The Future of NFTs: Bridging the Gap – The Role of Web 2.5 in Web3 Adoption

In this electrifying session hosted by Nadja Bester, Co-Founder of AdLunam, we met up with Yvonne Kagondu, Co-founder of ICP Hub Kenya; Alexandra Overgaag, Founder & CEO of Thrilld Labs; and Pratibha Yadav, Founder & CEO of Web3 O’clock

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Bridging the gap : The Role of Web 2.5 in Web3 Adoption

SPEAKERS

Nadja Bester (AdLunam Co-Founder)

Yvonne Kagondu (Co-founder of ICP Hub Kenya)

Alexandra Overgaag (Founder & CEO of Thrilld Labs)

Pratibha Yadav (Founder & CEO of Web3 O’clock)

All Right, so let's maybe just start with a quick sound check. Yvonne. Alexandra, Hey guys, how you doing?

Hey, hey, can you hear me?

Yes,perfectly

Alexandra

Awesome. Hi everyone. Thanks for the invite. Lovely to be here.

NadjaBester

All right, cool. Hey guys, so I think I'm going to get started with the introduction. Pratibha, is still on her way. I see she is a listener here, but I do notice that x is having some tech issues today, as it usually does, although we're still very grateful for the opportunity to be gathered here today. So without further ado, let's get started. 3,2,1, hey web3 world, this is Nadja Bester AdLunam co-founder, and you are listening to the Future of NFTs, where we talk to doers about how things are getting done. AdLunam is a web3 investment ecosystem, including our Engage to Earn SocialFi platform, IDO Launchpad zero to IDO startup accelerator, and actually a whole bunch more. But onto today, we have an exciting episode lined up as we discuss what I think is an incredibly important topic that keeps on coming up again and again, no matter what you're actually talking about, which is how to bridge this gap from the traditional tech world, or the traditional way that society works, into the web3 age. So we all talk about web3 adoption, but how do we actually do that? And so if you've heard the term web 2.5 before this sort of step by step approach to get us from web2 to web3. Instead of expecting everyone to get onto web3 all at once, as we would like, we have an amazing panel of guests in the house, all of whom are at the frontier of the blockchain and the web3 space, and each one bringing unique insights and experiences to the table. So we'll be exploring how web 2.5 can facilitate this transition to web3 to make decentralized technologies and decentralized way of thinking, I think, more accessible and more integrated into our daily lives. So let's dive in. I have with me Yvonne kagondu, who is the co-founder of ICP hub Kenya, and the founder of Kenya blockchain ladies DAO driving blockchain education and innovation in Africa. Also have Alexandra Overgaag, who is the founder and CEO of Thrilld labs, a global networking solution for web3 professionals and investors as well as. Pratibha, I see she's still not here. Pratibha Yadav, the founder and CEO of web3 o'clock, a leading news and media platform, simplifying web3 concepts and supporting startups. So ladies, first of all, we did not plan to have an all female panel. So I just love the fact that it worked out like that. I think that speaks a lot to the progress that we've been making in the industry in terms of just democratizing things in terms of gender. So maybe I'll start with that question when we talk about web2 to web3 and this adoption journey really that we need to go on, where are women and where are men? Do you see a distinction in your work? Especially Yvonne, you're very active, of course, with the Kenya blockchain ladies DAO, Alexandra with Thrilld labs, also very, very active in getting female professionals into the web3 space. So we'd love to maybe kick off there and tell me. What do you see on a daily basis? Is there a gender difference between this adoption process, between men and women in the web2 to web3 Space? Yvonne, let's start with you.

Okay, thank you. Um, thank you so much for that. Yeah, of course, there's a gender difference. Because when we think about blockchain, the history and origin of blockchain, it started. It's usually a combination of the finance, which is still mostly it's mildew. It's not as male dominated as other fields like engineering, but it's still the male dominated field. So when we look at those two and we combine the fact, and which is, I think it's when starting I think it's fair, because most of the things that have been developed are kind of developed by men like if we look at Ethereum, for example, the top projects, if You look at the top 10, most of them are started by men. But it's good for us to want to be part of it, because there are so many opportunities that come up from blockchain technology. There's so many jobs that we can leverage from there's so much we are. Women are 50% of the population at the end of the day. So we can't really ignore leave them out, because while we participate in all other fields and look for a seat at the table in all other fields, we are, we are still valuable. We still bring something to the table that, of course, our qualities are different from men, and which I've seen this with my own with my own experience I've been in for about six years. And what they'd go for, the projects that appeal most of them this the technical roles and women bring the bring something unique to the table. Joined the blockchain industry. Men wouldn't go for like, when I was just starting out, like community management, social media management, just because I was learning at that time, and I got to a point where I was so stretched I'd have like, five jobs, five jobs at a goal, because no man was willing to take it. That's when I had formed the DAO because I realized that there are so many opportunities that Kenyan women could have taken at that point. But in Kenya, there's been a really in my country, there's been a huge shift since we've been really pushing for female adoption. We, we did, I did the DAO. There's been a project called Bitcoin Dada, and we've seen so many initiatives that have come in. And from this we Kenya was highlighted as 40% of the participation in the blockchain industry has been from women. It was reported last year, and this came from us, women, you know, pursuing this opportunities. We, we, we sort of threw down the people, women who are already in this space, sort of threw down a rope to other women, aspiring to seek opportunities online, to other women aspiring to seek opportunities in blockchain. When women saw that other women were participating in blockchain, it became more safer it became when you see an industry that's mostly dominated by. Men, and mostly interpreted and explained to you by men. It becomes so difficult, but when women sort of help each other out, women sort of throw down like the rope and also motivate each other. They speak in a language that they understand. They form tribes. They form initiatives, they work together, and we end up seeing that the numbers increase in the long run. So yeah, when I started out, it was very few, but then now in my country, I'm seeing a huge surge of women joining in, which is amazing to watch.

