May.social, etc.

Casper

Hi everyone. Thanks for having me here. I am Jake from Casper. Casper is a layer 1 project which was the first live pos blockchain built off the Casper CBC specification.

NFTGo

Hello, everyone . Thanks for being here .I am JZ from NFTGo. NFTGo.io is an all-in-one NFT data aggregator where users can find information about NFT, including NFT Drops, ranking, whale tracking, NFT search engine, market data, and many more!

XT.COM

Hello everyone. thanks for having me here today, I am honored to be here! My name is Cine and I am in charge of overseas marketing of XT.COM based in Japan nice to meet you all.

Meson

Hello, everyone. Thanks for being here and hope you all doing well. I am Martin from Meson Network.

Meson Network is committed to creating an efficient decentralized bandwidth marketplace on Web3, using a blockchain protocol model to replace the traditional labor-based sales models, consolidating and monetizing idle bandwidth from long-tail users at a low cost. Meson Network is the foundation of data transmission for decentralized storage, computation, and the emerging Web3 Dapp ecosystem.

Go+ Security

Hello everyone, this is Eskil from Go+ security, so happy to be here yo share our views with everyone.

Go+ is working as the “security data layer” for web3, striving to build”everyone’s security tool” by providing open, permissionless, user-driven Security Services. Go+ security engine covers Multi-chain with Multidimensional risk detection for both crypto projects and ordinary users, making a safer Chain Ecosystem.

Currently, Go+ has developed a complete, dynamic, and automated security detecting platform, including token detection, NFT detection, real-time risk warning, dApp contract security, and interaction security, and there are more under planning.

We would love to offer free security data integration to protect both projects and users in the crypto world. We are also seeking similar-minded partners and influencers to cooperate. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in accessing Go+ API or any other cooperation possibilities.

2. What is the infrastructure of Web3? How is the development of the infrastructure?

Meson

1. Web 3 infrastructure provides Lego-like pillars in networking, computing, storage, security, analytics, governance, and transactions that are composable enough to enable applications to be built across multiple use cases, often beyond the possibilities of Web 2.0 world.
2. The superiority of Web 3.0 prototypes feature in decentralization, self-sovereign identity, open, composable backends and this outperform Web 2 applications.
3. Web 3.0-native products Arweave, insisting on decentralized storage space provides permanent storage and is not available in existing Web 2.0 world. While the price of the service offering is significantly higher, it is especially important for specific use cases that are not met by non-permanent storage, such as legal contracts, legacy artifacts, censorship-free publishing, etc. As the world moves towards traceable on-chain visibility, the utility of this service offering will grow.
4. Currently Meson is the default gateway for AR, supporting the retrivaling and storage of a large amount of data based on the AR network every day. With the launch of new products, Meson can not only serve decentralized storage projects but also streaming media and information communication projects in the coming future. for being like a comprehensive information and communication service provider in Web3.

Go+ Security

Hi, thanks for asking and I think Meson has given an excellent summary of the prospect of technology structure:

1. There’s nothing mysterious about the Web3 infrastructure itself, and it’s about networking, storage, computing, security, etc. Like Amazon & Azure provide cloud services and a variety of end-user-facing applications, just like most of the Internet that we use today daily.
2. But the big difference is that it’s a decentralized, self-governing, open architecture. For example, you don’t know who is behind the tens of thousands of ETH nodes, whether a massive mining company is running a server or a cat or a dog. As with all decentralized applications, the infrastructure requires a consensus mechanism, which makes building a decentralized technology facility much more complex than the traditional centralized data infrastructure. But that’s the price of having it, isn’t it?
3. Likewise, Web3 truly offers the possibility of a set of digital assets that the user can truly own. But there is a price for this, the user also needs to be responsible for this Self-Own data.

Take security as an example, users need to take care on

• the asset layer (wallet)
• the transaction layer (Token, NFT, interaction address)
• the interaction layer (the dAPP contract security of the project)

All these risks require the user to establish an awareness of the existing danger. And GO+ Security provides a decentralized, open, permissionless security data service in this process to protect the web3 users in a web3 way.

3. Many elites fleeing from Silicon Valley or Wall Street to embrace WEB3, what’s your take on the phenomenon?

Casper

I think it’s quite a usual phenomenon that we saw back in the 2017–2018 bull market. A lot of talents and companies have shifted their focus from Web2 to Web3.

