Epicenter: Web 3.0 and cryptocurrency | Live at 14:20 UTC, Nov. 6

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to to Cointelegraph China, cointelegraph and Cryptomeria Epicenter Lisbon Crypto Conference thank you very much for taking your time and being here with us today. Before we get started, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to everyone who supported this event and make it happen a huge success as it is, including Alchemy, Pay, Neo, Cross, the Ages X Protocol, Platon, Heco and Binance. Also the special thanks go to all the speakers who made it here today and will share their expertise and in depth knowledge with us. At the time where emerging technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency offer various possibilities to different industries in the world, a growing interest in how the convergence of traditional enterprises and finance with these technologies has begun. Today we gather the CEOs and founders of technology companies, fast growing startups, policymakers, traditional and crypto VCs to have an in depth dialogue and understand what is next. Thank you very much for your attention and please help me welcome at the stage the CEO of cointelegraph China and the founding member of crypto Crypto Myriad Capital, Vadim Krikotin. Your applause please.

Hello everyone. I'm so excited to see all of you guys here. It's my pleasure to be in Lisebon and presenting a welcome speech to you. So first of all I want to start and tell you a little bit more about my background. I spent more than 10 years in China so I can speak Chinese.

Hello.

Yes. So I'm back to English and I'm co founder and CEO of Cointelegraph Chinese. During this pandemic situation, it was so difficult to handle all the things, but at the same time we handle it. And for the last statistics, we have more than 20 million impressions per month for our Chinese speaking audience which is in Singapore, in China, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong. So for us as a media, we definitely want to deliver the most freshest news to find interesting stories for you guys to know. Also I want to say a couple more words about me. I'm also a founding partner of Crypto Mary Capital. My first investment in crypto was in 2017. So I'm sort of like a veteran in space when your first bitcoin was less than US$1,000. So right now for many people it's something like wow, like my first Bitcoin, maybe 30,000 or 50,000.

Yes.

And I started as angel investor to many projects in 2017. Right now we have Crypto Marriott Capital, we investing in the best projects who building the web three technologies because I do believe that this is the future, this is something that's coming. And I'm so excited to be in the edge of the new things, just circling back like four years ago. I cannot even imagine that Facebook can change the name to Meta. I cannot even imagine visa can buy NFTs for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And on the beginning of the Web Summit, the second speech will be from Sarar about nft. Yeah. So for me it's so exciting to see that things is happening, but I do believe we are still in the very beginning in our industry. We have so many things to do. And thanks everyone who come today, who support us, who helping the industry to grow. I also want to say thanks a lot to our sponsors, to our friends, to our partner cointelegraph. For everyone who come here, I want to say thank you for our YouTube followers who are watching us online, for our Chinese audience. Fei Changi woman Ye kind woman. So thanks everyone. Yes, my pleasure.

Enjoy. Thank you.

So the first one up is an online opening from Hong Fei Da, the founder of Neo, who will be talking to us about Neo and three building blocks to the Web 3.0.

Thank you. Hi guys, this is Da Eunfei from Nio. Thank you very much for your kind introduction and having me today. It's a pity that I cannot make the trip to Lisbon this time, but actually I was in Lisbon in 2019 during the web Summit conference. I was really impressed by the city. The people are very friendly, the weather is good, air is clean and the restaurants, I was really impressed by the restaurant. The seafood here is fantastic. Most importantly that Lisbon has become one of the blockchain technology hub not just for Europe, but also for the world globally. I think the biggest reason is the crypto friendly environment here. The policies, the education, the talents here are really fantastic. As we know, the last one or two years are the fast growing of Web 3.0, of NFT, of Metaverse and NIO had been a tremendous f. Had put a tremendous effort into. Into these different sectors. And today I would like to take this opportunity to introduce some of the new updates of New, especially the new version of new new N3. So let's get started. I'll do a very short, about 5 to 10 minutes introduction of new N3 and as the title says, new entry is the building blocks for Web 3.0. So the first slide is the definition of 3.0 or my understanding of Web 3.0. In my opinion, Web 3.0 is an innovation at a lower level, penetrating from surface to the underlying protocols. When the Internet started in 1990s, the applications are mostly websites. The information are flow from the creator to the consumer in one way, not two ways. And the representative websites are Yahoo and search engines like Baidu. And then people started to build platforms, people started to invent those user generated content websites. The iconic applications will be Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok. This applications, those websites are not just delivering message from our content, from the creator to consumers. They also allow users to create contents. They are more like marketplace play in both directions and they also aggregate all supply and demand together. But the downside is they're like the monopoly of a market. And then we see emerge of Bitcoin, the blockchain technology, the decentralization ideology. People started to reinvent the protocols, reinvent the rules, so more distributed, more inclusive applications can be built on top of those Web 3.0 protocols. So this is my understanding of Web 3.0. It's not a replacement of Web 1 or Web 2. It's innovation at a different level. New S3 will be the infrastructure for 3.0, mainly for three reasons. One, we have several new functionalities. Second, we have a new governance model. And third, we've built a new ecosystem. So let's look at one by one. First are the new functionalities. With new entry we have new ID, a generalized decentralized identity solution built in the Neo N3 mainnet. And we also have NEOFS, an open network for distributed storage paralleled with a new network. So if you are a developer of new entry and you have the ability to mapping real world identity utilizing uid, you have the ability to save any data no matter how big the data is. And the last functionality is called Oracle. With the Oracle functionality, any smart contract on new entry will be able to read any given URL from the Internet. So it will act like a bridge between current Internet or web 1.0 and web 2.0 and the blockchain, the web 3.0. So Neo is like an all in one toolbox for any blockchain developers. And this page is about the new governance model. With new entry we designed a new governance. Every NEO token is a voting power. And if you have one neo, you have one vote. So with your NEO token you can vote for any address as long as they are registered as a candidate. And also any new wallet address can be registered as a candidate. And the votes will be calculated every 21 blocks. The top 21 address or the top 21 candidates will form the new council. The council will do the on chain governance together by voting there will be adjust those parameters like block time, consensus nodes, number of consensus nodes and other parameters and Also the top seven of the top 21 new council members will be responsible for the processing or the recording of transactions. In the past several years NIO has developed a large community across the world. There are sponsored communities in China, in us in Europe and in many other places. For example, the new fs the decentralized file storage system are independently built by NIO spcc. Most of their members are living in St. Petersburg in Russia. Many of the security audit of smart contracts on NIO are overviewed by Red Fossec which are based in Spain. Many of the consensus improvement optimization are proposed by New research who are based in Brazil and the biggest new media, the biggest media about new blockchain are based in America called New News Today and the two biggest execution arm of new foundation are based in Shanghai and Seattle called NGD New Global Development and this page are a list of various applications projects are in the new ecosystem. Now let's talk a little about Metaverse. My understanding of the relationship between Metaverse and FT and Web 3.0 are that Web 3.0 will be the supporting infrastructure of Metaverse. Without various infrastructures of Web 3.0 it will be impossible to build a unified, a generalized, a interoperable Metaverse. And I can call Metaverse a tokenized cyberspace FT or fungible token will be the economics the incentive behind VIP 3.0. But NFT, which represents different goods, different commodities, different items or assets in games in virtual reality will be the supporting will be the main token inside metaverse. So N3 are ready for Metaverse applications and we have NFT standards NEP 11, we have various NFT projects, we have GameFi projects and we also have invested also invested in the marketplace called Ghost Market, which is very similar to OpenSea and also to memorize the launch of mainnet of N3, we also issued a Neoverse NFT token to our community members. And because N3 is almost like a completely new blockchain with new architecture, with new functionalities, with new governance model. So we have to do a migration from new legacy today's new or yes, it is new to today's new new N3. And here is the update of the migration progress. 70% of the new token had been migrated to N3 and there are over 10,000 N3 addresses generated on the mainnet and the voting had already represent 47% of all the new voting power. There are many transactions a lot of transactions every day. They are already deployed more than 20 different decentralized applications. And also centralized exchanges like Binance, OKEx or Huobi had already supported N3 or will support N3 very soon. Since the infrastructure of new N3 is completely ready now, you can join new community in various ways. If you want to earn some gas, you can campaign for a new console candidate. You can also run a new FS or a new Oracle network nodes to earn some gas. And if you are a developer or a entrepreneur, you want to start up some new projects, you can also apply for grants also or investment from new Eco fund. So I welcome you to join us to start building for Web 3.0 a better Internet. Thank you guys. I hope you enjoyed my introduction about new N3 next year. I would like to meet you guys in person or in the metaverse built on new entry. Thank you.

So the first one up in person is the keynote speech from Carmen Tang, who is the chief of staff and head of communications at Alchemy Pay, who will be talking to us about bridging the crypto in fiat global economies.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you're all enjoying Lisbon as much as I am. I think I've probably eaten about 20 of those pastry things so far. My name is Carmen and I'll be speaking on behalf of Alchemy Pay today. We've been following the developments in the crypto payment space and I think it's clear to say that crypto payments are the future of mainstream finance. The chain analysis report back in August reported at 8. Go back.

Sorry.

Bear with us. Ah, thank you. Cheers.

No worries.

Is this one working? 2 secs, we'll be back. Do you want to check? Sorry for interruption. We're just fixing some minor technical problems and we'll be back in 30 seconds. Thank you.

It. It.

