Web3 Innovators

In the ninth episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Lex Sokolin, Chief Cryptoeconomics Officer at ConsenSys where he has built and now leads the Cryptoeconomics team.

Lex is a New York and London entrepreneur who previously held the role of CMO & Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys. He also writes a Fintech newsletter, Fintech Blueprint.

Episode highlights:

• How being at a Conference and seeing how many other people owned Bitcoin, inspired Lex to start
• The challenges surrounding Blockchain adoption
• Lex’s view on the current capital market situation and how this impacts people’s view on crypto
• How speculation surrounding regulation can generate economic use cases
• How Lex believes computational infrastructure will develop as we want to create digital third spaces for ourselves, away from the home and office
• The pain points that people experience in crypto
• Lex’s opinion on where companies should and shouldn’t be using Blockchain
• How he believes Web3 technology will impact the financial landscape over the next 10 years

Key Takeaways:

• It’s figuring out and taking action on how to help crypto businesses operate and how to remove barriers that prevent those businesses from having functional operations. So, it’s more about having these seamless rails in place, so that people can engage with the technology. - Lex
  
  
• I think that you can draw a line and you can say, is blockchain a cost saver for your company or is it a revenue generator? - Lex
  
  
• You can look at Apollo or KKR, the large private equity firms or some of the large hedge funds that are essentially price insensitive and are willing to continue investing into an ecosystem that they own because they own the underlying capital for the whole ecosystem. - Lex
  
  
• I think there's some cases where they just put all of their own float on top of their own system or a system that essentially holds through equity ownership. But I think for most midsize to small, to even medium or large banks, the cost savings story is tough. - Lex
  
  
• What's going to feel very natural in 10 or 15 years is that you'll have digital ownership over all your stuff. And if it's not on chain, and you don't have it in your wallet, then you will feel like it's not real. Like in the same way that I wouldn't want that paper document today, because it does me no good. - Lex

Connect with Lex on Twitter

Resources:

• ConsenSys
• ConsenSys Cryptoeconomics
• Fintech Blueprint
• Coinbase
• Apollo

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In the eighth episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Weiwu Zhang, Founder and CTO of Smart Token Labs.

Weiwu has over 9 years of experience in blockchain technology, alt currency design and trading algorithms. He has served as a blockchain architect for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, held the R3 global architect office, and also architected 3 altcoins and 7 ICO projects.

Smart Token Labs is creating a new standard for a tokenized future, building composable smart token bridges from tomorrow to today.

Connect with Weiwu on Twitter

Episode highlights:

• How Weiwu bought his first Bitcoin in 2010, which sparked his interest in blockchain
• Where his inspiration and focus came from, which led to him founding his own company 
• The struggles he faced starting Smart Token Labs at a time when the community viewed tokens differently
• The broad change of perception and understanding of tokens sparked by NFTs
• Issues they face with wider adoption of the technology
• How technology capabilities will increase as people demand more functions from tokens
• Weiwu’s belief that tokens will create a less frictional market
• What Soulbound tokens are and what they may mean for the future
• What Weiwu believes mainstream adoption of tokens will look like in 10 years time

Key Takeaways:

• Instead of trying to focus on how to make the blockchain programmable, I try to understand what blockchain means to the industry. - Weiwu
  
  
• People started to see tokens differently because NFTs demonstrated that tokens can be different things. Ever since, it became very easy for us to explain the idea behind Smart Token Labs, how smart tokens can reduce market friction and allow integrated applications like Web3 without synchronised points. - Weiwu
  
  
• Businesses need to see that with wider access to the market, they're able to sell more goods and services. So they should be more incentivised to use tokens. - Weiwu
  
  
• We will see a lot of token use cases. We will see all of the smart devices have a token interface.That includes cars, smart luggage or smart meeting rooms. We will see individuals start issuing their time as tokens so that if you want to book a meeting room your app can solve this automatically by the token from the market. - Weiwu
  
  
• Previously Chrome and Firefox struggled with the idea of whether or not they should be Web3 browsers and connect to the blockchain. The reason they struggled is they didn't see how connecting blockchain would change the web experience. But that will change because they will start to realise that it's not the blockchain they're connecting, it's the token that they're servicing. - Weiwu

Resources:

• Smart Token Labs
• Bitcoin
• Commonwealth Bank Australia
• NFT
• Labo
• Soulbound Tokens

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In the seventh episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Tyrone Lobban, Head of Blockchain Launch and Onyx Digital Assets at J.P. Morgan where he’s responsible for identifying and creating innovative blockchain- based products and solutions.