1. Though what’s been different from the 2018 bull market was that companies are actually embracing and adopting web3 modules and comfortably adding web3 projects to their investment portfolios. We see various forms of investment made by global players like Jump Trading, Tiger global, and others.
2. Nevertheless, I often see these talents and companies failing to grasp the full concept of web3 as to many web2 companies it’s a disadvantage to them in sharing their revenue, ownership, and up to the community. Web3 is not for everyone. For the elites of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, I think it’s crucial that they understand the concept of net benefit as the incentive mechanism and value and talent the web3 market needs vastly differs from Web2.

4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Web3 compared to Web2?

NFTGo

1. No one can block you or deny you access to the service. For example, Twitter can censor any account or tweet, but web3 tweets would be uncensorable because control is decentralized.
2. In web2 payment services may decide to not allow payments for certain types of work, while web3 payment apps require no personal data and can’t prevent payments.
3. Servers for gig-economy apps could go down and affect worker income, it won’t happen in web3 since they use Ethereum, a decentralized network of 1000s of computers as their backend.

XT.COM

Web 3.0 doesn’t require the control of a single entity. Larger businesses may no longer have complete control over the internet. As a result, decentralized apps, also known as dApps, cannot be filtered or limited. And Services are not hampered. Because all data will be kept on dispersed nodes as a result of the decentralization, users will not have to worry about their accounts being suspended or services being disrupted for technical or other reasons. Moreover, Access to one’s personal and political data is made more accessible. Though this is one of its advantages, the neural network also makes it simple for anybody to obtain access to the public and private information you provide online. This hampers privacy. That’s why owners of existing websites will be forced to modernize. As apps and websites that use Web 3.0 grow more popular, incumbent firms will be forced to enhance their digital services to avoid losing market share.

5. What capabilities are required to enter Web3?

Initiate Capital

First of all, I think learning ability is very important because Web3 is changing very very fast. Every day you will have hugh amont of new application and information. You need to get the information quickly and digest it as soon as possible no matter you are builders or just users.

If you are builders, you need to be innovative. I think that’s similar to startups in Web2, but it’s even more important for Web3.

Finally, you also need to be concentrate and persistent. Because there are too much up and down of the market and you will a lot of noise. And your time is always limited, so you need to very focus on what you are doing if you believe it’s valuable. That’s something we valued a lot as investors as well.

Go+ Security

There are three points I’d like to share:

1. For project parties, developers, and anyone else coming from a background that wants to access Web3, I think this should be a premissionless and open option, but for anyone making any choice, you should be very clear about what Web3 means; it may not be a standard answer for people from different backgrounds
2. The development of Web3 is still in a very early stage, both in terms of infrastructure and the format of applications. Personal I believe that Anyone who believes in the future of Web3 and can contribute to this industry should be encouraged to join Web3, particularly the developers, and anyone could smell the chance to restructure some specific sectors in the Datalize Internet area.
3. In our own case, we are also positively integrating with the traditional WEB2 security service providers, to getting them into the web3 world, to build a security DAO together.

6. Vitalik Buterin recently mentioned the soulbound NFT in his new work Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul. What is your interpretation? Could you share with us?

XT.COM

Well. I don’t think it’s easy. but apparently soulbound means “not possible to sell”(Soulbound is the property of an item that prevents it from being traded or mailed to another character or sold in the Auction House)so I guess they are just saying that this may be an important element for the future of decentralized society I can imagine, for example, an NFT of your own identity so you cannot transfer it to anyone. a bit more explained here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-suggests-making-nfts-soulbound-like-world-of-warcraft-items applies to game levels or weapons for example, but also in real life( Driving license, university degree,…)

7. We all know that Web3 has a significant impact on the financial and technological fields, so in addition to the fields mentioned just now, what areas do you think Web3 will put an effect on?

NFTGo

Web3 will change the way we interact with each other

Web 2.0 was a breakthrough moment in the history of the internet since it introduced user interaction. It was at this moment the first social networks, chat rooms, and other forms of communication emerged. Web 3.0 will be an incremental change rather than a radical one; for example, interactivity could take place in virtual reality through the numerous metaverses that are being built.

You’ll be able to socialize with friends and family in a virtual environment, as well as enjoy a concert or a football game as if you were in the stadium, without ever leaving your sofa. As a business, you must decide if virtual reality is a risk worth taking. Companies such as Nike, Samsung, Adidas, and Atari are examples of major corporations that have already invested in the metaverse.

8. What do you think is the best application of web3 at present? Why?

Casper

The best applications of web3, in my opinion, at present were x to earn projects and DeFi in general.

First of all, it’s definitely fortunate to be in an environment where we can actually use applications on web3. I mean, before we had projects like cryptokitties congesting the entire ethereum network! We’ve then had various projects like Solana, Casper, Tron and others to make Ethereum scalable.