Perfect. Thank you, Yvonne. Thank you so much, especially for the personal example, because I think your own journey really reflects the opportunities that are available, not, of course, only to women, to everybody, pretty much in every country. I think that's the democratizing aspect of web3 is it's really not one of those industries where geography is everything, which is exactly the case in the traditional tech or in the traditional finance, finance space. But I think especially your journey really highlights also the difficulties involved with being in the industry, but then, of course, the opportunities on the flip side of which there are so many. So Alexandra, would love to hear from you, because I know that you are building an incredibly strong, tight knit community of web3 professionals at Thrilld labs. Please do tell us about your experience. What are you seeing on the ground in terms of general, overall adoption as well as the gender differences?

Yeah. Thank you. Such an interesting question indeed. And a lot as we have already heard, can be said, I think, quite fundamentally, that it's very, very important indeed to differentiate right between, for instance, web3 professionals, if we can even qualify some of as such, or indeed those who are adopting using Blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies on a daily or less regular basis. And even you know, true builders, founders and even professional investors in this space, I think that in all these different types of environments, if you can qualify them as such, women have difficult options, opportunities, but also at times, you know, challenges, obviously, as a more preliminary remark, yes, Blockchain, web3, I think we all agree, can offer women across the board, new financial agency, new rights and opportunities, more autonomy and freedom, arguably as well. But from a more let's say, builders and professional perspective, what I do observe having been in this space professionally since approximately four years now, but having been involved with crypto Since 2017 approximately starting off as a trader, what I've observed is that actually, there are not always that many women who are building, who are involved with companies, right? I think that we have all seen the numbers that it's approximately 95% men apart, depending on the analysis that you are actually reading. I think what is potentially more worrisome is the amount of investments that female founders receive, or actually don't receive. I should say, if we look at the you know, I think that many of us notice as well the amount of total funding that female founders receive, we see approximately depending, again, on the studies, 1,2, 3% of the total VC funding. And I face such challenges as well as a female founder. Finally, what I would like to add actually, is that where women come together right, either on a more beginners kind of basis, or indeed, more on the professional level, we can really do a lot of things together by building by helping out each other, you know, not only by providing education and experience, sharing, and indeed a hand to one another, but also more from a business perspective, for instance, at road labs, what we have done and what we're trying to do is to build a small professional community for female founders, execs and whatnot. And really my dream in that regard is, is that women can really come together and then, almost as an alternative to the old boys kind of hustling club, we actually help each other with deals, with introductions, with collaborations, right? That's so that we really amplify our footprint in this space, another type of wonderful thing that I do want to quickly mention, because, of course, you know probably many of us are more newer to the space that there's wonderful scholarship programs out there. I'm personally a mentor to a program that is completely free if you get accepted, run by the Frankfurt School blockchain center, you know, beautiful, well known Educational Institute here in Europe, in Germany. And they have a program called BLT talents and women can apply for it, and if you get accepted, you really enter in this beautiful learning journey. Together, again, helping. One another make more out of the blockchain, BLT, crypto space, however you want to qualify it. So yeah, these are just a couple of things from my side I would like to add. And yeah, I think especially on the more founder and professional funder perspective, there's a lot that we can do in terms of enabling more women to race better, to more, you know, easily step up. But I think that there's a role for the men as well, to actually, kind of, at times, mind their words a little bit if they are manslaying things, it happens to me oftentimes at events. I'm attending a lot of web3 events, and, you know, oftentimes people are asking me, Oh, so you're doing the sales right? Of Thrilld labs happened again two weeks ago in the Netherlands, or, ah, can I have a talk with the CEO? And then it's me, yeah, that's me. And men are sometimes just so surprised. And I think there's a little bit of a role for men as well to really pick up on this implicit bias that they do sometimes have. And that's it for my side, I would say, thank you.

