[Event] Token 2049: Highlights from the Leading Voices in Crypto

Day 1

Scaling DeFi Towards Mass Adoption

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “Scaling DeFi Towards Mass Adoption”, Stani Kulechov, Founder and CEO of Aave, thinks that the market now is different from what it used to be. One of the drivers for DeFi is the yield component. Sustainable yield is what people have been talking about. The yield is low at the moment, which is an interesting situation with the great pool of liquidity now in the market.

Blockchain Researcher, Eric Wall, shares that the feature that would enable DeFi, is how quick anyone can let a product run on blockchain compared with traditional finance. Ethereum is a better platform for innovation.

Also, one of the beautiful things of DeFi is that no one can know what lies in the future.

Wintermute’s Founder and CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy says that one thing to drive the DeFi adoption is the abstraction of complexity ─ DeFi users want to feel safe while using the protocol. Speaking about the next big wave in DeFi, he believes it might come from GameFi, not those old blockchain games but actually new proper games. Web3 provides ownership of in-game assets that many games right now are not offering.

Marvin Ammori, Chief Legal Officer at Uniswap Labs, thinks it might take a while for traditional and decentralised finance to come across. A lot of people feel that traditional finance is easier to use, whereby one only needs to manage their private keys and wallet when using DeFi. The future of DeFi depends on the thing we build and ensuring everyone is able to use DeFi.

Fireside Chat: Mike Novogratz

Haslinda Amin, Chief International Correspondent at Bloomberg, is having a fireside chat with Mike Novogratz from Galaxy about Bitcoin and the economic situation happening currently. During the talk, both of them are discussing about Bitcoin’s performance since the pandemic, its future, and the next potential bull run of Bitcoin. Mike has also shares his thoughts about managing his investment firm's crypto portfolio.

The Institutionalisation of Crypto Markets

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “The Institutionalisation of Crypto Markets”, Kayvon Pirestani, Head of APAC Institutional Sales at Coinbase, points out that institutional investors have become more robust during the economic downturn. Also for the first time, a very big credit risk happened in the world of crypto which led to the retail volume decreasing more than the institutional volume. He goes on to explain that institutional investors who adopt a buy-and-hold strategy with a longer investment time horizon, come to the space making their first allocation in crypto, thus driving the volume higher than retail investors.

Tim McCourt, Global Head of Equity and FX products at CME Group, expresses that the market is starting to understand how to really use crypto. For instance, people are figuring out there are differences in Ethereum’s PoW and PoS protocols. Also from a regulatory standpoint, one of the standpoints is to offer regulatory products. Investors need a guarantee to have a regulated framework in place.

CEO of BitMEX, Alexander Höptner, shares that consolidation usually happens during the bear market where in the end there are only five to six players left. However, he does not think it will happen this time as there will definitely be a correction. In the future, crypto derivatives will be the biggest product ─ now is just the beginning. As crypto is increasingly being regulated, the bucket of trading volume will be opened as well.

Darius Sit, Managing Partner of QCP Capital, states that Asian investors tend to trade more compared to the buy-and-hold strategy when it comes to crypto investment, and are easily influenced by narration. The Ethereum’s Merge has driven ETH’s open position and flipped BTC’s open position for the first time in history. The next narrative will be Bitcoin’s halving in 2024.

Building Web3: Reinventing the Internet

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “Building Web3: Reinventing the Internet”, the panellists share their opinions on venture capital funding in the current bear market and also discuss about the project and technology in Web3 that they are excited for.

Fireside Chat: Daniel Ricciardo

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. F1 driver as well as the ambassador of OKX, Daniel Ricciardo, is having a fireside chat with Haider Rafique, OKX Chief Marketing Officer. Haider asks the F1 driver if he has any advice for investors on how to handle volatile emotions just as he handles it when racing. Daniel shares that ups and downs happen but what is important is to teach yourself never to get too high or too low, always keep it balanced. And if you know that you have put in the effort, victory will come soon. Daniel advises investors not to make emotional decisions, and to take a break if the state of mind is not stable.