Thank you very much for your patience. We're ready to be back. Please help me welcome Carmen and let's start the keynote. Thank you. It wouldn't be a tech conference without technical difficulties. Right. So where was I? My name is Carmen and I'll be speaking on behalf of Alchemy Pay today. We've been watching developments in the crypto payments sector and I think it's fair to say that crypto payments is the future of mainstream finance. The chainalysis report back in August has announced that there's nearly been nearly a 900% increase in crypto adoption globally. 900%. The technology and infrastructure has been rapidly growing and you'll see countries such as El Salvador and Lebanon with high inflationary figures that are adopting cryptocurrency fast. Every McDonald's and Starbucks in El Salvador now accepts bitcoin. This is something that we wouldn't have imagined even just two years ago. I want to ask you guys in the audience, hands up. Hands up is when you were younger, your parents told you to save. Okay, so quite a few of you. Saving actually, in case you didn't know, saving erodes your wealth. And the reason why is that fiat currencies. So for those of you who don't know what a fiat currency is, these are currencies pegged by the government and aren't pegged gold. So. So printing more money creates inflation and therefore reduces the value of this currency. We here at Alchemy Pay have been seeing that there's been a huge increase in crypto adoption. And we've seen that people understand that defi services in crypto not only work, but they can really change the society in a profound way. The crypto era is here. 2021's global crypto adoption index has revealed that there's been an 881% increase in global adoption of crypto between Q2 of 2019 and Q2 of this year. You'll see waves of global brands including the likes of Amazon, ebay, wework all integrating crypto into their services. So what do we do here at Alchemy Pay? So we offer an all in one solution, a gateway to bridge the gap between the fiat and crypto world. We allow merchants to accept crypto at the point of sale and to convert that into local currency, whether that's B2B, C to B, it's simple. Crypto and fiat payment acceptance are widely being accepted all around the world. Expertise, networking and experience is core to the foundation of our founders. And this gives us our special edge in the crypto payment space. Our founders all come from huge giant payment veterans including the likes of PayPal, MasterCard and Tencent, who all believe that crypto is the future. We have over around 50 developers who are all working together to help build merchants and help merchants to accept cryptocurrency. We started out in Singapore and started deploying our services back in 2018 and we are now in over 60 plus countries servicing 200 plus fiat payment channels. But what do these numbers really mean? Alchemy Pay is really the bridge between the crypto and fiat economy because nowadays with many crypto and blockchain projects happening, it can be difficult to have real world use cases. And so we are really here to bridge that gap between the current world and the digital world. So how does it work? Crypto's ability to bypass the costly aspects of the interchange and acquiring banks allows Alchemy pay to reduce to reduce fees and create lower cost transactions. Currently, credit card providers are charging merchants around 2.5 to 3.5% on fees. On top of this, there's often a fixed fee and merchants often don't receive their money until one to two weeks later. By bypassing this middle mint, we can cut costs and actually reduce consumer fees to around 50 to 60%. Our ACH token is pledged, deposited, paid as fees and incentivized for a highly functional ecosystem. Due to our increase in adoption over our merchants over the past few years, we've experienced 150x increase in our token price and we've also grown our community followers across Reddit, Twitter, Twitter and telegram by 10x to 100 200k. This has meant that we've been listed of some of the world's most established crypto exchanges, including the likes of coinbase, gemini and crypto.com and many more. But what we're really excited is our partnerships. We work with industry giants across crypto and fiat worlds. We take a very top down level strategy whereby we work with merchants, industry leaders and licenses to help scale and to drive adoption in a faster pace. One partnership that we have is Binance. We started out in Singapore and in Hong Kong working with different merchants such as Celebi and Marina Bay Sands and many more. And now we are accepting BNB and BUSB pay payments by over 2 million plus merchants. We're also among one of the first acquirers to be accepted by Binance Pay and now we have over 60 million plus users that can pay over 40 different cryptocurrencies. As one of the global leaders in the crypto payment space, we are super proud to be the official payment partner for Shopify. But what are this, what does this actually mean? This means that we have availability to over 1 million merchants for Shopify merchants who can actually see the alchemy pay solution and now accept fiat and crypto payments. On top of this, we've also partnered with one of Southeast Asia's leading global remittance partners, neom. How many of you have actually tried to send money abroad and don't actually know how much you're getting charged? There's many fixed fees that you often get when you're sending money abroad and often we don't actually know how much this is going to be. These problems are problems back in the analog world, but we now live in a digital world and so why should we be paying fees when we aren't even crossing borders? It's now time to get rid of the old analog financial system and step into the new one. Another exciting partnership that we've been meaning to announce is one of our Middle Eastern conglomerates. We set up a JV with a Middle Eastern conglomerate. Now due to NDAs, we can't announce the name yet, but please stay tuned on our socials. We'll be announcing this later this quarter. This conglomerate has over 1 billion in revenue and they own numerous shopping centers, malls, restaurants and premium hotels. Why is this exciting? This is exciting because we can't wait to see the scale and the impact that we have on this area of the world. Oh, go back on the left here you'll see an example of one of the solutions that we'll be deploying. Users will be able to top up their wallets in AED or USD through credit cards or E wallet payments. They'll also be able to access defi services such as crypto lending or staking. Over 90% of UAE residents are currently expats. What does this mean? This means there's huge demand in that space for emitting money globally. What our solution will be able to do is provide reduce remittance fees of up to 80% will also be offline and will be in stores and shops around the Middle east. And we'll be providing institutional services to other servicing corporations, banks and financial institutions. One of our White Label Tokens One of our white label services includes a loyalty token. So we enable businesses to issue loyalty tokens and integrate this with their users. Often starting a loyalty program can be costly and quite inefficient. It takes time to reconcile everything but running our service using our service on the blockchain, we'll be able to reconcile and create efficient redemption. A second new service that we've announced recently is our Crypto linked cards. We'll be providing a white label service for blockchain projects, other institutions, financial institutions and corporations. We've partnered up with six world renowned artists including the likes of Songting to issue NFT Limited edition Crypto linked cards. So it's been a period of great success for us. And also in the crypto payment sector, we've had new partnerships, we've had token price growth and we've also experienced huge community growth. Make sure we invite you to connect with us on social media as we'll be announcing some of our exciting new JVs coming up soon. But often what you'll see is that the crypto payment sector is still often quite fragmented and lacks interoperability. We here at Alchemy Pay are able to connect all of these different partners within the blockchain infrastructure all across payment banks and exchanges and cryptocurrencies merchants and many more. And the blockchain industry can often be quite fragmented still, and we understand that this requires maintenance, and to keep it optimal requires this maintenance. So with that in mind, we have started the Blockchain Infrastructure Alliance. With other founding members, including Polygon, Conflux, Conflux, Near Neo and other industry veterans, we've put together an alliance where we can invite members to help uplift the blockchain industry. We're connected with over 30 different academics across Ivy League universities to really help to showcase the future trends in the blockchain space. We've also started an ecosystem fund whereby we will be providing the funds and resources many different developers to help incubate and work on these exciting enterprises to help uplift the blockchain space. As you all know, there are many different blockchain and crypto companies happening right now. And we see that we can create huge synergies within the space if we are all talking to each other. So with that in mind, I think it's a really exciting time to be alive. And with talk of the metaverse and everything, we see that when we look at the future, we envision one of financial inclusion, transparency and honesty for people, no matter where they're from and from what geography. If you're interested in connecting today, please do. Welcome. Please do come over and chat. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much for listening. And the second keynote speech is up. We will be listening to Lily Xiao, the Director of New Global Development, and she will be talking to us in three Empowering the Smart Economy. A journey of faith and vision. Thank you. Enjoy.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for coming. My name is Liu Zhao. It's great to be here. Early from Da Hongfei's speech, he shared with us his understanding of web3 and metaverse. He also introduced US N3, the latest version of Neo Blockchain. So in the next 15 minutes, I will share with you the journey of N3 empowering the smart economy. A journey of faith and vision. But before I start, we actually have a very fun treasure hunt Twitter game. So basically, very simple. By the end of my speech, I'll share a secret quote. You can tweet and attack Neo Blockchain if you're not following us yet. Our Twitter handle is neomblockchain to get the chance to win neoverse NFT Black Box so now let's start. For those of you who are wondering who are new to neo, what is neo? Simply put, sorry, NEO is an open source public blockchain platform. Our vision is to be a network for the smart economy which we define as having three digital assets, digital identity and smart contracting. Now a little bit of history of NIO we have been around for a long time. The NEO was created by Da Hongfei and Eric Zhang in 2014 under the name I Shares. In 2017 we had a rebranding from Nshares to Neo and 2018 we kicked off the N3 projects upgrade and in August 2021, three years in the making by our team, our globally distributed communities, we're very proud to have launched N3. As Da mentioned, currently we are in the process of migrating the projects and token from the NEO legacy to the N3. So you might be wondering how is an open source project? How is it structured? Here are the main groups working on the neo. So we have a NEO foundation which is mainly responsible for strategy and funding. The operational side is carried out by NIO Global Development. We also have core developers seven and many globally sponsored community developers. Now the excitement. What is N3 and why we're so excited about what we have launched, what we have built three years in the making. Why is N3 unique and why we're so convinced N3 is a game changer. So N3 is built for large scale commercial usage. The slogan for N3 is all in one, all in new. Let's just look at all the features in N3 from interoperability to native Oracles, Self Sovereign identity, Decentralized storage, NEO Name services, one Block Finalities, Best in Class Turing Smart Contracts, Multi languages, all in one, all in and three. I'm really excited. So yes, now let's see how the economics aspect works. There are two native tokens on neo, namely NEO the Governing Token and Gas the Utility token here on N3. On chain governance, we are encouraging the NEO token holders to actively participate in the NEO network governance because ultimately the NEO token holders are the owners and managers of the NEO network. So by holding NEO you automatically get a gas and as you can see, 10% of the gas generation will be rewarded to the NEO token holders. But if you vote, 80% will go to the voting group. Of that 40% is split to the group who vote for the NEO consensus notes as the other 40% to the remaining 14 council members and the other 10% is split between the 21 council members. Now, Ecosystem. I'm really excited about this page. Not because for its majestic beauty in its graph, let's look at the NEO ecosystem in four layers because this tells a lot. Protocol components, infrastructure, applications. You may have noticed that N3 we are learning the solid foundation by building the protocol components interopilities through Poly network. So the solid ground has been laid for N3 and the next. We're expanding and boosting the infrastructure and application layer. If you are a developer or if you're building applications, if you are thinking now is the best time to join the NIO ecosystem, you are right in thinking as so. Let me repeat, there is no better time to join the NIO ecosystem than now as we lays the foundation on the protocol components layer, expanding the infrastructure and applications. I'm also very proud to mention one of our DEFI applications, Flamingo. The teams are here. They will join me for the next panel session. Ah, sorry, the presentation is not finished yet. Next page please. Hello tech guys. Next page please. Next page please. This is not last page anyway, so yes, I encourage you to join our ecosystem. So how can we support you to join our ecosystem? Well, we have many, many supports. If you are a developer, you can apply for the NEO grants to build on the infrastructure. If you are dapp, we have early adopter program. We also have the Neo EcoBoost program which is a 1 million fund to support the ecosystem. It's PC. The presentation is not finished yet anyway, so. And next we are launching a hackathon. We actually launched a hackathon already this year and of which 50 projects were submitted, 11 winners and four were selected to the early adoption program. So for the next hackathon is planned next year, February and March. I encourage you to check it. And even if you're not developers, we are always looking for non and creative business talents to join as well. Because our developers need business and creative talents to complete the team. Now I want to say that the vision of the smart economy is a journey of faith. We often hear vision because vision is exciting, is inspiring, is grand. But faith. Faith often involves blood, sweat and tears in a critical space. Faith is also confronted with fat fear, uncertainty and doubt. So we want to prove to you, our community members, that we have built a powerful engine in N3. We have proved to you and let us prove to you this powerful engine is set to take off. Let us also prove to you NIO is the one. And this is also the secret code to share on Twitter tag Neo Blockchain to win Neoverse NFT Blind box thank you so much everyone. Any questions, please get in touch. My name is Lili Zhao. Thank you.

Thank you. Lily. We're right on time to move to our first panel discussion which will be hosted by Anastasia Drinevska, the CEO of communication agency Cointelegraph China and creative director of the cointelegraph. And they will be discussing the crypto landscape and adoption in Asia and Europe. Please welcome the host and the participants on the stage. Thank you. Hey.

Hey.

Hey. Hey. Well, first of all I want to say a huge thank you that I am seeing all of you here and thank you for coming. Let's talk a bit. So hitting all time highs of around $65,000 in April 2021, Bitcoin has assured a newfound interest in digital currencies and the applications of blockchain technology. And whether you first realized that you started learn crypto from new section or from WellTech First Trends we all have or you invested in them yourself personally, you realized that cryptocurrencies are rapidly gaining traction among real investors. But what's the real crypto landscape and its adoption in Asia, in Europe nowadays? So we invited the special guests to join the discussion discussion and realize what happened. So it's a pleasure for me to meet Lily Zhao, Director of Neo Global Development. Lily, please came back to the stage. Where is she now? Okay, let's proceed. O.T. jurgen, co founder of MyMingo. Vitalis Yelkin, CEO of Trade Allies. Please take a seat. Gleb Kost, director at Binance Eastern Europe and our star, Lily Joe. Hey guys, what's up? So the first panel discussion, we are a bit in a rush, so please we'll start. So Lily, you just finished your awesome speech and what I really interested to ask you is Asia still the most active cryptocurrency market? So is Asia still the most active cryptocurrency market?

Well, according to statistics it says that Europe now has overtaken Asia as the crypto currency trading center, which I can totally understand, I'm based in Switzerland. So when we look at Asia, the crypto sentiment is very high because it's driven by retail traders. And when I go back to Asia, I hear people just very excited to talk about the crypto. It's not just a trading activity for many it's passion, it's a hobby. But here in Europe, the crypto is more focused on institutional for institutional is not sentiment driven, it's more the infrastructure driven. So that's why it may take a while, but now the infrastructure is being laid. So Europe has overtaken Asia as the trading center for crypto for crypto adoption?