Thank you Alexandra. And yeah. I mean also, thank you for reminding us that there's all these different layers to it. I think it really depends in any conversation. Whenever you listen to people talking about web three, it is so super important to understand which perspective they are speaking from, because working in web3, as you said, is different than investing in web3. And so there's so many different audiences and groups of people that all have their own onboarding and adoption challenges. So yeah, thank you for zooming out a little bit and reminding us of the bigger picture. Pratibha, I'm glad to see that you are finally on It's always such a headache to deal with the technical issues on X welcome First of all, and yeah, we'd love to also get your opinion. I know that you are in the media and communication space, so of course, you are working on the front lines of educating people with obviously an aim to eventually lead to mass adoption, which is the dream for all of us in the space. But would love to have your perspective in terms of what you are seeing on a daily basis.

Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for the warm welcome, as rightly explained by Alexandra that women are very you know, they are very underrepresented and represented in the leadership positions within tech and blockchain firms, which is a major, major concern for us, because for us, the world is not the same. We have to fight every day to create a space in the blockchain space. We have limited role models. We have limited mentorship opportunities. And, you know, to bring more female on the board, to bring more aspiring female leaders. We have to have you know, the dominant representation in the space on the daily basis, I see that we have to fight a different set of challenges. We have to fight gender biases, different stereotypes, and as rightly quoted by Alexandra, the funding scene is entirely, altogether in the favor of, I would say, in the in the favor of the other gender. So it is very difficult for female founders to fight at the forefront without, you know, struggling more than the male counterparts, which is a very, very sad story. We have limited access to inferential networks sometimes. And even if we go out there in networking events and do like lot of we have like lot of connections there. But at some point, some counterparts will make us feel smaller in terms of technical knowledge or maybe in the business sense, which is very disheartening to me. But yeah, the scene is evolving. The landscape is evolving. More and more females are coming up. More and more females are trying to participate in the tech today, and precisely in web three I would, I would like to add here my two cents that you know, when this, these kind of transitions happens. This is a very major revolution we are witnessing nowadays, and going forward 5,10, years, this will be an amazing journey to recall. So this is the right time to enter in this revolution, to create our own space, to get lot of women on board and give them a major push to stand together with their male counterpart. So it is very important to create a safe space for women to network and to have each other's back. So yeah, that is what I think about the women's role in web3 right now.

Thank you so much to all three of you. I think what was very apparent to me from everyone's answers is that there's a parallel between the average person and you know, obviously don't want to focus exclusively on women, because 50% of our audience is the other gender. And so if you look at the parallels between adoption into the space. Women have certain challenges. Men might have certain challenges. But overall, I'm hearing challenges that I think are in some cases applicable to both genders. And very often each of you would come back to the point that the solution for this is networking, is community, is people, is not technical skills. I think, as you pointed out, very often, when you are having a discussion, whether you're a man or a woman, when you are having a discussion with someone in the space, they might make you feel smaller than because you don't know XYZ, you don't understand XYZ. So really, just want to take this opportunity to remind the audience that you do not have to know everything. You don't have to understand everything. Web three is an entire collection of industries with a collection of technologies. There's no person on earth who could possibly know everything, and so you don't have to know everything. You have to know the things that you're interested in that you want to go somewhere with. So keep that in mind. You know, more power to you the fact that you are tuning in and that you are learning about things, I think, is ultimately the biggest selling point for any person when they want to get involved with something. So I wanna, I wanna go back to this idea that, yes, there are very specific challenges to women. Of course, as a woman myself, I experience all of these as well. But then there are these commonalities in terms of, let's say, onboarding on the one hand and adoption on the other. Because, of course, before we can get adoption, we need to first have onboarding. Just because I'm going to sign up for a new platform does not mean I'm going to start using it in my everyday life. I might sign up once and never return to the platform again. So we'd love to hear from your perspective, what do you think are some of the key fundamentals that any person wanting to get into web3, both from a professional as well as a investment perspective, as well as us in the industry wanting to ease this process for those people who are onboarding and adopting, what are the key fundamentals that we should be looking out for? Perhaps we are already focusing on them. Perhaps we are ignoring them. Yeah, Alexandra, let's start with you. What do you think are these key fundamentals to focus on right now to make adoption easier? Web 2.5 to web three?

Well, I think that, and this is again, a wonderful question. Thank you. Nadja, I think that one very, very obvious one would of course, be education, right? You see that one coming from here. But of course, we always say we need education, right? Not only about how we can use either web 2.5 platforms or solutions out there, or indeed, web3 types of technologies. But also generally, why would we want to use crypto or a specific platform such as thrilled indeed, built by Thrilld labs ourselves? And what I would like to add here, actually, to the table as well, is that I think that we can even again, you've noticed that from my previous answer, I tend to be a bit of a systemic kind of thinker, but we can again take kind of like a step back right and consider again, like, what is exactly web2 and web 2.5 is web2? Web 2.5 indeed, this kind of, like counter hegemonic, kind of attempt against the old institutions of web2 that are characterized by centralized control and scary data monopolitization, right? Or are we more referring to web2 as the old kind of institutions from finance and the banks and whatnot and how we are kind of like rebelling through crypto against this in my case, for instance, building what I would say is a web 2.5 platform currently, so you know, this free and open access networking and business solution that I feel is almost like a little bit similar to Tinder, if you have to, kind of like, imagine it. What I would say is that it's actually web 2.5 because we are, you know, aimed at the web three market, but we are, to a large extent, still built on web2. And generally, again, zooming out, what makes a platform web3, just because you have a token, does your data also needs to be hosted in a decentralized way? How about ethical data governance and maybe not too much of a centralization of power. So I just want to mention this and say I think that they're really all very, very broad definitions. What is web 2.5 what is web3? What is even a centralization kind of perspective, yes or no? And again, you asked more about because I didn't forget your question. The key fundamentals, I think stepping back and really thinking from a more educational or even onboarding perspective about what we want from certain platforms or technologies is actually the most important thing out there. This is just two cents from my side.