Prior to this he was Senior Blockchain Product Manager in J.P. Morgan's Blockchain Center of Excellence and was also the Product Lead for Quorum.

Connect with Tyrone on Twitter

Episode highlights:

• How Tyrone’s career evolved from Product Management in Credit Markets to becoming a Software Developer, before reading the Ethereum White Paper which changed his trajectory into Blockchain
• The early days of the Blockchain program at J.P. Morgan and how this subsequently became Onyx
• Why J.P. Morgan launched Quorum and how this has developed
• The challenges and opportunities J.P. Morgan have faced due to the high level of interest in Blockchain projects
• The complexities when setting up and implementing a use case, even if the end state is clear
• Tyrone’s advice for anyone looking to use technology to solve a problem within their industry
• The work that is happening moving money on to Blockchain and how Tyrone sees this progressing

Key Takeaways:

• It was an obvious thing for me to want to get into this technology. I could see, especially with my experience through the financial crisis, how much a technology like this can bring everyone on the same page - having a shared ledger of information, streamlining processes and information flow. How that could really make a difference. - Tyrone
  
  
• It's always been about the technology. Web3 wasn't really a word back then. I'm just extremely passionate about how we can use the tech to make improvements, not just within finance, but across industries generally. - Tyrone
  
  
• It’s evolved over the years, but I would say internally we've been quite consistent around how we want to use the technology. What we have learned is exactly where it makes sense and where it doesn't necessarily make sense. And that has helped us to be more precise around the types of use cases that we focus on. - Tyrone
  
  
• For us it's really about how we create value not only for ourselves, but for our clients and how we really make it a step change improvement. - Tyrone
  
  
• We're looking to disrupt an industry or disrupt a business or create something entirely new. So it's very rare that you don't have this challenge of okay, what is the interim step going to be? - Tyrone
  
  
• We launched a tokenization platform called Onyx Digital Assets, which is a general tokenization platform. It allows for you to represent traditional assets on Blockchain. We've seen real value through this platform. We are saving millions of dollars a year. - Tyrone

Resources:

• Onyx Digital Assets
• Ethereum White Paper
• Ethereum Enterprise Alliance 
• Quorum

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In the sixth episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Daniel Heyman the Co-Founder and CEO of Palm NFT Studio. 

Palm NFT studio is a collective of Software Developers, Generative Artists, Storyworld Creators, and Strategists and spans all aspects of Web3 technology and creative production.

Before starting his current company, Daniel was the Co-Founder of PegaSys, which is now the Protocol Engineering division of ConsenSys.

Episode highlights:

• How studying the adoption of mobile technology in Kenya got Daniel interested in the space
• His learning outcomes from founding a company that wasn’t successful and the path after this
• Where the inspiration for Palm NFT Studio came from and its founding story
• The challenges the company has faced in its 1st year and how they have worked to overcome them
• Their aim for people to have direct ownership over the digital assets they care about and how they are trying to make this a reality
• Daniel’s belief that eventually all assets will be represented by NFTs

Key Takeaways:

• It seemed evident to me that if we could connect the biggest brands in the world into this technology innovation, we could not only produce some really meaningful projects, but we could use those as the tip of the spear to broader adoption of our entire ecosystem. So Palm Studio set out to create the best platform for large scale web artists, creators, and brands to adopt Web3 technologies. - Daniel
  
  
• A huge problem that NFT’s have is the misconception in the market of what they are. A lot of people see them as speculative assets that are there to make a quick buck, and people understandably react negatively to that idea. - Daniel
  
  
• We need to do a lot of work educating the fan base that this isn't a way to make a quick buck. It is to give the audience a deeper connection to the brand and people's relationship to the brand. It’s to give them a piece of the universe, or a piece of the art, or something they can truly own themselves. - Daniel
  
  
• Everything is focused around delivering value to the end user and if there's revenue associated with that, wonderful. But, just like any product, you start from the point of what value you are providing, not how much money you can make. - Daniel
  
  
• My belief is that in five years, 99% of NFTs will either be free or below $10. These need to be things that everyone can adopt and consume and interact with, and they can't just be high value collectables for the crypto rich. - Daniel

Resources:

• Palm NFT Studio
• PegaSys
• ConsenSys
• MIT's Poverty Action Lab
• Safaricom
• DefiSummer
• Damien Hirst Project

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In the fifth episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner who founded the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC) at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

The Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC) was launched in February 2017 and analyses the implications of blockchain technology on companies and business models.