Yes, for sure. Maybe. Gleb, you have something to add?

You know, I'm responsible for Eastern Europe and, you know, Eastern Europe is a pretty specific region because in Russia, in Ukraine, they don't really follow the approach of, you know, European trade union regulators and local regulators. They, you know, consider crypto in their own way. So for example, you know, in Russia, I think they more. They like more approach of, you know, of China, of Asia. They are more cautious. So, you know, crypto is legal. It's a property, you can buy and sell it. But meanwhile, local regulators don't really want to promote. Promote crypto and give huge access to crypto exchanges. So they are more cautious. But meanwhile, Russia is one of the biggest markets in the crypto industry. A lot of tech developers from Russia and Ukraine and a lot of great projects such as One Inch Wearable Trust Wallet, Solana near all those guys, you know, all those projects, they have some, you know, founders with Russian or Ukrainian roots.

What's the main problem you're trying to solve in Binance Eastern Europe? The. The main problem for you guys?

Yeah, so the main issue for us, of course, regulation and lack of clarity and transparency in terms of what we can do and what we can't do. So in Russia, you don't have any licenses for crypto exchanges. In Ukraine, you know, the situation is the same, but Ukrainian regulators, you know, they are more loyal and they want to make, you know, crypto, you know, crypto legal, allow crypto exchanges to work with banks. So, you know, they're more loyal to encryptors, actually. Yeah, regulation, I would say that that's the main challenge for us right now.

You always need to fight, you know, with the whole world to trying to build the real landscape in Eastern Europe. Thank you so much. So what's the crypto landscape in Europe look like currently? And I really would love to hear this answer from Vitalis Yelkins, so maybe you make me a pleasure to discuss it with us. Sure.

So I believe that first of all, Europe is very different and it is.

Wrong to say, like, Europe is the.

One single spot, but United Kingdom drives Europe adoption for sure.

I believe both in trading volumes and.

Both in, like, percentage of adoption.

Like, as far as I know, in.

Ukraine, it is more than 5% of population owning crypto.

And then comes likely France, Germany, Switzerland and then other countries.

So it's still difficult to talk about.

The adoption, you know, but 5% is.

Pretty high, high number.

For example Americans own I believe from 8 to 10, 10% and so it.

Is one of the highest levels of.

Adoption among first year countries.

And if we're speaking about volumes, so.

UK retail like probably their consumption power is biggest so that's why they're taking a lead.

But if we're speaking about legal adoption, I'm sure that it should be completely different countries like Switzerland where landscape is.

Really very strong, very likely Estonia and Portugal of course.

Well, let's dream a bit and if for example in 10 years how the crypto landscape, how it looks like. So maybe you have any thoughts?

Hello? Yeah, I can just guess from my little hub up in Norway, but I think regulators will come, they will adjust to the crypto. Crypto needs to adjust to regulators and regulation takes time and that's.

So it's all about the regulations.

Yeah, but it's a good thing we don't want countries that like allow some something today and bounce it tomorrow because then you have the volatility. So let's take time, let's learn to know each other like regulators and crypto.

People need to talk Eastern years enough for this. What Eastern here is enough for this, for the regulations?

Yeah, I think so. Because this is a disruptive technology.

It's moving fast and it has traction.

So if the regulators wait 10 years, they are too late. The technology is already too big, like it is now with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

It's too big to regulate them well. And for example, for your project, what is the strategy right now for the next years? So we are talking about the adoption and this is the main question actually. And what do you think for your project next two or three years, how you will develop editors?

We are really like trying to lower the barrier of entry. We want to help people get into crypto feel safe because today it's much like you have tech people that have crypto or people that know someone that knows tech because it's so unsafe to invest in it, you don't know what it is. So we need to make it easy, we need to make it accessible for everyone. And that will be like our main goal to help other people that don't know someone that knows tech to be able to have crypto spend crypto use crypto. And I think that's the most important part of it, that we need to use it as an asset.

And you will also face with adoption because when you're trying to use crypto for example in Europe you just cannot do this as far as you can do it in Turkey or in Arabian Emirates or in the United States. So how to solve this problem?

I think you need to be regulator friendly. You need to talk with them, you need to have conversations. We speak with a lot of crypto lawyers and they say governments want to cooperate but they don't know how. They don't know the technology, they don't.

Have the know how.

So who has the know how? We have the know how. We just need to talk with them and tell them like this is that and this is how that is working.

Well, I guess it's hard for Ukraine and Russia still because for example in next two years how you will compete with this other things that should be more cryptocurrency friendly and it's hard to adopt it in Russia and Ukraine and how to make it safe nowadays. So I'm really interested. So odds is telling us that he will protect anyone from all these things. And you guys, what would you do in next two years like for Binance Europe? So there is a lot of complicated things in bureaucracy and in country system. So how to face it.

So overall in terms of you know, challenges, challenges for the next two years. So again in terms of regulation, so we always work with the regulators, we try to help them to make some better environment for crypto industry. Help them, you know, to attract, you know, good startups, to attract some investments because you know, crypto is generating, you know, huge volumes and actually, you know, countries, governments, they can also, you know, get some, you know, some you know, funds in taxation. But overall I think that the main challenge is that you know, the terms of regulation, regulators, they can put some taxes but still there are some, you know, areas such as DeFi, NFT and it's pretty, you know, complicated to you know, to choose the approach how to regulate it, you know, and for example gamefi as well. So in Philippines. Right. So they're trying to regulate right now gamefi but overall I think it's pretty complicated, you know, to do that. So of course, you know, regulating, you know, some fiat channels and you know, buying some selling, it's okay. But when we speak about, you know, defi about kyc IML in defi so how it will work. So it's complicated to say right now how it will develop in the next years. But definitely regulators will try to do some steps. Regulated DeFi and NFTs. Yeah and also another trend is that crypto mass adoption. So right now we see that celebrities, musicians, sports teams, so they all are issuing own tokens. This week, for example, Binance announced another fan token with the Portuguese club Porto. And it's just the beginning. We also at Binance NFT Marketplace, we launched NFTs with the Hockey League in Russia. And right now we see the huge demand from sports organizations, from influencers, from musicians. They all want to launch NFTs, they all want to launch their fun tokens and use this new technology.

And this is one more point to safety because when we are talking about NFT and Metaverse, it's about rights to the items and it's still hard to regulate. For example, if I will buy nft, how I will solve the problem? If someone will just copy paste it and put in the other museum or something like that. I cannot just come to the room and tell, so please put off my picture or something like that. You want to tell something? I saw that I just wanted to.

Touch upon what he was talking about when it comes to regulators. Because in Europe at least they are working with like law on defi. So I think like the progress is there, it will come. We just need to give them some.

Time because it's bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is the main thing.

That's the reason why smaller countries has.

More advantage, because like they have less bureaucracy. Yeah, and crypto is changing very fast so they can adopt faster. And that is why like we see the tendency that smaller countries has better regulations for crypto.

Does trade allies adopt faster for the challenges?

We're trying to do our best.

Okay, Lily, you if we will talk about the trends for the future. So for these two region, Asia and Europe, maybe some predictions or how do you think they will develop in the near future for the trends? So what we're going to see in the next couple of years.

Actually think in our industry is decentralized, global by nature. So I actually do not see a huge divergence in terms of the adoption between the two regions. And in the future what I would like to see is actually in a few years we don't talk about crypto as something so extremely special and you will be integrated into the standard asset allocation as an asset class both in Asia and in Europe. But it's already happening in Europe, but in Asia I think you probably take a bit longer time.

So.

Maybe you can call me some trends in the.

Future.

For trade ally especially really, I.

Think that there are some obvious trends.

Like Metaverse.

Like DeFi from its 2.0, but crypto is changing really fast and I believe that it is almost impossible to predict what is going to be in five years.

It is very likely that it is.

Possible to predict what is going to.

Be in a year.

But again, trends are changing so fast.

So the main issue is that every.

Participant should try to adopt with the same speed.

And what about what do you think? Will Asia and Europe ever approve Bitcoin ETFs?

I'm almost sure that Europe will see first Bitcoin ETF in Europe probably next year.

Next year.

I even know people who are working on it.

And your thoughts?

I have no idea.

I work in my little bubble and people that do ETFs can do them.

And maybe I want to ask Gleb about challenges in exchanges nowadays. Do you have.

Special approach for Asian.

Eastern Europe in Binance?

You know, in terms of approach, I know Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe is, you.

Know, we already discussed that these two regions are really specific and bureaucracy and blah blah, blah. But maybe you have some technical challenges to improve something to exchange, especially in Eastern Europe market.

Sorry, could you repeat please?

For example, when you work on your marketing strategy for Binance Eastern Europe, what's the main challenges except the bureaucracy of the region you faced?

So I think the main challenges, you know, in terms of marketing strategy. So of course, you know, grab some attention from users, you know what, you know, what tactics you can use. Because you know, for example, social media in Russia you have, you know, in Russia you have vk, that's pretty popular. So you know, social media is pretty different from, you know, from those that are used in Europe or in Asia. LinkedIn is banned in Russia. So you should try to find some, you know, you should really, you know, dig into what you know, social media, for example, local crypto industry is using. And you know, of course there are some challenges against again related to, you know, some dark crypto because you know, in Eastern Europe it's one of the biggest region in terms of getting funds from, from dark web, from ransomware, from some frauds, etc. Because there are a lot of hackers and of course in the us, in Europe they don't really like it. And it's another challenge that you should deal with if you run an exchange. So you should have some QICML procedures enforced. So you should use all this chain analysis, crystals, cipher trace, other software and put more attention to those transactions. So yeah, you should also keep that in mind. And overall I think that mindset of people in Eastern Europe is more Asian because people don't really think.

About the.

Investments in the long term because local Economies developing and users are trying to earn right here, right now. And this is why they don't really think what will happen with their assets in two, three years, five years. Nobody's building long term investments because you have huge inflation, you know, more than 5%. And you know it's okay for this, you know, Eastern Europe and developing countries. And it also, so it also affects your marketing strategy because there is no sense to explain people. Okay, if you will buy, you know, some bitcoin and you will hold it for 10 years, you know, it will be great because people, they want to earn right here, right now. So you should more educate them, explain them what are risks and why earning funds, Making millions in one week, it doesn't work.

Is it hard to educate community which forms around your social media network networks. Sorry, is it hard to educate your community inside your social.

Yeah, because overall financial literacy is also lower than for example in Western Europe. Because in Western Europe people more or less now main, you know, financial, you know, tools, you know, financial assets, you know, equities, bonds, etc. And in Eastern Europe, the market, you know, financial market just start. Started to develop only, you know, 20 or 30 years ago. So yeah, you know, more education is needed in this region.

And for the project which just started, is it hard to build marketing strategy for the market, for the community, how to form it properly? What do you guys do?

For us it's really important to interact with the community, have people there that can help out. And I can feel that the crypto space sometimes is a bit like harsh on new people. So we need to feel them like they are welcome. We will help you. Let's take your hand and help you out. Take five minutes of my day and help you to understand crypto.

So you are ready to educate them as well?

Yeah, we need to do that if we want other people that's not tech savvy to join us. If we want this to be like.

The next revolution of Fiat, of course.

We need to help out people to make this easy. It's so important and I think it's an obligation for all of us that loves crypto to do it. And that's basically why we chose NIO as our platform to build on. Because they set the developer first easy to come.

You just launched 10 days.

Yeah, but that's for me been there. So we can do.

So you use your previous audience and try to educate it to the new project.