So. Thank you. Alexandra, absolutely agreed. Pratibha, I want to build on the previous question, when we talk about adoption, I mean adoption is this unicorn word, mass adoption is on its way, and we're all going to get there, and we're all going to make it. What do we actually mean when we say mass adoption? Because one person might envision mass, mass adoption to look like, Oh, no one is using Fiat anymore. You go to the grocery store, you buy with your Lightning Network, your lunch for today. And then others might see adoption as, okay, you have, you have a wallet. You created a wallet once in your life, even if you've never signed up. So where do you typically focus your thoughts? On the spectrum in terms of what is mass adoption?

Yeah, so for me, adoption is more like when I don't care that you know which application is using web three when still I'm using it. It's the ease of use when, like all around me, like people around me are using web3 without caring about whether you're whether they are utilizing web three or web2 or web 2.5 it's the ease of use. When people find the solution of their problem in something, they onboard, they start using it, and they cling to it. They become legal to that particular application, or maybe the technology. So I, for me, the mass adoption is when we don't need to discuss about what is web2 and what is web3? We for we are focusing on the problem. We are focusing to bring the solution for that, for any particular problem, and for bringing that solution, the underlying technology is web three. But user particularly does not has to think about it. You know that the ease, the ease of access, the ease of onboarding, is the key for me, for the mass adoption. And this is what mass adoption looks like to me. For example, nowadays we use a lot of applications on our phones on a daily basis. We using Instagram, we are using Twitter, and lot more applications. But how many times we have to discuss that? You know what, what technology we are using underlying those applications? So that's where the real meaning of mass adoption lies. When the users are super comfortable with using the application built on web three, and they does not even care about like, how the things are, which technologies these applications are using, that kind of comfort desk, that kind of onboarding, for me, represents the real mass adoption.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. I cannot wait for the day when I do not have to host a show anymore called the Future of NFTs, because we are not talking about NFTs anymore. It's just part of the future. So I think we're definitely on our way. But at the on the other hand, of course, it's going to take time to get there, so if you'll hear early, more power to you. Yvonne, I would also love to know from you, especially in the Kenyan context, we know that in especially in Africa, Kenya has been one of the leading adopters of cryptocurrencies, both from, you know, a financial remittance perspective as well. I mean, Kenya, of course, also leaves mobile money in Africa. But also from a workforce perspective, there's a lot of people in web3 working in the industry that are Kenya based, including Lauryn, one of our team members who's on the show. Shout out to Lauryn. So please have us, have us get a better understanding of what adoption looks like in Kenya.

Thank you for that question. Um, well, in Kenya, the cryptocurrencies first came to use when we had when freelancers, we have a lot of freelance workers in the country, were looking for more friendly and less discriminatory method of receiving payments from their clients abroad. And at that time, it was back in the 2016, 2015 and what they noticed that time I used to use Bitcoin primarily, and local bitcoins was the platform that was the peer to peer exchange that was being used. And what freelance work has noticed is that there was an arbitrage market that that had been set up because you receive money from a client and sell it at a margin of, say, 10% back in the day, this the margin has significantly reduced, and it created another job opportunity, because people realized that they could essentially acquire the Bitcoins at a low amount and then sell at a high amount and create actually more money than they were earning from their clients. So the first instance of how we of how we use cryptocurrencies, is one through remittance here in Kenya, because we're already familiar with mobile money, as you had mentioned. And then now we went on to another. A phase where we want to interact with the rest of the world. In Africa, we talk a lot about free trade between the African countries. We want to send money to Nigeria, Nigeria, South Africa, without having to go through the bank, having to go through many intermediaries. And maybe that it has happened to so many people. Money getting lost in between blockchain and web3 has provided a safer means of transactions, transacting money transacting from all over the world. I do believe this is actually free trade in as much as it's may not be recognized by the government. This is free trade in action, because cryptocurrencies are seen, maybe as a commodity to some people, because it's traded now, as mentioned, it started as Bitcoin, but now we've moved to USDT. We've moved to, I work for ICP, so we see a lot of houses interacting with ICP token. So it's actually a lot of trading is happening cross border. So when we look at that, that has been the main use case for our region, that's trading and remittance. But I do agree with Pratibha When we say that we need to use blockchain technology without necessarily knowing that we're using it. We need to be actively engaging with it, and in Africa especially, we have primarily been consumers of the technology. We've mostly been trading. We've mostly been, you know, like me, as Alexandra talks about in the workforce, but we've not been building enough I think we started this space talking about entrepreneurship. We've not been building enough products. And I would like to see a place where it's easy for entrepreneurs in the blockchain industry getting funding, getting support, building here in Africa, creating products that are for the people of their region, if you're in Africa, because mostly right now, we're just taking what is being built and outside and from outside and using it here. So yeah, so I think that would really make sense to me as an African in the African region.