Philipp was ranked among the top 30 Economists by FAZ, a major newspaper in Germany. He was also in the ‘Top 40 under 40’ ranking by the German Business Magazine, Capital. 

Episode highlights:

• How Philipp started Bitcoin as a hobby, before setting this up within the University 
• Can Bitcoin be framed as a commodity?
• Whether Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralised assets
• Exploring new developments in the Web3 domain
• How recent FTX Exchange activity has affected the crypto market
• Why Philipp believes companies have struggled to get into the Blockchain and the workaround for this
• The pros and cons of regulation in the space
• Philipp’s view on legacy vs new networks 
• How new technologies are changing the way we work and who comes into the space

Key Takeaways:

• As years have been passing, I think we can say that we are now regarded as an institution, as a think tank, educating people in the field focusing on all these topics, including Bitcoin, a couple of crypto assets projects and also focusing on stable coins and so on. - Philipp
• Even Bitcoin is not fully decentralised. You have some central aspects there as well. But from all that we know, I think Bitcoin is by far the most decentral asset out there. - Philipp
• It's a little bit sad for Bitcoin, because Bitcoin was never the problem this year. Bitcoin was something like the victim, it has been dragged down, like synchrony with other assets. - Philipp
• In the token ecosystem, in the crypto ecosystem, there are also approaches popping up with regard to Web3 in the metaverse which will be really changing the world. - Philipp
• Corporations have had huge difficulties getting into the blockchain ecosystem. They try to apply this technology like any other enterprise technology, but blockchain is different. - Philipp
• Blockchain creates new economic areas which haven't been there, and therefore, they can't be one to one compared to existing legacy domains. - Philipp

Resources:

• Connect with Philipp on Twitter
• Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
• Capital
• Neo Banks

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In the fourth episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Carlos Vivaus Augier, Senior Principal Engineer / Director (Innovation & Research) at The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

DTCC and its family of companies serve as the premier post-trade market infrastructure in the industry, advancing the automation, centralization, standardisation and streamlining of processes critical to the markets’ safety and soundness.

Carlos has worked as a Blockchain advisor for Tier 1 and large corporations from Finance, Energy, Health and Retail industries. He was awarded 2nd place in a national level blockchain hackathon and he co-authored two Blockchain books with top experts from the space.

Episode highlights:

• How Carlos became involved in the space 
• How platforms integrate with Ethereum 
• The regulatory framework
• What goes on chain vs what stays off
• Carlos’ view on blockchain's impact on the industry

Key Takeaways:

• “Our goal is that this platform is able to support multiple networks or operate on multiple networks.”  - Carlos
• “So this is, I guess to some extent the first time that you would see users have the possibility to mint a security to an Ethereum main net so it could introduce efficiencies in secondary market where investors who directly hold those securities in their wallets are able to instruct transactions directly from their wallet on the blockchain.”  - Carlos
• “It's better, as an enterprise with a highly regulated environment, to be conservative on how we use it and how we protect our clients and our users.” - Carlos
• “The important thing here is that the challenge is not necessarily how you're exchanging those assets, it is whether or not you're compliant with the rules of that asset.”  - Carlos
• “What I like about the main net is not the fact that it's a public blockchain, it's the fact that it's a common infrastructure that could be used and that it works a hundred percent uptime, right since it started.” - Carlos

Resources:

• DTCC
• Opinnio
• Ethereum Mainnet
• Enterprise Ethereum Alliance
• Commercializing Blockchain

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In the third episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Julian Kwan, Co-Founder at Investax. Investax is a Singapore licensed digital asset securities platform.  

They provide key infrastructure to digitise real assets, so you can use them to buy, sell, trade, borrow or lend instantly, across the world, 24x7.

Julian has founded 6 companies over his 22-year career based in Asia, including social media/technology, real estate investment & development, proptech and blockchain. He is currently focused on building key digital infrastructure connecting TradFi (Traditional Finance) to DeFi (Decentralized Finance).

Connect with Julian on Twitter

Episode highlights:

• How Julian got started in the space.
• The importance of being licensed in a specific jurisdiction in order to provide a web3 type of service.
• Using technology as a better way to hold, issue and trade shares.
• DAOs living on Ethereum and finding ways to regulate this.
• NFTs as the future of memberships, communities and frequent flyers.
• Julian gives advice to those thinking about buying into an NFT, or crypto.