No, but for me as a developer it's so easy to just go there and do my stuff because they have made the platform for me and now it's important for me as a developer to make it easy for the users.

I guess this is really curious thing because the development side and user can. They are always fighting. It's hard to realize how to make it properly.

But that's the hard part and that's the really important part to solve. And I think it's important for the.

Blockchains to make it easy for the developers.

To make it easy for the users.

Sure. Pretty logical. Lily, do you have some special social media activities for Neos users? Do you have special media activities for nails users? So how you educated them, is it really useful for them?

So special?

No.

And one more time, do you some special stuff in social media for users of your project, how you educated them and did you face some challenges in this case? The challenge is challenges in this case in social media. For now, for Nio, for your project?

Yes. So yeah, we have tutorials for developers and we also launching hackathon and we just launched one in the summer before the N3 launch and we are planning the next hackathon which will be scheduled next year, February and March. This is a great way to get on board of NIO and to learn about the NIO technology. And let me emphasize even for non tech people, this is also great way to join the NIO community.

Let's imagine if you can give an insight advice from each of your projects to the our audience which advice it would be how to develop your projects in Eastern Europe properly.

Sorry, advice to projects.

It's really loud here.

It's pretty loud. Okay, for example each of you guys. So if you can make give an advice to our audience. So if they decided to build a huge business in Asia or Eastern Europe. So what's the main advice you can give to them? So from your side.

So the main advice for main advice.

If for example I decided to build a project in Europe or Asia. So main advice from you.

Yeah, so as NIO is an underlining protocol. So for us we are industry agnostic, we are geography agnostic and in the blockchain space anyhow, most teams are very decentralized. So I would say let's be the example of borderless community and we welcome projects from across the globe.

Gleb.

Yeah, we have a lot of different activities for projects and for local audience. For example, this week finished our online hackathon for you know, for Eastern and Central Europe. So we are really looking for new projects and probably you heard that we launched a great fund to support projects on Binance Smart Chain and we are really, you know, looking for, you know, some GameFi NFT projects that will be launched on, you know, Binance Smart Chain. It's one of the our main targets right now to support our ecosystem, to develop it, to attract new developers to our blockchain. And yeah, again, for example, if you have a project out of Eastern Europe, you probably can also have a look at local tech engineers because the cost of tech talents in Eastern Europe is lower than for example in US or in European Union. Meanwhile, the expertise of local tech talents is pretty great, I would say.

So what about you?

I believe that the main secret is there is no secret.

You should just try just to launch.

The project wherever you are.

So you should pay attention for a lot of things. Understand what is important for you, for your business, for your team and what to focus on processes on user acquisition, etc.

Etc.

Just like it is on every period for the companies there are different things that are important. So it is very important to determine where are you at and where you would like to go.

And the last advice from Mr. Rod.

It would be like let ideas die fast, move on to a new one if it didn't work. But don't give up, it's really important. And find something that's easy and that you can explain to a five year old because then you understand what you're doing.

Well, such a good words from our speakers and I want to thank all of you that you're coming to this panel discussion. All your projects are super awesome and I'm so thankful that I was moderating this panel. And please applause to our speakers. We are finished. Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. NSTC and the speakers. We're ready to welcome the host for the second panel discussion. Please help me welcome Vadim Krikotin, the CEO of Cointelegraph China and one of the founding members of CoinMiria. Thank you.

All right.

Hi everyone.

So we need a couple minutes for all the guests to prepare to come. First of all I want to say couple things about the main topic of the discussion right now. So cryptocurrency is an alternative investment basically for majority of the people here. I do believe cryptocurrency is not alternative investments. This is the main investments and this is majority of us, we're all in crypto. But the same time what I started to mention, especially traveling all around the different cities like Dubai or New York and and seeing the people from the traditional investment industry, they want to enter the crypto. So for them this is exactly like alternative investments. And this is exactly what we're going to talk today. We invited several people from traditional investment industry, from cryptocurrency investment industry as well. So I want to welcome the guest, the first one who's ready. Okay, so we're still under, under preparation right now. And what should I say here? That cryptocurrency is booming and I see huge, huge demand from some family offices, from multifamily offices, from the traditional investors for them. My personal opinion that they simply cannot enter the crypto because of the regulations, because a lot of stoppers from the, you know, they own like formation of the funds. So they simply cannot enter the crypto. But a lot of them willing to do so. So we've seen for the last year that MicroStrategy, Tesla, all the, you know, big companies and a lot of institutions, they follow them. Especially after the etf, especially the, after the ETF was confirmed by the SEC in the United States. I think it will be a huge, huge inflow of the institutionals inside of our industry which definitely going to help us to growth. So alternative investments. It's something that, that we're gonna discuss today. Guys, I think we should speed up a little bit because I'm waiting for, for our guests to come. So you ready? So the first guest who gonna come is Anthony. Anthony, yeah. Please come take a seat, Take a seat here. Yeah, we're gonna see it first. Hi Anthony. Let's start here.

No.

So Anthony is BD at ftx. He's also advisor in the project Serum. So majority of you guys know ftx. FTX is a cryptocurrency derivative exchange which is booming right. Right now. Just recently completed the investment round for 900 million. 900 million?

900 million was over the summer and then we did a 420,690,000 round.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And the valuation of the company right now is huge. And I do believe it's really worth a feat because FTX is booming, you know, it's performing very well. And I also know that you guys have another entity which called Alameda Research. And Alameda Research, quite a seasoned investor as well to the different products. Yeah. So probably you can start, you know, with short intro.

Yeah.

Background.

Alameda Research started off as a market maker back in 2017. Initially started off by arbing the Kimchi premium and the Japanese yen trade. Eventually evolved into a more of a quant firm and of kind, kind of finding market neutral bets. And then you know, last year the teams are going More directional, you know, took some longer term investment bets. I, you know, obviously Solana is a big one that people are familiar with and yeah, you know, myself like I occasionally dabble on the Alameda venture side, particularly on the token side. We have done a lot of investments in the Solana ecosystem. We recently launched our venture arm on the equity side as well. So we've been investing in fintech.

Thank Anthony. We will continue. I just need to invite more guests. It's not only like two of us. Okay, so the next guest I want to invite here is Kristoff the Curzon. He's the co founder and CEO of the Mensis Capital and former CEO of Olim Capital. Please take a seat. Yeah. So Christoph, would you mind to say a couple words about your background.

Where.

You invest and what's your current position?

Yeah, sure. Thanks. I started one of the first European blockchain fund in Luxembourg. It was the first registered fund by the CSSF which is the SEC locally and so it was in 2017. But we were doing a lot of investment in equity. A little bit in tokens, but just private sales stuff very early. And now we launched another fund called Mensis Capital. One part is in Singapore investing just in liquid assets and the other part is in Dubai and we're doing direct investment in early stage companies. We like early stage.

Okay, okay.

But now, well with all them capital it was a real fun when I'm saying real fun with LPs etc. So we were managing money of others and now we're managing our money. So it's way more easier. No investment committee that take too long to take decisions, etc.

So I want to introduce one, one more, one more guest for panel discussion today is Gary Zmuza. He's the executive director of Longevity Science foundation and also a general partner in Longevity. Hi Gary, welcome. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So Gary, please take a seat and just give us a small introduction. Introduction of yourself.

Yeah. So it's pleasure to be here. I am, I'm representing a biotech here and I'm early investor in a couple of unicorns in biotech that use artificial intelligence for drug discovery. And we have a venture fund that invests in age related diseases and in longevity field. And here I represent the Longevity Longevity Science foundation which is a non profit based in Switzerland as is focused in issuing grants and non dilutive funding for early stage longevity research. Perfect, perfect.

Thank you so much for coming. So we start with the first question. So what is alternative investments? What do you think Anthony?

How do you see the portfolio.

So how do you see it from your side?

Alternative investments?

Yes.

Would say we look at alternative investments as things that are further down the risk curve. Cryptocurrency is obviously an alternative investment, pretty much as far down the risk curve as you can get. But what we're seeing with the recent bull run of the past year, year and a half is a lot more interesting. Interest in allocation into crypto. I think, you know, the interest in the space has definitely been growing across retail as well as institutions. And there are some serious conversations now where pretty much everyone is looking to at least allocate a little bit of their portfolio into crypto and bucket it under the alternative investment strategy. Right.

So talking about alternative investments, of course, obviously all of us think about cryptocurrency. Right. So continuing my question. So why investors invest in cryptocurrencies especially from the traditional back. From traditional background like you guys?

Well, first of all I'm not going to say anything about what he said because I didn't hear shit. So it's very difficult to hear each other.

But I'll turn over towards you.

So.

Well, I think more and more from traditional background it makes sense because you diversify your portfolio, your investments and actually I think that NFTS is a very good, is very good to open doors right now to mainstream adoptions because it's very easy to understand for anyone when you see some 13 years old kid trading NFTs, understanding finance DeFi and everything when adoles doesn't understand anything of it. I think it opens doors to a lot of things and so you make it legit and so we can. And then you have some companies like Facebook, right. We can think whatever we want about what they are doing but it's a good signal. It means that there is really something. Right, but they're not talking about blockchain and crypto, they're just saying Metaverse for now.

Right, Absolutely agree with you that it's a good signal. It's a confirmation that direction of the next development will be in that side. So what do you think, Gary?

We believe that crypto community and longevity community both are visionaries in a way. So we kind of happy to announce a marriage of longevity and crypto and we believe that crypto community can support research and to help all of us to live longer and better life. So I think that's, that's the best thesis and I can see here medium age is like 35 to 40 years old. So we have 20 or maybe 20, 30 years. So we don't have a lot of time to get feasible results in longevity. So we are happy to collaborate all together to make a lifespan longer. And so we all have.

In that way. How do you compare the traditional investments and cryptocurrency investments?

I believe that in our field, crypto investors, they make quicker decisions. We can avoid all the, you know, communication with traditional banks that usually got too much questions and you know, processes and actually we have, our venture fund is first in the world to accept crypto payments from our LPs as well.

Right.

Anthony, what do you think about it if we compare cryptocurrencies and traditional investments? What's the difference?

Cool. Crypto is significantly more volatile than traditional assets. And I think part of that volatility was what kind of kept, excuse me, institutional investors, institutional firms out of the space for a long time. You know, essentially the risk tolerance of crypto natives versus traditional investors is significantly different. And then just from a compliance perspective as well, the risk limits that you have to hit. In addition, traditional fund is a little bit different. But you know, I think part of the volatility you have to be able to stomach that in order to get the exponential returns that you see in crypto. You know, something that we notice when we're talking to funds is crypto funds denominate their returns in terms of X's where traditional funds denominate their returns in percentage terms.

So right.

Volatility is just part of the journey.

Christoph, do you have have something to add for this question if you compare cryptocurrency and traditional investments?

Well, I think, I think is right. It's way more volatility over there. And when you believe that like eight months ago, because someone is doing a tweet, we all losing 30% in a day, there is an issue, right. For traditional investors on this. So it needs to get matured with project sustainable projects. I think that all the initiatives about CBDC around the world, they might give a good signal, but at the end of the day they will centralize everything exactly like banks. So the only thing that is going to change is that the mechanism of, for example, sending money somewhere. Right. I won't have to wait until someone is going behind the computer sending money after four days if I have a public holiday. Right. So it will be instant, but otherwise, well, it will be still the same thing again and again and again. So I think it's really a niche thing. But there is a big difference between investing in the technology using a crypto and investing in the crypto is two different world. This is why actually we created two different companies to invest in it, because it's completely different. It's not the same expertise.

Right.

So, so, but I think it makes a lot of sense for any investors to invest in a blockchain company because it's behind a lot, almost everything. Right. Right now.