Yeah. Thank you, Yvonne, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that experience. Because I think that one thing that has always stood out for me is how different geographies are in terms of web3, pretty much anything, awareness, knowledge, expertise, adoption, even the onboarding process is far easier in some regions than it is in others. And I know, especially in terms of what you said about Africa, every time I'm also I'm South African, and every time that I travel back home and there happens to be a web3 event, or I go there for a web3 event. It's always very stocked. Me the contrast between the amount of builders that I meet in other countries, on other continents, and really an absence of that in Africa. So if you are African and you're listening to this, definitely encourage you to just start building. It's an amazing journey. I think all of us that have been building would recommend this journey to pretty much anyone we speak to. Alexander, I want to then fly across the continent and ask in terms of so Yvonne has shared about the adoption. What adoption looks like on a daily basis in Africa, especially in Kenya, what does it look like in Europe? What is this daily adoption use case that we that we are seeing or can see in Europe?

Yeah, thank you. I think it's very interesting again, to speak about adoption from different perspectives, right? Are we speaking more about using crypto as alternatives to existing or not existing financial infrastructures out there. If you look, you know, at the wonderful chain analysis reports that are out there in terms of adoption, you do see that the adoption of blockchain technologies, of course, very much differ depending on the geography that you're based. I think generally in Europe, what we see are a lot of people who think crypto is something funny, right, something a little bit geeky, still, maybe even something that can still be qualified as a scam by many that are less involved. And what I also see is that a lot of people don't necessarily have the, you know, willingness or interest to really take a deep dive, right? We have banks that function well. Most people have a bank account. People, you know, even if they don't receive that much, much interest, or, you know, even see massive privacy scandals at banks, they're fine with it, right? They're hustling. You know, they're. Working. They're doing business, and they're okay. So what I see a lot, especially in Northern Europe, I'm originally from the Netherlands, is that a lot of people are not necessarily super interested in crypto, if not from a more kind of like investment perspective. Of course, people are always eager to make money. However, what I do see, for instance, in Italy, where I'm based, since approximately eight years, is that people are very, very interested in terms of crypto as an alternative to the banking system, especially in a country let's not generalize. But again, where the black economy is still significantly large, you can, you know, look that up pretty easily. And I know that from my experience as well, having worked in Italy for many years. So from a payments perspective, I do think that there are small differences across countries. And also in terms of builder space. Again, here in Italy, the builder space is very, very small. And I also think that that has to do with, sometimes language barriers. And generally, you know, what I think is very, very interesting about the web3 Space again, this talk here today. We're doing it in English, right? But not everyone across the globe speaks English, even if English is, you know, such a crucial business language in web three, and that is, again, a little bit of a challenge. In our female community, there are a couple of ladies from Latin America, right? They say we would love to engage more, but we don't feel so secure about our English. So one of the things that I would love to do actually, within our, you know, business platform, is actually enable direct and automated AI translations between people, so that people can find each other across the globe to do, indeed, business in this, yes, global and decentralized space that goes along a couple of challenges in terms of languages and yeah, I think generally, there's a lot of, of course, other use cases that you know, look at blockchain technology, not necessarily As financial infrastructure. But for instance, look more about how web three and crypto and blockchain as technologies intersect with other types of technologies, such as AI or IoT, right? So, but those don't really regard necessarily the retail and the more grassroots kind of adoption. If we really look at retail and grassroots, I do think that again, Europe, yes, we're to an extent, leading in terms of building and the in terms of how much investments, collectively, the startups are getting. But then, on the other hand, I do see that there's a lot of room to improve and a lot of cultural and maybe also, yeah, geographical differences across different countries and Netherlands and Italy as two small examples here.

Thank you, Alexandra, I think it's so interesting to hear the different perspectives from different regions and also why certain things are adoption challenges. I mean, if we compare and contrast Africa and Europe, there's a large percentage of people unbanked in Africa, so the level of trust in banks are generally not as high because there's not as much interaction as they would be in Europe, where the financial system is incredibly advanced, compared to, you know, in terms of traceability, in terms of having everything within this enclosed banking system. So it's really interesting to hear the challenges being faced by different regions, and also how to mitigate those challenges. So Pratibha, from an Asian perspective, what are you seeing? I think that we have been seeing over the last few years, really a proliferation of builders in Asia especially, I think it's almost impossible to go to an event in Asia and not meet you know, 50 different people building, which is not necessarily the case in other in other geographies. So, yeah, I would love to know from you, what are you seeing in terms of what is the day to day adoption look like in the countries that you that you are very actively involved with.