As Daniel got into the crypto space last year and had been a part of the market volatility (Bitcoin going from $30K to $60k and now $19K), Haider questions if he is using any tactic, just like when he races on the tracks, as well as his view of his own portfolio and the current market. Daniel thinks that crypto investment is quite parallel with racing. Being patient is key. When someone overtakes you, perhaps in the 3^rd lap, if you feel frustrated and thus make a silly move, it could ruin your race. But there are 50 laps left; the chequered flag is still far ahead. With strategy and patience, you can slowly gain back the position, so having a long-term vision is very crucial.

Day 2

The Emerging Social Economy: Digitising Communities and Individuals

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “The Emerging Social Economy: Digitsing Communities and Individuals”, Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz points out that most PFP NFT projects start from scratch. There is no such thing as a legacy in the NFT scene currently, but maybe in the coming two to three years. Comparing with legacy brands in real life that are in the Web3 space, it is so much trouble, for example working with brands or Ips that have more than 100 years old history. Therefore, regulation is important to this business as we cannot afford to damage the brand’s reputation.

Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Napster says that the music space has a lot of interesting use of IP compared to sports. Artists are welcome to create something new together with the community. Streaming, merchandise, virtual reality in the metaverse, as well as Web3, music space has much more loose usage in IP. Fans and members participate in creating content with the artists, and at the same time, the artists are establishing connection with them.

Irene Zhao, Co-Founder of SO-COL expresses that from the creators’ perspective, say giving the IP to fans using AI technology, NFT holders can use this base model to create different contents. This could help to reach wider audience and grow a bigger community. It is all about creating content that is attractive and interesting.

Navigating Crypto as a Venture Fund

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “Navigating Crypto as a Venture Fund”, Daniel Chen, Partner at Sequonia Capital mentions that crypto has been through several cycles now. As a venture fund, one of the things he ended up working with is a unique idea.

Managing Partner at Dragonfly Capital, Haseeb Qureshi, adds on that in a bull market, it is very easy to raise money. While in a bear market, things become much harder but that pushes entrepreneurs to be more creative and ambitious. For instance, Solana, OpenSea, and Uniswap are all created during the bear market. He believes investors want to see entrepreneurs come up with riskier inventions in such market conditions.

Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital also adds on that in a bear market, with little or minimal funding, it is better to concentrate on one issue and solve it first. Try to figure out a way to make sense of it and to get a profit in the bear market. At such a time, building a great product will be a lot easier to get traction.

On-Chain: What is Really Happening on the Blockchain?

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “On-Chain: What Is Really Happening On The Blockchain?”, Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen states that it is important to think about the ethics which is a subjective statement. Now Tornado Cash’s usage has decreased, however before this, its usage is even lesser than people realise, like less than 25k addresses in total. Ethical judgment is an important point regarding how people value privacy as people have different opinions. Also one of the things he wants to highlight is the NFT market. He points out Solana and Magic Eden have been growing a lot, on the contrast, other NFT chains are going down a lot. If you only limit yourself to focusing on one ecosystem, you may miss out on the bigger picture.

Michael Gronager, CEO and Co-Founder of Chainalysis shares that there are different schemes to launder the stolen fund when the topic of one of the biggest hacks in the crypto scene, the Ronin incident, was brought up. In order to recover these funds, the important thing to do is to be fast. Several ways to launder funds such as an idle account in an exchange that was created many years ago just for this occasion, and funds transferred to a mixer. What the analysis provider needs to do is to figure out who did the hacking, then they will be able to seize the fund, thus having the data to identify the fund and the ability to trace the mixer used. Again, time is of the essence. They need to get ahead of the hackers so they can notify the exchange to free the wallet and let law enforcement collaborate with them. 10% of the funds have been recovered through this way so far.

Virtual Fireside Chat: Whale & 6529

Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly Capital, is having a virtual fireside chat with Punk 6529 and WhaleShark, Founder of WHALE about NFTs. WhaleShark shares that NFT is in the early market and on the right track. Crypto has its full cycle of a bull and bear run so a lot of people think that since NFT is non-fungible, they should be immune to the market ups and downs too. People fail to realise that NFT is not going mainstream. A lot of money that is flowing into NFT, is looking for short-term gains; the situation is actually the same as in the crypto market. In the future, high-end NFT artwork is going to be a safe asset; however, we are still quite far away from that. The current market is still relatively small; say a PFP NFT project only has 5k-6k holders, making the financial action limited to a limited market.