Right, right, right. I think it's very interesting point about, you know, the market are different. Cryptocurrency itself is just like a stock for the, let's say like a stock market. It doesn't really show exactly the technology behind that. It's just a price indication of the, let's say, probably success of the company in the social media or something like that. But for the real technology. Yeah, I think it's a very good point. So do you guys think that institutional money is still on the very early stage of the adoption of understanding how to invest to how we call it here, alternative, alternative investments or let's say cryptocurrencies. So what do you think about the stage of the involvement?

Well, I think, I think you need to take countries by countries or region of the world because I, I do believe that in the US it started a little bit, but in Europe I don't see that much as real. Like family offices or private banks. Private banks are not even considering it that, I mean, they're checking just about custody solutions because now they do have some clients who own a lot of cryptos and they're rich. But otherwise no one wants to be exposed on this. Especially when you have a private bank who's running the company for the last 400 years. Right. So they're not going to change the model just because for a few years you have a hype and there is something like, I don't know, 2 trillions dollars, this is nothing for them. Right. So, but it makes sense for alternative investment to put, I don't know, 1% here, but then you need some institutional products. So grayscale is doing this kind of thing.

Right, right. Anthony, what do you think about it?

I think when you look at like alternative investments, it can be bucketed and like institutional investors can have separate buckets as well. Like for example, pension funds aren't aping into shitcoins right now, but they do have allocations for alternative investments which are like hedge funds, private equity vehicles. And we are seeing a lot of hedge funds entering the space. We're seeing a lot of hedge funds in the US spinning up venture arms to try to get more exposure into the space. Silicon Valley institutions is spinning up crypto firms like A16Z or even like in the FTX's latest round, you saw a lot of traditional Silicon Valley and investors kind of investing in the infrastructure of the space. But you know, when it comes to like looking at alternative investments, as you mentioned, like, it's completely separate between, you know, investing in like the equity, the infrastructure versus the tokens themselves. And we are seeing a lot more family offices who are comfortable on the equity side of deals, but not necessarily holding tokens on their balance sheet. So would say, like the tokens in themselves, it's much more like hedge funds who are more comfortable kind of moving up and down the risk curve that are in tokens. But even like hedge funds who are used to trading systematic products in traditional markets, which, you know, pretty much you can just systematize everything, they're finding that in crypto you have to be incredibly discretionary because the market is still very inefficient and it's still disjointed and finding that crypto natives still have tremendous alpha over these institutions when it comes to picking discretionary things also simply because, like the size of portfolios of traditional institutions is so much larger. So the game in which they can play, like they can't ape 100k into shitcoins on Uniswap, but they can play, you know, btc, Eth, Solana, now which is the top five coins. So, yeah, it really just depends on what you're looking at.

All right, Gary, what's, what's your point?

Yeah, look, I represent here one of the most conservative biotech and they're not very tolerant to crypto yet, especially big players. So here with it, with our project and the, and the other projects in the field for crypto, like for example, Vitadao and Longevity Science foundation, we are trying to, to fill this gap of early research. And as we treat aging as a disease, we're gonna put more money to get in five years feasible results here. So I want to say that institutional players in our field, they are completely.

Intolerant to crypto and I don't know.

When it's going to change. And, and this is one of the most, I would say, Industries that will be last to join the movement.

You want to add something?

Yeah, I think it's just been interesting as well, like sitting on the exchange side as well as the investing side, like when these traditional institutions were in crypto, like there's a meme a year ago, right? They're only going to look at Bitcoin, they're only going to trade Bitcoin and that was true. Like when the grayscale trade was happening, we saw a lot of institutions, they were simply interested in the basis trade on BTC futures. A couple months later they started asking us about eth, you know, a couple same time as like all the tetherfudd was happening in January. And then like they started asking about Solana Polkadot kind of moving down the stack. And now like I was speaking with the institutional investor the other day and he was asking about Flocky and I had no idea what he was talking about so I had to look it up. So you know, still relatively early, but the capital is flowing into the space. Yeah, yeah.

So you see this trend. My next question to Barry. So you are from biotech company and you invest into the biotech as well. So how you see cryptocurrency involved in the biotech industry already and how you foresee it for the, for the nearest future? Let's say.

One of our first project where we use blockchain technology in biotech is a company called longenesis that we co founded together with bitfury. And actually this company helps to speed up to onboard patients for clinical trials and that saves a lot of time and money. So that's not directly involved the cryptocurrencies itself, but the blockchain technology fits very well here. But talking about cryptocurrencies, we were the first VC fund in longevity field to accept crypto from, from our LPs as well as Longevity Science foundation is, you know, ready to support early stage longevity research with the donations from crypto community. So I think here we can do great things together.

All right, interesting. So my next question to all of you guys as well. So how do you think institutional money will impact on crypto? So it's already coming in, we see probably the first wave or the second wave. It's up to you how to count it. But overall, so. So is it good impact for all of us who have been in crypto for a while or what do you think? So maybe we start here with crystal.

Well, I think it's gonna have two impacts. Major. First, way more money in the space, which is a good thing right at first, but it means way more regulation all over the globe as well. Pushing, doing, lobbying with governments, central banks because at some point they won't be able to raise the money of their clients, which they are not lps. Right. They are traditional people. Right. So, so we'll see what happen. But the more and more we'll get in and the more and more is going to be complicated. Yeah, I think we should, we should enjoy for the next five years, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. About long term perspective, but maybe additional question. Exactly what you're saying. So you said it's going to be more regulated. So in that end do you think it's good or bad? Because regulation still is like, you know.

Well, the problem is that I think it's a good thing in a lot of cases, especially when it's. It's really good business, sustainable business, business that can make a real difference, you know. So I think is a good thing that at some point there is some rules. But. But when you have too much regulation you can also break completely a space.

Maybe, maybe.

And at some point when you have regulation, if you start by having CBDC right all over the globe and then you have regulation on startups who every time they're launching a token, then it's controlled, centralized and so it's a little bit different.

Okay, what do you think on regulations.

Or like the impact of institutional capital? Okay. Because I think Sam should be the one talking about regulations.

Yeah.

In terms of like the impact of more institutional capital coming to this space, you know, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think some of the other things that you're going to see as well, and we're already seeing this is early stage valuations are getting pushed up because there's a lot of new players in this space that don't necessarily know how to do DD and are relatively valuation agnostic. And so, you know, we're already kind of starting to see like seed rounds with just a white paper, 75 to 100 mil in certain ecosystems. Overall though I do agree like the having more capital in this space is a good thing. It means more projects get funded. It means there's funds and players who are willing to kind of see the later stage rounds of crypto firms that, you know, most crypto funds I know are like very early stage and aren't willing to go down the stack to like Series C and Series D and having players like SoftBank and ACCNZ who can kind of help them win with projects as they get trapped.

Attraction.

Yeah, I think it's like an overall positive development for the space. I think on the fun side like it's going to create an interesting dynamic where there is now so much capital entering the space. A lot of funds could get away with just being generalists over the last couple of years and you know, just providing capital, you know, essentially saying I'm a Value add investor not picking up the phone after the initial investment and having built a reputation, I think going forward forward funds that actually do provide value and the projects are you know, shouting from the roof to work with these funds like that is going to be, you're going to see a lot of more discernment from, from great founders going forward because just they can get capital anywhere. But getting value add investors is difficult.

Yeah, right, right, yeah. I do believe it's interesting point of view like you know, from your side because you've been communicating with majority, with majority of the like crypto funds at.

Least and yeah, I mean even just speaking with like portfolio companies for example. Like I think there's pretty much uniformly when we speak with projects and they speak about what investors have impressed you the most. Like we hear Delphi Digital a lot and you know Delphi Digital is not just an investment firm. They have a research arm, they have an in house studio and they essentially help projects think through everything from tokenomics to go to market strategy. And I don't necessarily think that's the.

Only way to add value.

I think there's ways to add value through distribution, pr, marketing. But I do think there will be more funds that go hyper niche in terms of what they focus on or help projects on. And projects are going to look towards these specific, specific funds to add value within specific markets or you know, different areas of expertise.

So what you're saying is about like funds they also need to build the ecosystem around them.

Yeah, yeah, right. I think.

What do you think about, what do you think about institutional money, how it impacts the crypto industry?

I believe the more institutional money will be into the industry, the more we all will benefit from this. So and you know setting up the entity in Switzerland we can see that more and more banks are ready to deal with crypto to open crypto accounts and the more tools traditional investors will have, the better and the bigger impact will be on the all the industry. That's my take.

Right, right, right. So as you mentioned like some Swiss banks and some traditional guys they going to invest to crypto. I think after just recent news about like ETF was approved by the SEC and just after that the first pension fund also started to buy the bitcoin which I definitely think is a good sign for the industry.

I think also institutional capital entering the space, there's a reverse impact to it as well. Like I think yesterday or the day before we saw Matt Huang from Paradigm like joining Stripe Sport of directors which is really great for adoption. And I Think we're going to start seeing more of that, like as Visa has entered the space in a big way. You know, more of these institutions looking at crypto also means they're going to help with the mainstream adoption of crypto.

Right. So Anthony, we continue with you. What do you think from your perspective, what's the biggest concern from the institutional investor to enter the crypto?

From which angle? Like on the trading side or like.

Why they feel concerning, like, you know, to get into the crypto space or not. So, so what's the biggest concern from tether?

No, but you'd be surprised like how much time we do spend with, you know, people, newer institutions trading on ftx, kind of combating the tether fud. And we actually have a guy on our team who used to be at Bitfinex. So, you know, he's been really great in helping institutions understand that. I think it depends on the exchange side. There's just like certain things that you have to do in due diligence, like having a custodian, for example, and then just getting their chief compliance officers comfortable with them trading on exchanges that, you know, are kind of operating across multiple jurisdictions. On the investment side, you know, probably Kristoff has, has much better insight in terms of some of the, the barriers for institutional capital coming into the crypto.

I'm sorry. Because I heard just half of it, so.

Oh, yeah, sorry.

Yeah.

So we still need to keep our conversation going.

Right.

So what I'm saying here.

From your.

Side, Christoph, so how do you think, what's the. A good choice for the institutional investors.

A good choice for.

Good choice for the institutional investors to invest to the cryptocurrency. So what's the, what's the best timing for them? Do you think now is the good time or they should probably wait for.

I don't think is a problem of timing. I mean you had great project three years ago. You have every year some good projects. The plan for them is look, finding the right deal for it, right. I think for someone from the outside is impossible. I mean to get in at the right moment. If you want to be early in a company, I mean, I don't know if you are not in the space, I don't know how you're gonna get the deck. It's impossible. And if you see him on stage, he's already done. So I think they need to. Either way they need to wait until you have a series B. Right. And then they, they start getting in or, or they need to do the fun and fun process. I think because otherwise it's almost impossible. Or you dedicated one team just doing this. But those people, if you don't hire people from the space already, I mean it took us, all of us, I don't know, two, three, four years to know everyone in the space.

Right.

And you have the new one. I am the oldest in the space now.

Right, but at the same time, I mean talking. Keep the conversation with you. I know that you are quite interested in NFT and Metaverse space. So do you think for the institutional money this is the entry point?

Well, if you take family offices, they will check very fast because they own something like 30% of all the art in the world. Right. And so on this point of view here, it makes sense for them to really check. Especially when you have companies like Christie's doing some auctions for crypto punks and stuff like this. They really need to understand what is going on here. Otherwise investing in NFT projects has a game or has whatever, same, same thing.

So I mean, is it easier for them to understand NFT is, let's say like a piece of digital art or Metaverse is something like. Which is trend.