Key Takeaways:

• “If you look at the public markets as we know them today, every significant expansion of capital is when new technology married that marketplace.” - Julian
• “You're either living in a cave or you don't understand what the Bitcoin White paper did to create such a kind of a paradigm shift in what is, how humans are exchanging value and how they communicate and how they actually exist.” - Julian
• “My vision was, if you open up your phone and you can see all your stocks on interactive brokers and you buy them really easily, why shouldn't we be able to do that with all of our assets?” - Julian
• “The more that there's institutional adoption for the whole space, the more that it does move towards the regulated space.” - Julian
• “The industry grows the volume of trades, volume of assets, and so if you're in that space as an investor, numerically, it's working for you. Even if philosophically it might be losing.” - Julian

Resources:

• Network State
• Ethereum
• Investax
• Ixswap
• Infinity and Beyond Podcast

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In the second episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Steve Newcomb, Chief Product Officer at Matter Labs. Matter Labs, an engineering team passionate about liberty, blockchain, and math. They are the creators of zkSync, the number one layer two solution for blockchain developers.

Steve is best known for Powerset, a natural language search engine, which he co-founded and scaled. He later sold it to Microsoft, and it’s now known as Microsoft Bing.

Connect with Steve on Twitter

Episode highlights:

• How Steve was introduced to Ethereum 
• What is the biggest challenge that Matter Labs has seen as an organisation?
• Releasing the world’s first end to end general purpose zkProver onto Testnet.
• Going live on mainnet with a full end to end ZK system that is EVM compatible. 
• A brief overview of what a prover is in this context. 
• Blockchain as an internet computer, not a database. 
• The tension around the topic of privacy in blockchain.
• Steve gives advice to those who are thinking about the potential Web3 and blockchain could have in their industry.

Key Takeaways:

• “Two days ago we released the world's first end to end general purpose zkProver onto Testnet.” - Steve
• “What's so beautiful about ZK technology is that unlike other technologies it actually scales infinitely because it has the inherent property of recursion in it, and it can scale things with perfection because it is not some sort of game theory where you're paying people to find fraud in the system, it is a mathematical proof based system so it just is perfect.”  - Steve
• “A decentralised blockchain cannot be shut down and it cannot be hacked. Therefore, there is no role for the government, they cannot police this, they cannot adjudicate it, they cannot make laws against it with any effect. And what does that mean for humanity? What does that mean for society?” - Steve

Resources:

• Ethereum
• Matter Labs 
• zksync
• zkEVM
• zkSync End-to-End Prover

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In the first episode of our new season of Web3 Innovators, our host Conor Svensson is joined by Rhomaios Ram, CEO of Fnality International. Fnality was founded to create a network of decentralised financial market infrastructures to deliver the means of payment on chain in wholesale banking markets. 

In this episode, Rhomaios shares how he became involved in blockchain and Web3 as a traditional banker. 

In this episode you’ll hear:

• The transition from The Utility Settlement Coin Project to Fnality International.
• Finding a legal structure that mimicked what was happening in the crypto space.
• The 3 design criterias for on-chain means of payments.
• The difficulty of fitting this new technology into the existing regulatory environment without creating new legislation.
• Meeting the high standards needed to become a payment system.
• The difficulties of working in a highly controlled market.
• The future of permissionless blockchain.
• The primary focus for Fnality and its investments.

Key Takeaways:

• “I think in the last seven or eight months the crypto space and the big push towards web3 has created a sense of inevitability about this change coming.” - Rhomaios Ram
• “Many more people in the traditional space, instead of thinking about if it is going to happen, they're thinking ‘what is going to happen and how do I position myself’.” - Rhomaios Ram

Resources:

• Deutsche Bank
• Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures, BIS Report April 2012

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Exciting news! The Web3 Innovators Podcast returns next week with a new season packed full of new learning from leaders who are changing the face of finance and other industries with web3 and blockchain technologies 🎉

➡️ In Season 5 you'll hear from guests like Rhomaios Ram - CEO Fnality, Julian Kwan - CEO & Co-founder InvestaX and Steve Newcomb - Chief Product Officer - Matter Labs amongst many others 

➡️ Episodes every Wednesday with seasons that include handy recaps so you won’t miss key learnings from our guests

➡️ Subscribe now so you don’t miss out on Episode 1 of Season 5

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