Yeah, so thank you for the question in Asia, I would say that crypto and blockchain adoption is reflecting the rigorous growth I will talk about the India particularly so in the past few years, I'm observing that more and more people are getting curious about it. More and more startups are working on web3, Blockchain. They are bringing an innovative solution. Back then, in days, I was talking to one of the entrepreneur and they were collaborating with the government also to bring out some, you know, tangible products that can help people in day to day life. There are a lot of people building some real use cases which are ready to serve the common mass on in the real world, not just a virtual world. So I would say that Asia, and particularly India, is leading this change. In many terms, the adoption is gradually increasing, and the number of users are continuously increasing. If I quote the year 2023 they were like approximately 575 million crypto owners back then. And in 2024 they're expected to rise by 950 million. That is a huge growth, if we talk about that. And apart from that, people are very curious to get into these fields. A lot of students communities who are working on the learnings, regular meetups happening in a different part of India. And a lot of entrepreneurs are building creative solutions in the space. So I think for me, future looks brighter in Asia and particularly in the other country I belong to. And the only thing I'm concerned is the regulatory, regulatory concerns. If the if the government can, you know, step up and give us a give us a fair regulate, regulatory framework. I think this growth can be exponential. That's all.

Thank you. Pratibha, I didn't immediately want to address the elephant in the room, but I did have a follow up question for Alexandra when we started talking about Europe, because it's almost impossible to talk about Europe in a web3 sense, without the next sentence being well, or what about the regulation? So Alexandra, I would love to know, as someone who is involved in the European community, especially, what is the sentiment, especially among builders, in terms of how regulation is hindering innovation and or facilitating innovation.

I think, of course, it's a bit tricky for me to speak for everyone in this space, but as someone who is actually trained as a lawyer and political scientist, but then turned a builder, I do have quite a strong opinion about this, and I personally very much feel, you know, the longer that I am in this space, the more extremist in my sense, in a sense, I'm becoming actually right priorly, I was really, I was pretty much in favor of governments, you know, putting out regulations out there, in terms of the companies, in terms of different digital assets out there, but what I see more and more is that it stifles innovation in practice, right? The fact that there is either a lot of builders, either really want to adhere to the rules because they have to, because they have really, you know, strong, a strong foothold in industries such as finance or other types of regulatory environments where you need to be fully compliant with regulations. And on the other hand, you have more founders who really have this decentralized ethos, in the sense of, we're going to decentralize our companies as much as possible, our projects as much as possible, and even if the regulators are coming and they're trying to stiff us, right and we're just going to move to a different jurisdiction, I see this, this big disparity in kind of narratives between, Indeed, those who want to be compliant and those who really breathe the web three ethos. And as I said, the more I am in this space, and the more I see how regulations, or the lack thereof in certain aspects, are really, really hindering me as well in my business, the more I actually become to this more decentralized ethos kind of space. And just to give an example of where actually existing regulation really, really stifles, has stifled My business is actually very simply opening a company bank account, right? So two years ago, I wanted to incorporate road labs in the Netherlands. I managed to do so. I raised some capital as well, and I just didn't manage to open up a bank account. Just because the word blockchain, it already put a couple of banks off. And the very fact that I was living in a different country as well, on the other hand, what I see as well is that, you know, we are planning to issue a token shortly, and we, of course, did want to do that in a compliant way. And we need, we needed to pay really, really a lot of money to actual experts and actual lawyers to make, you know, legal advice for us, so that potential investors who come to us, you know, we can show this advice and book, there goes 10k just for a legal advice. So yes, regulation can be good, probably for a lot of companies that want to, you know, build and engage with financial institutions and whatnot. It is good, but it also does hinder a lot of people, either from an ideological perspective, or more from, I would say, small hindrance on a day to day basis, perspective, and, yeah, I guess that that's where I would leave it from my side. It's a very tricky and comprehensive question, especially as a former law and political scientist during builder, yeah.

thank you. Thank you, especially for Mentioning that, because I think, you know, there's this divide in web3 where you have a group of people that say, yes, absolutely, regulation is incredibly important, and very often they are the legal professionals. So it's very refreshing to hear this from someone who also has the founder perspective, because I think as a founder, this is when you experience this. Most of all, I've worked with European founders who either had to ultimately close the business because they were not able to do it in Europe, or they would simply have to move to different country where the regulations are more favorable, at least, or where there's a sandbox environment. So Yvonne, now I want to know, in terms of, you know, we talk about web3, and we talk about web3 mostly in a professional context, because we want to differentiate it from the fact that it's not just crypto, of course, to the average person, web3 probably doesn't mean much as a term. I know, when I have to explain to people, you know, the industry that I work, I will start off by saying web3. They will have never heard of it. I will say, Oh, you know, like, like, like Bitcoin, like blockchain, like crypto, and kind of see what word lands for them. But then also knowing that as soon as I say a certain word, if I say crypto, that immediately might mean that they are going to have a negative impression of, you know, whatever I'm saying. So what in your field of work, in the in the blockchain space, what are some of the most common misconceptions about web3 when you speak to people who don't really understand what any of this is about?