Well, it's very easy, like I was.

Saying, rather than cryptocurrencies, like let's say ether or whatever, like.

No, but at some point they understand why there is value behind something, etc. Sometimes. Look, it's not really different than any gallery around the world. I mean there is some artists, we don't know who they are and in two weeks from now the painting that was 100 bucks is going to cost 10k just because one guy bought it for the, for the gallery and they're pushing the artist and that's it. Same thing with some stuff. Even if you have some, okay, some specific things in a picture on NFTs, I think it's exactly the same process, exactly the same thing. I don't think that we are just, I mean NFTs and blockchain, they are not just. They are just improving something that already exists. Right, Right.

So Anthony, what do you think about it? So is it NFT Metaverse is let's say for institutional money, for institutional guys, easier to understand to invest or still.

You know, I think gaming as like a means towards mainstream crypto adoption is a good narrative. But if you're talking about kind of investing into tokens, I still think just because it's NFTs or gaming doesn't necessarily mean they're going to invest in a token. Like they might invest in gaming studios, they might invest in some of the infrastructure on the equity side, but kind of aping into tokens themselves is still a little bit different. But I do think just from a mainstream adoption standpoint, NFTs and gaming are significantly easier to understand than yearn finance, for example. But we're seeing institutional investors look at decentralized finance on our side. We see all the research reports on the sell side bulge brackets and they're all publishing research reports on things like sushiswap, Solana serum, and so they're definitely looking at it. Whether or not they're actually investing in them is a different story. But I just think crypto as a whole is hitting the point where institutions are looking at it and trying to understand the different subsectors and think about where to allocate capital.

Yeah.

I'm going to give you an example. So you have Sami here just hearing this guy. So he's the CEO of Cross the Ages. Right?

Right.

You can hear his keynote just after, I think. So it's NFT gaming, collectible cards. I am one of the investors and this is the first time I'm taking an operational thing in it. So I'm very active. They are closing the fundraising right now. The only thing that they are looking for is strategic investors. They don't care that a big family office is going to come because he's not going to bring anything on the table for this game. So it's very specific investor that we are looking for for. And this is a very good example because you will never go to a traditional investor what for. And money is not an issue those days.

Right.

So exactly. I think it's a good point. And the same like Anthony mentioned before. So each fund also needs to build ecosystem around them to be very valuable for the project. They're helping to bring additional value to.

Help them grow money and family office.

What they can do, they can only give money.

But it's very important because everyone is aligned. I mean, on a traditional fund. Right. Even in tech funds. Right.

Okay.

They don't really help you. They're going to open doors maybe. Okay, you want to talk to this guy? Okay, let me send an email.

Right.

But that's it. That's it. So they're not going to help you with the strategy, they're not going to help you with the tokenomics, they are not going to help you to hire people to you understand the space. Sami is not coming from blockchain alone. He's developing games for the last 10 years. So he didn't know anything about blockchain now he knows everything but. But you know, so, so he needed some people that can help and what better than an investor to do so.

Nice. Gary, how is Nvidia biotech? So is it the same or what's, what's the, what's the difference in your industry? Or maybe you can share some.

Look, I believe that the biggest barrier for adoption of anything like cryptocurrencies or industry shaping tech like AI for drug discovery in pharma, etc. It can be only credible and universally recognized. It should demonstrate universal down to earth value. So this is important because in many cases this is technology for technology.

Right. So we're running out of time and I have the last question for the day. Let's talk a little bit about regulations. So how about regulations? Okay, so from your point of view, from your own personal experience like running your companies guys, how regulated the cryptocurrency space now and how difficult or easy to operate at the moment? Yeah, Christoph, you can be fair.

I have my own experience with this. The only reason why we went in 2017 in Luxembourg to launch a fund is not because it was easy because they're not crypto friendly at all. They are still not right. It has been a pain in the ass to launch this fund. I spent 12 months trying to launch this fund. Money, no money. This is not the point. And in Europe it's probably the most expensive country for all the regulation, lawyers, etc. But the bet we did back then is that okay, we believe that traditional investors institutionals will jump into it. We thought it will be earlier but it wasn't the case. And this is why we went in Luxembourg. So why I'm saying this. I'm saying this because I think that it start by the investment. So giving the possibility for them to be exposed on crypto in a fun I think is a very good thing at first. But the regulators doesn't care that it doesn't care because when you are, I mean you're not managing enough especially in the country like Luxembourg, even if you're managing 1 billion, they don't care about you. But, but in either way it was Luxembourg or Malta, right? And then you are very exotic so you don't have a real balance. And then if you go, for example, I'm French, if you go to Paris and you talk with the imf, it's going to take you six months just talking with them. So it's very difficult. And so I think the should short the process with this and at least regulating the investment being able to get LPs with crypto, we have been able to do so in all them capital, but we had to do a partnership with bitstamp over there. I mean it was a nightmare of process and the banks doesn't understand anything. Right, right. So yeah, regulation is, I think it's, it's important.

So timing is a big problem on.

The investment side at first. I mean we need to start with something. The problem is that the governance, the governments and the European Commission, if I'm talking about Europe, they are just talking about the, the people, retails. Right. They thinking about how they're going to tax a guy who owned five bitcoin. Yeah, who cares?

Right, right, right. Anthony, what do you think about that?

Oh, at ftx we've always taken the stance of working with and cooperating with local regulators and consistently speaking with them. You know, we'll just say the regulators are also trying to figure it out. Crypto is a space that moves incredibly quickly. There's new innovations coming out on a daily basis and it's not necessarily easy to kind of work through all that even when you're native to the space, let alone just trying to learn about it.

So.

Yeah, just keep going.

Right. But the same thing like what Christoph said, like timing, getting the license is very complicated process. But crypto running so fast, I mean you have the good projects like you know, appearing maybe not every day.

Solana.

Right, right, right.

And this is quite a big problem how to manage this like two different systems. Gary, if you have something to say.

Yes, I think in our case in Switzerland everything is over regulated. We have to pass each of our donator through the KYC ML procedures. We need to screen his wallet from where he sends the funds. Nine out of 10 banks, they don't want to deal with us because we are focusing on accepting both fiat and crypto donations. So there's a long way to be widely accepted.

All right, perfect. Thank you so much guys. Thank you so much. Our speakers.

Thanks.

That's all for our panel today.

Yep, thanks.

Thank you guys.

Thank you very much for this beautiful panel discussions. The next one up is the online keynote speech from James Shu, the CTO of Platon. And the title of the keynote speech will be the Trustless Artificial Intelligence Network. Enjoy. Thank you.

Hello everyone, this is James Q from Platon Lattex Foundation. It's my pleasure today to have this chance to speak here and would like to start with our slogan, let's compute. First of all, what is Lattice X? Latticex has its vision to build a large scale distributed network supporting the economy, activities and any business applications where users can recognize the sovereignty and privacy of their own data. And there will be an ecosystem inside with sophisticated computing technologies for value of data and the benefits generates beyond. No need to mention how important data is for this digital era. Just would like to highlight one thing. All data rights are computed data protection done by computation. Data silos collaborates through computation. That is why we need compute. Also this is where Lattice s slogan comes from. Let's talk about our mission. So our mission is to build it up, build a high efficiency trustless computing network. As we explained that back in 2018 in Platon 1.0 white paper, there is a keyword called verifiable computation which is the fundamental and crucial piece to form this trustless computing network. You may found we have delivered research papers on cryptography, sample products of MPC protocols on Ecosystem A already live Platon mainnet, open sourced privacy, AI framework, Rosetta, etc. That's all the verifiable results from Platon in my view. I would like to expand this concept to a verifiable ecosystem as well, which means network technology ecosystem deliveries should also be verifiable. So our core ecosystem is as you can tell, Platon and we have accelerator found for developers which identify, incubate and accelerate promising startups, projects, teams and individuals that serve the fundamental development of Lattices ecosystem which is Platon. In line with our vision, it's quite challenging to work on privacy preserving dapps due to dramatic increasing of computing complexity and network traffic complexity etc. Looking forward to have brave developers join us. We also have academic found which support in depth research particularly in the fields of cryptography, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence as well as some subject matters such as economics and regulations. We facilitate community engagement at international events, conference, friends, workshops and meetups. We enhance the global awareness of Latex platform, encourage collaboration at greater scale and make Latexx accessibility to everyone and everything mainly through Plateau. Platome is the decentralized privacy preserving AI network and there is another one called Alaya at the Meta Network of Platon which is the prototype and business sandbox for the next generation, mainly focusing financial infrastructure since we believe financial data is the most easy data to start with. Lat Access Forum Other View provides a platform to unite the community members who strive to realize Platon or Latex's vision and promote the communication and information sharing among them. Let me talk a bit more about Platon. As I mentioned, Platon is the core infrastructure for implementing the Latex as concept Platon is focusing on combining blockchain and privacy preserving computation technologies, building a decentralized and collaborative AI network and global brain for safe artificial general intelligence, the so called AGR. Since we published Platon White Paper 1.0 three years back in 2018, we were emphasizing trustless computing and we delivered mainnet with core functions in place. So how about feature moving forward Based on newly published Platon White Paper 2.0 and Platon Privacy Preserving Computation white paper, we are working on and rolling out below things. First of all, Part one Privacy preserving computation framework which has number one fundamental cryptography algorithm libraries. I will not go through the details here, please refer to our paper published our media number two is the protocols and their implementations of payment like privacy payment computation as well as storage like the privacy protected and verifiable storage. On top of this protocols number three there will be a easy to use computation services and storage services for data protection and collaboration and at the Most top number four as verifiable Dapps there are sample applications of Dex Dao, NFT game, etc. Coming remember a few months back we kicked off global trusted seed generation campaign called Lumino. It's a global collaboration relay of different parties for truly trusted seed. Then I will explain number part two which is Platon 2.0, a decentralized privacy preserving AI network which has number one secure and scalable consensus network without discard consensus algorithm, positive formal verification. 2 Privacy Preserving computation network deals with basic elements such as data algorithm and arithmetic power. Data nodes and computing nodes can be connected to the privacy preserving computation network through P2P protocol to publish data algorithm and arithmetic power and algorithms then can run with data using computing power and number three on the very top layer will be collaborative AI network using the data sets and computing power of privacy preserving computation networks. AI models can be trained, developed and then deployed and even can be a service for others forming an AI service market through technologies such as multi agent system. AI agents can operate independently and communicate and collaborate with each other to create more and more innovative AI services. Enabling AI DAO and forming.

Hi everyone, we are ready for the next panel discussion which will be hosted by Alex from Cryptomeria who is Capital Managing Partners. Please help me welcome him on stage and he will announce panel speakers that's going to be joining him for a second. Also wanted to remind you, if we can be respectful to each other's space and talk a little quieter so we hear better the stage, that would be great. Thank you.

Hey guys, how are you? I hope you're doing good. So my name is Alex, I'm managing partner of Crypto Maria Capital and I'm super excited to see all of you here in this event which organized by Cryptomeria Capital in cooperation with our good friends from Cointelegraph and Cointagraph China. So Lisbon today as let's say unofficial headquarter for all crypto guys in the world. It's kind of epicenter of crypto and blockchain. So that's why we decided to have this naming epicenter of this event. So we live in a strange time right now. There are so many, so many uncertainty in macro economy. There are so many crazy money, helicopter money and there are so many stuff startups which are fighting for their place in the market. So in this panel we'll discuss what's crypto unicorn, how to find it or even how to create it. And I want to introduce you our guests. They are founders and representatives. Our great projects with real value and what's common. All of them are our portfolio companies. So I would like to start with Nick. He is chief operating officer of Metamundo. Hey Nick, take a seat. So these guys are going to create a great project which will let 3D model creators upload their works across metaverses via the one entry point. So the second one is Erin Erwin represents Defi Lander. Hey man. So they are going to gamefi defy on Solana and well guys, it's not investment advice but I do believe they will disrupt, they will definitely disrupt gamefi industry. And the last but not least his co founder of great project Parsik and my personal friend Martin. Martin, come on stage. Hi man. So these guys are really geeks. They are going to create a super super tool to grab data from number of blockchains and right now I believe we can start. So guys, the first question is super simple from your perspective right now today. What the main difference of the crypto unicorns in comparison with previous, previous market cycles. So probably, probably Nick can start. Well if I look at what crypto unicorns are, I think we have to look at that a billion now after the pandemic is maybe not as much as before. So is that actually still a big company? Should we not look at like tenacoins like 10x? So I think the companies need much bigger ambitions to make that difference.