Punk 6529 mentions that PFP (profile picture) NFT is often the starter NFT for a lot of people because it is easier to be hands-off. It is easier, safer, and more comprehensible. He believes most PFP NFTs do not have financial performance, but the same goes for most altcoins too. There are millions of art created in the real world annually but not many people can name a few famous pieces, the same goes for NFT. The fact that PFP NFT collections are volatile is no different. His view is someday everyone will have their own PFP, and everyone will have their own avatar. One thing he keeps stressing is, nobody cares which PFP you use or how much it cost, everyone has their own opinions. And a lot of people are too caught up in which collection is the best.

The Path Ahead: Onboarding a Billion Users

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “The Path Ahead: Onboarding a Billion Users”, Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-Founder of Hex Trust emphasises that security is really a problem in the beginning when the blockchain business started. Looking back six to seven years, most security issues have been addressed. For now, to ensure assets can be securely used on a daily basis like gaming or DeFi and not just for storing crypto in the wallet, is challenging.

Pascal Gauthier, Chairman and CEO of Ledger says that to attract people to get into crypto, it has to be meaningful to them, unlike merely downloading an app from the app store. He thinks NFT is phenomenal because users do not care about the war between Bitcoin and Ethereum, they care about the collection instead. All brands have embarked on the digital journey for the last 10 years and where we are now, we are already at Web3. It is a very natural expansion of business; they understand that NFT does have utility.

Jaynti Kanani, Co-Founder of Polygon points out that what is happening currently is that Web2 companies are figuring out how to integrate with Web3 platforms to give users something on the Web3 level. What he sees as the problem of non-custodian in the future is security issue. The second security aspect of the wallet is account extraction and smart contract wallet, which are very hard for users to understand.

Insight Across the Asian Crypto Landscape

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the roundtable discussion titled “Insight Across the Asian Crypto Landscape”, Ryan Kim, Co-Founder and Partner of Hashed explains that the Web 2 investment in Korea is flourishing quite well, and now Web 2 companies have the intention to move to Web3 to find more opportunities. Game developers, AAA studios, and tech giants are making good and legitimate projects. He foresees they will be more opportunities in these two years. One of the interesting projects that happened recently is a decentralised K-pop group which most investors are interested in. Fans could participate in the journey of their favourite group by minting NFT and voting.

Matthew Graham, CEO of Sino Global Capital says that crypto is a risk-on asset now and is starting to mature into an investment class asset. He thinks that the bear market is for making money, while the bull market is to see how much you really made. The bear market is the perfect time, as the speculators have left while the builders remained. One of the important things he wants to emphasise is that we need to look at each separate market when viewing the overall crypto landscape in Asia as there is a massive variation from one country to another.

Gleb Kostarev, Regional Head of Asia at Binance feels that there are different interesting trends happening in Asia ─ in the bear market, it is always the strong projects that survive and that Asia will be the key driver during the next bull run. Crypto has a huge population in some countries whereby the financial system is not too strong, so there is an opportunity for crypto to be adopted in these places. Currently, huge instability in the world, politics, and economics-wise, is driving crypto adoption. Overall, NFT has great technology behind it, though many people think it is just a picture behind the blockchain. The major challenge in Asia, for now, is the regulation.

Jason Kam, Founder of Folius Ventures thinks that something they have learnt when asked about his perspective on “x-to-earn” games as he is an early investor in STEPN, a move-to-earn game that has fallen steeply recently, is regarding the user profile and earning mechanics. The ultimate question is where the cash flow comes from. In the end, the cash flow has to match what goes out. He thinks the industry for this is still too early right now. Moving forward for x-to-earn games, more careful and constrained approaches are necessary. A lot of experiments need to be carried out to figure out token economics.

AI, Blockchain and Metaverse

Coinlive reporting at Token 2049 in Singapore. In the last keynote of this event, we have a special guest, an AI robot “Sophia” from SingularityNet. SingularityNet’s mission is to create a decentralised, democratic, inclusive, and beneficial Artificial General Intelligence. The way they want to achieve their goal is to be guided by their core values, which are open, creative, collaborative, and kind.