Thank you for that. So as you've said, I think you've nailed it on the head. when you tell people you're in web3, it's like, what's web3? Then you start, you have to start with Bitcoin, then go to blockchain and the likes. I also experienced the same, but when we talk of misconceptions, I think the biggest one, I don't really think this is a misconception from my experience, but I found a number of scam experiences, like, when we talk of scams in the web3 space, it's very unfortunate, even as we move from the conversation of regulation, there are people who have abused the technology that we are in, the space that we are in, and that's fair, because we are not regulated. And even those of us who because it's our industry it's a very nice one, and someone can get really passionate about it, but you've not really gotten as much support as we'd like from our governments So we've seen a lot of bad players coming in. I've met so many people who said they learnt about blockchain from a scam and found themselves in so I don't know if I'd call it a misconception, but people really associate the industry with scams, even the term web3, and even our internal battles in this space, sometimes you see web3. I've had Bitcoin Max is seeing web3 is a marketing term. It doesn't exist and digitally very crazy, but in reality is that you know web3, you have to DYR, or you have to do your own research, you have to read, you have to study, you have to keep up to date. Otherwise, lack of information will obviously lead to someone's misfortune. Like the Bible says, like people perish because of lack of knowledge. If you don't keep up to up to date with everything, you might fall to the to be a victim of scamming. Even now, as for me, I've been in this space for six years, and up to date, I still fall risk challenges of scams. So it's really a strange space to be in. As much as it's beautiful, it comes with its own set of challenges. And I think the second misconception that I've seen a lot is everyone in crypto who's legitimate is rich like you see a lot of people saying, you know, because I've been crypto, especially someone like me who's been here for a number of years, people expect you to have to be driving the next Lambo or something of this sort. And I try to explain to people that it's a career and it's a path like any other, it's an investment like any other. You can go as high as possible, which can also go as low as possible. It's very volatile. So when people think that you're in the space, they think that automatically. Is that you somehow have been, have accumulated a certain amount of wealth. It still goes back to the scamming point. Because the message that scammers use is that when you in crypto, you reach because that's how, if you get in you automatically wake up tomorrow with a with a Lambo. But it's not the case. It's good. It is as diverse and as lucrative and as, you know, interesting as any other space. It's as the stock market. In the career side, you can find that the income and is usually the same as any other field, but it's just an industry that's developing as well. I think another challenge that another misconception that I've seen is probably the huge question is, what is? What is web3. You know what? What exactly do we mean when we're talking about the future of the internet? So I see, a lot of explanations about it, like people say that with web3, you get to have more ownership of your data. And then we ask the question, okay, how? How does this happen? And a good number of people don't quite really know what exactly this means, and we're still as I think a lot of us are still asking ourselves, what does it necessarily mean, and how do we achieve web, the vision and goal of web3 point, or if most of us, can't really define it, and we are like in the web3 space, really experiencing true ownership of our data? Are we still truly decentralized? So I'll just shamelessly shield the company that I work for right now. It's called internet computer protocol. And what we have done is we've basically decentralized the cloud. We want to most of the time, most blockchain platforms still rely on cloud based services, like AWS, like Google Cloud, but with ICP, we the data that is held is decentralized, and we know we don't store data in the cloud. So we believe that we're decentralized. Um, it's still has a lot of work in the way. We still believe that maybe we believe that we are in the journey of truly becoming decentralized, but I believe when we work together and as we learn on a daily basis, we should be able to achieve this goal of true decentralization and true ownership of one of our own data, and also true ownership of monetization. I also try to interpret web3 as monetization in like when you look at web1, you see a lot of free information that is spread all over the world. It's broke the borders were born, sort of broke the borders of information. I believe web2 broke the borders of communication, where we find things like Facebook, Twitter, where, I'm sure people here in the room, I can see we have people from India, people from Europe. Here I am in Africa. I see that it broke the borders of communication. And I say web3 broke the borders of monetization, because we send money anywhere to anyone in the world without really caring, or it doesn't matter. The web3 doesn't identify which country you're from, which you know, skin you have, which anything that you have. It's just numbers that are numerically, just sent all over. So I think that's a misconception that I would like to Lucia addressed, just to fully define what web3 is, what blockchain is, and what it can do for us, and how do we get to that ultimate goal of web3? Awesome.

Thank you so much. Absolutely agree. Really excellent points. I see we've come almost to the end of the show always creeps up on me. I can go for hours talking about all of this, but we are going to go over to audience questions. Pratibha. I'll start with you. There's a question from otaku, how can effective storytelling be utilized to simplify and popularize complex web three concepts for mainstream audiences. Okay, so how can we use storytelling to make this whole educational journey and onboarding journey easier for people coming into Web?