Cool.

So probably guys you would like to add something?

Yeah, I believe that right now the crypto projects are the next billion dollar companies are more like more focused on the user experience trying to provide a way Better user experience than before because previous times they were only focused on functionality and usability. Right now we're just focused on the user experience. That's the king. Basically if we don't focus on the user experience, we don't have a massive adoption. So I believe the next unicurrents and already they are focusing on the user experience and that's the biggest difference we see right now.

I have a few things to add. So I think before, you know, the companies who became unicorns basically became unicorns because of dumb people who are just buying on the highs. That's it, you know. So now I think it's changing a lot because the scope of the product projects is they're much more serious. There is much more now adoption here and you know, people are, I'm not saying they're less dumb. There's obviously a lot of Binance tapes and all this stuff. But yeah, I mean I think right now we getting into. It's a heavy competition between different protocols, between different projects and then yeah, I think right now the unicorns are much different. Right. So now we see Binance at 100 billion just BNB, you know, so it's not about just being now a unicorn, it's about being a Decacorn plus unicorn is normal. You know, if you're a unicorn, nothing, it doesn't matter much. So I think that's what's changed now.

Good point. So you know, actually I do believe a lot of our visitors, a lot of our users who right now watch this panel online and west and in Asia, they're super curious about what's common, what's the main key factor in each unicorn. I do understand it's impossible to create a ready to go strategy how to create unicorn tomorrow, but probably you can highlight some points from your point of view. So I didn't get the question completely. What's common? What's common in number of unicorns? So what's common in cross unicorns? Well, I think they all solve a real problem and actually have a really good hiring strategy because you need good people. So for me it's about market and people focus.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I believe that nowadays based on crypto, what you need to get the unicorn company I believe is a team. If you have a right team with the right technical experience, you're gonna get to this point where you're just gonna build this product that people are gonna really love and if you are just kind of solving a real problem that people really have, that's the reason But I believe as time goes it will be becoming more and more difficult to become a unicorn. I hope so. And I believe that the biggest priority will be the, the, the community. So if you orient on the community and build for them, then you're going to become a unicorn for sure. But for now I believe the team is the main factor. For now, yeah.

I mean I would like to add few things, right. So I think most the common factor is that now people really found the utility of their tokens. Let's say they have a token. So yeah, I mean there was no utility before, right. People wanted to exchange tokens between each other. Like let's say they wanted to pay for the service and that means at the end of the day people would dump. So I think now the tokenomics are really forming up and it's getting into the real cool thing. Second thing, I think, yeah, like as you guys mentioned, user experience is key. People go there where it's most easiest to actually, you know, use, use something. But actually that doesn't stop. Right. So I mean most actually guys in crypto, they're using some geared services, they're doing crazy defi across multiple platforms and it doesn't stop from them moving, let's say like on Saber happened. Saber, that is on Solana. Right. So they, there was another company that launched was Sunny and you know, it didn't stop people moving $4 billion in two days. So I think, you know, the tech is just better now, but it's just the beginning. You know, Defi is just, you know, there's still kids where play games basically and now we're into NFTs and gaming. So we're back to the games. So that's I think the common denominator now.

Cool. So actually next question, I have specific for you, Martin. So from your perspective, what's the key point in cooperation between the founder and an investor to create a unicorn? Because I do believe there is a common pool point and all us agree investors, smart money plays significant role in creating and scaling unicorn. So what's your point on it?

So being a founder it's much more different and you know, you need to like segregate those two things because being an investor you get a lot of value. You can bring the projects to the right people and everybody knows in crypto everything works basically, basically through the handshake. But being a founder, you know, even being an investor, I will not ask people or my friends like to invest. If they want, they will know what we're doing. I will give them Opportunity, for example. Yeah, we're launching like a new protocol. So yeah, being a founder it's, it's much more difficult to move. Being an investor, everybody loves money. Right. So I think the number one key thing that when you're a founder, you just need to keep building and that's it. You know, I want once your tech is good, everybody will follow being an investor. In order to get into the rounds, you need to be like, let's say as you mentioned, very smart money. So if you help the project out initially, then later on it will just outperform you and then you will benefit from them. So that's my vision.

Okay.

Nick, would you like to add something? I think it's mainly about making good introductions and also helping to forge good strategic partnerships with investors that know your angle. So it costs a lot of time to actually network and identify that. And I would say introductions and partnerships is definitely a top one for me. Yeah. And probably like to add some as well. Yeah.

I believe nowadays just raising money is not that hard. Like just everyone can raise some money. So just finding the really good investors, that's a really big problem. So I believe if you find the investor who is just kind of gonna help you develop and he's not just looking for a short term token dumping basically, then the investor is none less important than the founder because they can be really, really helpful and we're experiencing that with our investors as well. So I'm really happy. I believe that the investor and the founders are kind of same, kind of important for the project to be successful.

Cool.

So actually you know, I had number of small talks before our panel with our guests and I do know there are a number of founders and some of them, they're in a super, super early stage. So yeah, advice to find a smart money is good, but how to identify this smart money Guys, you're a founder, so probably any, any advice to our guests?

I mean I can add. So usually people go to conferences to meet about like thousand people. At the end of the day they, they don't talk. You know, just find one, two guys and just talk with them deeply. And definitely one, one or two guys will know somebody else. Right. So I don't know, I don't like events to be honest. But Solana event is great and your guys event is great. So thanks for hosting. But yeah, just go deep with, deep with conversations.

Right.

So I mean that, that's, that's what I think matters.

Nick, your point? Sorry, the acoustic didn't allow me to hear your question. So how to find the smart money, how to identify really good investor. I think you need to understand what kind of investor you need to help you and also understand what partnerships you need before you reach out. So is that investor really gonna help you beside money or does that investor that investor not someone you're trying serve? Nice. So Erwin, I know you have have pretty strong cap table so what was your secret? Please share with us.

Yeah, actually most of the projects are basically raising from 5, 6 investors but we have raised nearly from 50 different investors including some bigger exchanges funds and stuff like that. So I believe like we have, we have been offered the money since the beginning and we were so happy that we were just trying to gather everyone but then we thought that we could really just some kind of manage to kind of balance the value that the investor brings with the amount of check we write. So let's say if we give an X amount of check to some fund it's enough we should, we haven't, we don't have to give them 5x amount because they're going to bring the same amount of value. So we just kind of decided that and we just went to kind of the average ticket size with everyone and we're just going to manage to find all different investors from the gaming exchanges difference and we're really happy with the results. So I would recommend for everyone who is raising some funds to just get some initial funding which just will help them to develop the MVP or just going to get some at some certain point and then just gonna go and just go directly and reach out to directly the investors they would love to see in their cap table 90 just the people are just advertising and they just are promising they're gonna give you this that just go to them who you really like and you really believe. So I believe that the gut feeling is the best feeling in the in this industry for sure to raise the money.

By the way. Yeah, sorry.

By the way.

Yeah we're looking to get into Metamundo so we'll talk after.

Yeah, definitely.

Well so I believe if right now everyone understands there are so many, so many noise around new tracks in our industry e.g. metaverse and others. So guys from your perspective and let's say next year or next three years where will will see new unicorns because you know we are investors where we should find it. I would say we say we see a lot more action in the games. So the gamify learn to earn play to earn. Metaverse is I think a very big wave but maybe smaller things in it hopefully also in the architect sphere. So building the metaverse, metaverses inside.

And.

I would say insurance is I think also a big one because we need insured, we need a lot of safety I think to build this domain out.

I believe, yeah, I definitely, I believe in gamification NFTs DeFi as like we're building that. But I don't really like that everyone is calling every different project the method Metaverse because nowadays Metaverse is basically just a multiplayer. So if someone is building a multiplayer game, they are calling that Metaverse. That's bringing some NFTs in it. So I'm not really a big fan of it. But definitely I agree that the Metaverse has really long way to go, but it's definitely the future and like the Facebook motor, the meta, it's not just, it's really, really big step for sure and I believe that we're going to see a huge improvements towards that. But I also, also I believe that this kind of, we should more adapt to the kind of way that people are already familiar of using products like the subscriptions, the kind of insurance and stuff like that. That's really important because we want DeFi or NFTs won't go mainstream if we don't bring them easily or just really affordably to the community. So I believe that going subscriptions to the model that people are really already aware of how to use that that's the really biggest factor. And the, the companies that are doing that, I believe they are the next billion dollar companies for sure.

Cool. That's actually pretty good. You know, I kind of couldn't say it better, but I think one of the main things that is right now driving adoption is entertainment. Right? So you see all these meme coins going up, but for that, for all this stuff, first of all, in order to be able to need infrastructure. So that's always the thing. And there is so much still to build. I have more than 200 ideas, maybe thousand ideas, but I just don't have time to do it. So infrastructure one second of all, when you're talking about Gamify and playturn, you know what if one of these games now will fail to pay people to do something, what will happen? They will drop this. So that's not the. I mean I see that as a future, but that's not the future. So what you get with the play turn model, you just get plenty of users to jump on you, but then you will need to find new utilities to your token. And that's what I think Your token. And that's what I think the Future is subscriptions 100% right. So to me and based on subscriptions you don't need to spend tokens, you need to log tokens. You need to log them and then that's where your circulating supply shrinks and the price goes up and then eventually project can dump if they really need to. But one of the biggest driving, let's say one of the biggest things that I see would take off right now is esports. Because esports combines in itself all the games, gaming, entertainment, a lot of payment solutions, you know like part of it gambling. So gambling. So you know all the tech adoption that comes from Nvidia and everything comes actually from that side. Right. And then now we'll see let's say volumetric 3D, let's say streaming. You know there is a lot of just like it's most like it's mostly was done because of the let's say you know, marketing or games or whatever. But like now you're getting a real actual adoption to the 3D data and then now there is cool technologies that are basically building cool algos to not the zip the file but you know, to compress it. So yeah I think that's Esports is the thing and place to be.

Yeah, actually agree with you on this point and also I do believe we can divide always all startups on two obvious groups. The first one is about sustainable product long term vision and really product approach. And the second group is about one day hype machines. And it's really, really important not only to create unicorn but to make it really sustainable. So from your perspective which factor can help to be sustainable and keep it sustainable during its scal?

Anyone has an answer?

Having a clear focus on your market so really understanding who your customer is and I think also having a star team on board that also understands how they operate together. So you need, you need good operators on board, good team.

Definitely. I believe the team is the number one. But also I have to kind of a different take on the kind of in game economies or stuff like that. There are a lot of people who are trying to trust for several years building, trying to build the best, most stable economy in their games, in their metaverse, stuff like that. But that's not really how it works. So I believe that what you should do is just going to start with some basics and then just adapt to the change. Just go with the cycles and just adapt, adapt and just look for what the community really wants, what they are really loving. Improve these Features just improve the economy by that. And I believe one, if you do that then you're gonna see really growing closed economy where open economy. We're just gonna see that the people are just gonna creating something. Let's say the people who are having a lot of time and no money, they are creating some NFTs and the people who have time, they have some money, they are buying these NFTs. This in circular. That's the I believe the best way to kind of think of this. Designing your clock economics and your economics basically. So yeah, that's what I think.

