TOKEN 2049—one of many largest annual digital asset occasions in Asia and Europe—introduced collectively the main voices and most sensational tasks in Web3.
TOKEN2049 London is the second a part of the better annual TOKEN2049 occasion. Yearly, the occasion is held in each Singapore and London, bringing collectively all kinds of Web3 individuals from builders, thought leaders, founders and traders.
This yr’s Singapore occasion had a staggering record-breaking attendance of over 7,000 individuals, with the London occasion coming in second with over 2,500 folks attending. Held on November 9 and 10, the London occasion featured a big assortment of audio system from the Web3 business, with notable attendees comparable to Stan Kulechov from AAVE, Kathleen Breitman from Tezos and Mo Sheikh from Aptos.
Opening ideas
Though Web3 occasions all the time convey a spark of pleasure with them within the crypto world, the circumstances main as much as TOKEN2049 London might undoubtedly have been higher.
Simply days earlier than the occasion kicked off, rumors in regards to the second-largest spot alternate FTX and its potential insolvency began circulating on Twitter and the better crypto ecosystem. Consequently, on November 8, the worth of BTC fell over 14% whereas the worth of FTX’s FTT token collapsed from US$22 all the best way all the way down to US$2, marking a lower of roughly 90%. To prime all of it off, completely different funds, traders and crypto individuals had important publicity to the alternate both by direct investments or leaving property on the platform.
Nonetheless, even with all the things happening, the occasion was nonetheless full of individuals desirous to community, construct and speak about crypto.
Occasion particulars
TOKEN2049 London led to a mixture of completely different Web3 protocols and firms. Most notably, this occasion featured an intensive assortment of exchanges, infrastructure and payments-related tasks.
Bullish—an institutional cryptocurrency alternate based mostly in Hong Kong that participated as the first sponsor of the TOKEN2049 London occasion.
Bitget—a number one cryptocurrency alternate notably within the space of copy buying and selling. Copy buying and selling permits traders to observe and replicate the methods of their favourite traders or merchants.
SuperEx—a decentralized cryptocurrency alternate that additionally attended the occasion that includes branded sports activities automobiles exterior the venue for individuals to take pleasure in and take photos with.
Inside, completely different cubicles had been arrange for undertaking group members to indicate off what they’ve been engaged on.
Along with all of the undertaking cubicles, varied audio system and panels had been held all through the TOKEN2049 occasion.
Some notable panels included the “DEFI: Previous, Current, and Future” discuss, which featured Stani Kulechov, Julien Bouteloup and Evgeny Gaevoy. The panel centered across the points and way forward for DeFi going ahead into the approaching years. The audio system talked in regards to the transparency behind DeFi and the way it may also help keep away from the problems that happen in conventional finance. This was fairly becoming, given what was happening within the background with FTX.
Within the dialogue, Stani, Founding father of AAVE, commented that DeFi permits a bunch of individuals to come back collectively collectively and set threat parameters based mostly on all kinds of public info. This can allow them to make higher selections than centralized monetary establishments comparable to Celcius. Moreover, Julien, Founding father of Stake Capital Group, commented that DeFi has solely managed to duplicate the present monetary infrastructure in TradFi presently. The actual purpose going ahead is to create new distinctive services which are simply accessible and protected to make use of for most of the people.
One other thrilling panel throughout TOKEN2049 was Mo Shaikh and Simon Baksys’s dialogue on “Why Web3 Infrastructure is Epic and Highly effective”. Throughout the panel, Simon, Google’s GTM and BD Lead for Web3, said that Google’s mission is to behave because the bridge between Web2 and Web3. He talked about that their focus is now to onboard the primary ten million builders somewhat than focusing totally on customers, a technique just like Solana and their efforts to construct an lively developer ecosystem. Mo, Co-Founding father of Aptos, and Simon went on to debate the Google Cloud x Aptos partnership. The partnership included the next:
- Google as a validator launch associate—Google is now a staked block-producing validator because the Aptos mainnet.
- Aptos information in BigQuery—indexing your complete Aptos chain and exposing that information by their SQL-based warehouse, BigQuery.
- Pay with crypto—a partnership between Google and Coinbase to permit builders and customers to pay for transactions utilizing tokens.
- Accelerator program—Google will spend money on builders and different Aptos ecosystem tasks.
- Google x Aptos Hackathon—beginning in 2023, Google will probably be internet hosting a hackathon for Aptos, Google and third-party builders to get collectively and construct.
Lastly, one other intriguing panel was Jordi Alexander’s discuss on “Reflections on the Newest Cycle’s Wild Experiments”. On this presentation, Jordi, CIO at Selini Capital, mirrored on the bull market’s varied “experimental” tasks and their subsequent failures. A determine identified for his insights on sport concept in Web3, Jordi additionally talked about his observations on memes and the way they had been capable of coordinate individuals collectively through the bull cycle. He references Olympus DAO and their (3,3) marketing campaign and the way that coordinated a lot of individuals even when the underlying sport concept behind (3,3) was inaccurate and never achievable. Jordi concluded his discuss with the message that if we couldn’t discover widespread sources of coordination that act for the true good thing about all of the individuals, then we wouldn’t ever be capable to transfer ahead as an business.
Facet occasions
Whereas TOKEN2049 London was full of issues to do, it wouldn’t be a crypto occasion with out the afterparties and aspect occasions!
One of many aspect occasions was hosted by Animoca Manufacturers to have fun the opening of their new household workplace in London. Like TOKEN2049, the Animoca occasion had quite a lot of audio system, comparable to Yat Siu, Chairman of Animoca Manufacturers, who spoke about digital property rights and royalties, in addition to a group of different visitor audio system.
VTVL, a token administration platform that automates token distribution through sensible contracts, additionally hosted its group occasion in collaboration with Baboon VC. The occasion was held on the Boundary Resort Rooftop for Web3 individuals to get collectively a day earlier than the TOKEN2049 occasion kicked off. The occasion featured notable attendees from a16z, Pantera Capital, Animoca Manufacturers, Leadblock and the NEAR Basis.
Conclusion
Whereas we are actually formally within the depths of the bear market, seeing occasions like TOKEN2049 thrive with 1000’s of individuals flying the world over to get collectively and speak about Web3 is unquestionably encouraging. In a method, it proves that the individuals that stay within the business are right here for the lengthy haul and that Web3 is right here to remain. Moreover, massive Web3 occasions proceed to be scheduled, with DCENTRAL Miami developing on the finish of November and the World Crypto Convention firstly of the brand new yr.
On the identical time, market turmoil and the collapse of FTX will probably make it tougher for tasks to lift capital and maintain themselves. Many present tasks and firms that can’t increase funds might want to preserve their remaining runway to remain afloat till market situations enhance. That is very true for ecosystems hit exhausting by the FTX insolvency disaster, comparable to Solana and the completely different tasks being constructed on it.
As with all bear markets, speculative and experimental tasks motivated purely by monetary achieve and unsustainable tokenomics will probably be washed away. Stronger tasks constructed on extra sustainable fashions will probably discover a solution to survive and get extra very important for the following bull cycle.
Web3 will probably see substantial exponential development within the coming years; we simply want to remain solvent lengthy sufficient to witness that future.
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All pictures courtesy of the writer