very, very interesting question. Thank you so much for asking. So in my post. Effective storytelling is the easiest way to make anyone understand any complex concept. For example, if we, if we talk about the education, if we talk about the articles available, online, blogs, videos, if we break down the concept in the most simplifying manner, we don't go into the heavy jargons and heavy stuff. If we simplify this and make it more, you know, consumable for new consumers who are just entering into web3 to start with we have to teach the fundamentals as if we are teaching an eight year old kid something about, you know, physics or chemistry, we have to bring down the complexity on the very fundamental level and start from the scratch. We have to work on the fundamentals. Then we have to go towards the use cases, keeping the language easy, simple and consumable. For me, everything comes boils down to the ease of understanding, ease of access. And, you know, the ease of understanding basically. So the simpler we keep our narratives around it, the more we can emphasis on the importance of web three, the more we can contribute towards the easier education. Let's not make the web three complex, most complex thing anybody can encounter. Let's keep it light that make people understand what web three is about. How can we use in the real world the use cases of web3? And you know, we should a normal person can think of if I just talk to anybody who doesn't know about web3, and I will start talking about the web3 wallets and how we have to, you know, take care of our past fees and all in all, they will just bounce off. Okay, What she's talking about. But if, if I make them understand, if I you know, take them on board that how everything works. What are the fundamentals? Why web3 world is required? What kind of wallets are there? What is the security measures and how we how we can integrate? You know, it's all about taking the entire process easy in the easiest way, from A to Z, and then build a narrative over that. Fundamentals has to be really, really strong. So that's my take on that.

I love that I always actually force myself to remember when I'm speaking to people. Mean, you might not necessarily speak to them as though they are a five year old, but you need to be able to explain things in a way that if a five year old were listening to you right now, would they also at least have some understanding of what you're saying. Because I think what we very often do, especially if we work in the industry, we love acronyms. I mean, it's the same. In every industry, there's so much jargon. We love to throw all of these lingos and turns around, but we sometimes forget that it alienates and distances those that don't have any idea what we're talking about. Alexandra, so final question for you from Judson Anthony, what specific industries in SEC or sectors are there where web 2.5 is already significantly contributing to web3 adoption? So are you seeing any specific areas use cases where we can see the web 2.5 adoption in action?

Oh, well, that, that is a very good question. I hope that I can, to an extent, contribute here. What I would actually argue is that we, you know, we see so many brands and loyalty programs being developed and whatnot. I think if we look, you know, from a more Yeah, branding kind of perspective. And I would say also, yeah, the types of industries that really are interacting with consumers, globally, across the board, right name, the big brands, such as the Gucci's and whatnot, what I see there is that they are very, very interested in adopting web three technologies, or just applications, indeed, as it has been discussed priorly, not even always the customer or anyone who was involved with said applications from a consumer perspective, even notices that there is an NFT or whatnot, underpinning a new, you know, kind of like loyalty solution they're tapping into. So I would definitely say, from a fashion perspective, we see a lot happening again. This is not fully, let's say my expertise these days. I think it's also quite interesting to mention that, again, we see so many of the more traditional tech platforms slowly dipping their toes into web3 technology. You see, indeed, the founder, or, sorry, the current CEO, right of Twitter himself, being more and more interested in web3 and we see Facebook through meta and the metaverse, indeed, being more and more involved with web3. So I think that there is arguably a lot of adoption across the board. And if I may add, actually, one minor thing here, also looking at the time. I think regardless of whether we're speaking about web2, web 2.5, web3. One. Final point that I would really, really love to make is that ultimately, it's all technology, right, but it's the technology that is oftentimes built by humans. And why do I want to mention that as kind of like a final note from my side, I think it's really, really important that we grasp that with whatever type of application or platform or token we're interacting there's ultimately humans behind the IDs, humans behind, you know, whether or not this token, platform or company took off in the first place, but also humans behind whether or Not this company or this token is actually a success or will, to an extent, grow or not. And why am I mentioning this, that it's all built by humans, because it implements also, therefore automatically, our imperfections in web3. And that is not the problem, because I think that we're all imperfect as humans and but it is very, very important to keep in mind, because we tend to forget that this web3 and all these difficult kind of concepts that everyone has different assumption about. It's all built by humans, and it carries also, therefore, our interests and our imperfections with us, including myself, not being a full expert, into what the web 2.5 most prevalent applications are so end of the monolog for my side.

Alexandra, Yvonne, Pratibha, thank you guys so much. I think it's been an incredibly insightful hour, you know, from so many different perspectives. I think two of the things that stood out for me, of course, the discovery at the start of the episode that we all just happen to be women on the space. It wasn't planned that way. So that was a really incredible sort of, you know, caught in the wild. Example that there is, there is forwards motion in the industry in terms of gender equality. But then especially the fact that every, every one of us, depending on which geographic location we are located in, or the areas or the regions that we are working with, we might have slightly different perspectives of what adoption looks like, what regulation looks like, what the challenges are, what the opportunities are, but yeah, thank you so much to each and every one of you for the amazing insights and expertise that you brought to the table today. If you're in the audience, whether live or listening to this after the fact, please do follow these amazing speakers. I think all of them bring such a wealth of experience to the industry, to the space and to building the future. And so to that end, I will catch you all again next week for another episode of the Future of NFTs. Cheers. Guys. Have a fantastic week, wonderful start to the second half of the year, and I'll catch you soon.