Cool. I mean yeah, I think what people should do you guys already mentioned have a great team, be flexible with the market. Right. Because the market changes and you need to adapt to it fast. You know most of the companies that are failing, they're basically just building stuff that nobody needs. This is one of the biggest issues. And then yeah like after you just kept building then you know, just invest time into whatever makes the most, let's say sense. That's it. Yeah.

And right now, you know, right now in this market there is so many crazy money. Helicopter money. Yeah. And it's so easy to fundraise.

Yeah.

A lot of projects they can do it in just several minutes. But you know actually it's really, really important to keep sustainable and long term economics. But on the other hand founders, they have an option to have easy money right now right there and just go band. So from your experience and your point, how to keep in mind a project which you are working on is really something long term. It's not about fundraising. Actually fundraising is probably 10% of the project, 1% probably like yeah, it's about products, about development, how to keep in mind it.

Let me start here. So I think there is only one thing is sustainable in startups are problems.

Right.

There is nothing sustainable at any startup. So when you asked that question, previous question, there is nothing sustainable there. The only sustainable thing is problems. And yeah, I mean that's it.

I believe, I believe Westing is the answer. So if you don't have a, the. If you don't give the founders or the investors or advisors they can let's say one year of Westing and that's really low amount. I believe if you just give them a long term vesting they will have to be committed and they will have to think it long term because everyone just right now we're having just one year, two years of Westing and that's, that's not really enough because they're just going to Build the mvp. They're just gonna put some designs out there and then they're gonna just sell all their coins and that's it. So I believe if you, if you really want to see the project and products to get really long term vision, develop really good sustainable economy, then you really, all you need to do is to have a Westing. And then once they have Westing they don't have any other option to build it or just, or just they can drop it and just leave and just say that okay, I can do that. So I believe the Westing is the answer.

Yeah, maybe what I would add to that is that I think you can look at your community. Is your community actually more engaging? Is your community growing? Is that continuously the case? I think you're on a good path. Yeah, that's the only thing I wanted to add to that one. Yeah. But also startups, they are mostly probably even completely borrowed teams. Yeah. And if you want to be a unicorn, you need to have a really star team on the board. Yeah, we have full time engagement, passion and really, really great belief. The question is how to establish this kind of team. Well, probably this question has no answer.

I'm going to go with the answer because I believe that I have found the team members that are really passionate about the idea. So I believe that all you need to do because you cannot really find the rust developers right now or you cannot really find the blockchain developers easily because if they are good they have really huge salary and really huge fortunes. That's not what they are looking for. So I believe we should just have. First of all you should be passionate about the idea, not just working from 9 to 6, just be full time working. Once the developers see that the founders are really, really engaged and they are really passionate about the idea, that's a really good factor. On the other hand, if you can't find the rust developers or whatever, go and just gonna ask your computer science friends who are really good at algorithms or different kind of math or stuff like that. They can learn it way, way easier. They can just kind of master all they need in several months. And like that's, that's really good way to recruit some new really good guys on blockchain and they will be loyal to you if you're, if they are your friends basically. But that's what I have done myself. I have found some of my friends who are really, really good at the, they were at the international field of informatics. They have some really good achievements but they didn't know anything about the blockchain. But if they are talented, they just going to learn it easily. There are a lot of people that are talented and they are web two focused. If you're going to onboard them to web three just give them some time. They was going to learn and they were just going to make you a fortune for sure. So my theory is that if you somehow learn how to bring people with you, not just going to develop yourself and then leave team behind, if you just somehow bring the entire team with you, that's all it takes to kind of get the really good team and just gonna become a really good company. Hopefully we're gonna manage that. So yeah, let's see how it goes.

Nick, I really know you have super, super great team. Yeah. All you guys are real believers in your project. What's your secret? Well, we all know each other pretty well, I think for 10 or 12 years. That's helping. But I think we like a good team culture and we actually very patient as well with newcomers as you just said. I think creating a good culture in your company is for me very important because also devs and designers, they also want to have a nice fit with the team and be passionate about a project together and not only individually.

Cool.

And yeah, right now everyone understands we live in a super decentralized world because of this pandemic, because of other things. But from your perspective, from your opinion, is it important where you start located? Is it important to be, let's say in a well known hub like California, like Berlin or. It doesn't matter nowadays.

Okay, I can start then. You know, to be honest, I think it's important where you're located because if you're gonna be somewhere on the island doing nothing and then you know you're gonna even become successful, you don't know people around, right? You don't engage with the people. So like we have few teams in there, in Estonia or like other places and there's not so many people who build there. There are a few people here who are actually crazy builders and they own a lot of projects, successful projects in crypto they are there. But you know, like we only engage with each other. So it's very important that the guys would go out, talk to other people because some of the OGs, you know, they only believed into bitcoin and they didn't believe in Ethereum and. And now like literally like in 2020, fuck. Ethereum is a nice thing. You know, like people just came out of like shout out now building on Solana and everything else defi before that I didn't understand nothing about it. So I think it's super important where you're located. But in terms of the team itself, you know, they can be all over the world. So obviously you need to build the structure where, you know, you don't depend on the location and stuff. So I think that's, that's my vision.

Yeah, me, my, myself as well also like with the team. So we have didn't have any kind of physical interaction or just any kind of conference. We're just going to raise our entire money online. So we didn't have any problem with that. But I believe that we had some kind of. If we were located at some kind of places where you have all the investors, where you have all the connections out there, it might be even easier. We might have found even good more maybe as you could, the better partners. But I believe there is no problem at all to kind of start at any location basically. But yeah, if you just want to kind of go for the best result, yeah, definitely why we're here. I believe that's the one of the reasons because you're going to be able to kind of communicate, network with every different people you want to do. So it's way, way easier to kind of do the fundraising, get the recruiting done or whatever. So yeah, I believe it's a slight advantage to have a good location as well.

I think, I think you hit it on the head.

I just want to ask. So you see a lot of projects that are for example building in Africa, but they're based out of us and there's literally one person on a team who knows about Africa. So, you know, and they mostly, most likely they'll just duplation game and they get out somewhere. But at the end of the day they fail as companies because, you know, they don't engage with their audience. So if you're building for China, if you're building for Europe, go there and just be there.

Right?

You need to be with these people every day.

Yeah, yeah, guys. And what do you think about branding? Because I believe it's obvious. Yeah, branding and brand awareness is super, super important for businesses. But there is an opinion that it's necessary for big companies like sustainable big business like Coca Cola, like PepsiCore and etc. So in this market we see number of startups with strong focus on their product. They perform, they perform really awesome, but nobody knows about it. Is it important to invest in branding to become a unicorn and one founder should start invest money in branding and in what way? Nick Your point? I couldn't hear it really well from here.

So pissed out actually I couldn't really hear the old details as well.

Talking about branding, right? And when should people invest in the branding? How important important it is. And yeah, you as a young startup, when, when is the start to do actual branding for yourself? So do you guys have an answer?

Yeah, I believe, I believe that kind of the branding is really important. If you, if you find some kind of the niche market since the beginning that you're really focusing on and just kind of build the brand around that, let's say you're kind of gamifying defi, let's say and we have these phrases and catch phrase like gamifying defi just goes really well and like just kind of whenever you just gotta go with this phrase it just kind of comes default. And right now and like we're really happy with that and like we're trying to bring. I'm not shielding my project or whatsoever, but I believe that the branding and just kind of going with it with the right words, right colors or whatever, the logo and everything is really important to kind of build the building your brand since the early days because like, let's say once you kind of have really nice following, once you have investment and you have all the different kind of messages on the Internet or you have different kind of brand books and stuff like that, it's really, really hard to focus on one and choose one because like people have seen many different stuff. It's really hard to create a really good brand afterwards. So if you, if you really have an ambition to become a unicorn company, you should since day zero start focusing on the branding for sure. So I believe it's really, really important to someone, at least from a team. So if you hire someone that's not going to work, I believe that someone from the team should be fully focused on branding as well as a founder and then it will be really, really crucial for companies for sure. That's my opinion.

I mean I'm more a builder. So we didn't do much branding and stuff, we just kept building. But the companies invest or overall I kind of understand it's super important when you interact with your community and stuff, your branding is super important. And basically people invest into companies because of the names, right? So now crypto market is actually a bit stupid right now because you know, they only want to see good names and they don't care about attack. If there is Alameda on board, great. It's a great project. I mean, most likely you Know the guys at Alameda of course doing a good job. I think there is Anthony here somewhere. But yeah like people are following the names and especially right now everybody is trying to build super nice apps and I think what changed also is pretty funny. So before in 2017 the apps were nice. People didn't use them so much because they were thinking it's scam and most likely it was scam. If it looks too good, it's scam. The worse it looks, the better it is. So now it's changing into proper branding. Huge companies chilling is doing crazy work on that. Solana did a great job. NFTX did a great job obviously. So yeah that's. That's pretty funny how market change maybe.

Maybe to add to that with branding is that I think you should also have a good usability as a company. So branding translates into usability and also educating on it at least like dynamically interacting with your community of understanding what they need to know to use your product. And how do you Questions for me is also with building a brand like how do you create a dynamic brand that's actually lasting in this fast paced changing environment.

Yeah.

And I second that. You have to be very serious about branding from day one. Yeah. And I do believe it's time to talk a bit about philosophy because with Nick we had a pretty nice discussion before going to the stage. What's crypto unicorn? Because the obvious answer is take a look at market cap. It's about money. But on the other hand there is so many, well let's say strange projects. We need to be polite on this stage. Yeah. So many strange projects. They don't have real value, they don't perform, they don't have a real product. They have only they have high capitalization. Probably it's like GDPR probably. Money cannot estimate the real value and cannot highlight the real unicorns. Probably we need another metrics to say well this project is a real unicorn. This while they just rich guys.

Yeah, I mean I think yeah. Most likely people are looking at a project based on CoinMarketCap. I mean are like I also found our projects that market Market cap is not big but we do crazy things, you know, so but what is super important and what I'm looking at as an investor, as a, as a founder looking at a projects is the community. Right. So you need to see how many people are interacting with this thing. You know, you need to see how many like holders do they have, how many transfers do they do. Right. So we monitor on chain activity. So we basically look at all these metrics and if I see really that people are using the product then the product is successful and it's good. So obviously more if they get a get more exposure, you know, they might get more users and people and then it becomes unicorn. So this is what I think the community is number one thing.

Yeah, I believe, yeah I totally agree with you. And I believe yeah it's really before like in previous cycles we were just measuring by market market cap and basically that was it. And I believe that was really wrong because it's really price game is speculative a lot. So I believe that the daily active users how much of the users are really actually engagement like social engagement or what's are the Twitter, Facebook, different social media activities course how many discord community members you have on your meetings once you're talking to AMAs and stuff like that, that's all that matters. And if you just kind of look at their community, you just can simply tell if they're really happy that they're in their community or they're just kind of looking for some airdrops or if they're just looking for some tokens. So I believe you just kind of have to measure the community. If the community is really passionate, if it's growing at a really good speed, that's all you need to kind of see to kind of spot the next unicorn for sure.

Nick, your point? I think if you manage to apply a lot of focus to your market and you also have your team in place, then the next question for me would be how do you scale up or by automation? So are you able to automate your scaling and then actually grow really fast otherwise will take a lot of time, a lot.