Having solved the issue around scalability, we’ve been fortunate to have the fundamental infrastructure layer of DeFi being adopted in 2021. I think DeFi applications may not be the “best” but a crucial application which is required for other dapps to grow.

The best application that emerged from growth of DeFi were x to earn projects, such as games, fitness apps and metaverse. This where you have people owning a piece of the network while earning and playing their favourite game/hobby. We’ve clearly seen a huge rise of user adoption thanks to these projects.

Initiate Capital

As an Investor, we are always looking for ‘the NEXT best’ application for Web3. So we probably believe the best application will be the next one.

But for now, I can name some of the application we see that already brings a lot of value to Web 3 users. One is StepN that brings the Move to Earn concept to Web3. We have supported them when they raising funds. And their growth rate and popularity is surprising us actually. They now have millions of users and many of these users are non-crypto users before they using StepN. So StepN was successfully making the web3 concept interacting with people’s real life — walking, jogging or running. That’s the most of the application haven’t done yet.

Another example is Yuga Labs. They started with the BAYC collection which is a blue-chip NFT project. Then they acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits and introduced Ape Coin token. Early this month, Yuga Labs launched Otherdeed to build their own Metaverse which was another great success. So we believe Yuga Labs somehow redefined NFT in a very short time. We look forward to see the next step what they will bring to the NFT and Web3.

9. What does your ideal web3 world look like?

Initiate Capital

As investor, we talked to many entrepreneurs and try to find the next good ideas. For web3, we see more and more young people are coming into Web3 recently. That’s good. They are eager to create and bring new concept to disrupt the old world and system. That’s some we believe in.

We believe innovation is the key to web3. Because there are less limits and boundaries here. And no matter what is your background, it could be easily for a team to be successful if only you have something truly innovative. And finally you will be paid off in the Web3 world. We are happy to support these new ideas and young people. That’s something we think is the ideal web3 world.

Casper

The ideal web3 world to me is a network that is self-sustainable on its own. No team, no investors, no partners, just a network where different groups of people interact, transact and build.

Web2 world was where we had companies facing customers and Web3 world is where we have people owning a right and a portion of the network, growing together and cherishing the best builders in the space.

Casper aims to build the right tools for such industry players by building the right tools for new industry leaders can enter.

Go+ Security

The tremendous significance of Web3 paradigm:

1. It could lower the information threshold, and allow everyone to access the best services and products, without losing their data sovereignty in the process.
2. In another word , web3 might create a better possibility of giving a person real greater freedom.

It’s hard for me to imagine what it will look like in a concrete format, but I can tell you what I don’t like: we’re all going to lose control of our data, as depicted in sci-fi movies like “Westworld.” So to combat that dark possibility, we have to work to build a better chance for the future of humanity. Go+ Security is trying to provide security for users in the Web3 world and make up for this piece of the security puzzle.

Meson

The main features of Web 3.0 are openness, privacy and co-construction.

Web3.0 will not simply compete for user attention and capital flow entry. Due to the complex nature of the protocol and the openness of user logins, the number of calls to the protocol is often more important.

About landing form. Web3.0 is full of imagination, and its final landing form cannot be clearly judged now. But there are already signs of a trend. During the evolution to Web 3.0, there are many hybrid products of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

No matter how Web3 is shown to you, from my opinions Web3 that only focuses on external expression is not what we are after. What we should see is how to use the concept of Web3 and the technologies it covers to meet people’s needs sustainably. Demand can be the desire for safety, the pursuit of efficiency can also be the enjoyment of entertainment.

NFTGo

Web3 is not a “Res Publica” , even though it has the most beautiful infrastructure and scalability ever created. It all boils down to one thing, Web3 users are real people, and the goal of Web3 is not to build a Matrix-like world of code and machines, but to expand a new conceptual space for the real world, which is still a projection of our imperfect world. The human flaws of the real world will also be reflected in the Web3 world. It cannot change human greed and short-sightedness, nor can it make human morality better. But the emergence and development of Web3 gives a real hope to those who are looking forward to a new world, full of all kinds of creative freedom and possibilities, and with a solid underlying foundation to ensure that value creation will not be easily extinguished.

XT.COM

Web 3.0 is a massive and linked network. in my opinion, it should be useful for people’s lives ( not only for making money like now, or for gamers, collectors, etc) and people should have a saying in how it is managed ( DAO)

Nancy: Ok. It’s time to put an end to today’s AMA. I would also like to thank everyone for joining us here today and stay tuned for more exciting AMA and events to come! Good Bye!