Fireside Chat with Wesley Xia: Future of Web 3.0, Blockchain, and Metaverse - Wesley Xia, Pat Yiu

Uh, well, a little bit about me, uh, a little bit about the entity that I represent. Uh, my name's Wes. Uh, I'm currently the head BD for, uh, Huobi under the innovative branch, uh, here in the US. And as Pat mentioned, uh, we are moving into the US. Uh, for most of you guys sitting here today, how many of you guys know Huobi?

Raise your hand. Uh, okay. Not not bad. Not bad. Yeah, so basically what Huobi, uh, used to be is a centralized exchange, uh, very much like Binance, FTX, or Coinbase.

Uh, but we also have like our, uh, layer one infrastructure. We have our venture side of things, uh, as well. Uh, very much like Binance have having their Binance Smart Chain, right? Um, uh, it is, uh, it is, uh, PoS, uh, meaning proof of stake. Um, like what we do for the, uh, you know, past few years was that, uh, for the most part we focus, uh, primarily on secondary exchange, uh, meaning, you know, retail facing, uh, but as time progresses, uh, regulatory, uh, issues and whatnot, you know, uh, it really changes the paradigm.

So, uh, we're here where we're out here also, uh, you know, looking for, uh, you know, more developers, uh, more content creators, uh, like Pat, you know, uh, like uh, very much so like every single one of you guys sitting here today. Uh, so yeah, if you guys want to mingle with me afterward, uh, I'll be I'll be outside. Haha. Yeah, all right. your question, Pat.

Uh, so for us, uh, we welcome any type of the projects. Uh, we believe strongly in Web 3.0 economy, right? Like so, uh, although like we are like a layer one infrastructure, that does not mean like we we don't invest in any like, you know, uh Web3 infras. Uh we like, you know, NFT projects.

Uh we like, you know, GameFi projects. Uh we like DeFi projects that are innovative. Uh you know, recently I was uh you know, I I came about this really really interesting uh DeFi project uh that is basically in Blue Waters. Uh I can share a little bit later with you guys. Um but yeah, like once we get get to that.

Uh and with regards to the funds, uh we are, you know, giving out grants as well. Uh so, if you are a, you know, uh uh builder, right? You you're building out projects right now, uh and you you're saying, "Hey, you know, like I want some money." Uh you know, like you can just hit up uh hecochain.com, and then uh just apply the grants, and uh or talk with me outside after this.

That's awesome. So, the first thing I kind of wanted to go through today is I think public goods is something that's been in everybody's minds. We've seen so many awesome projects from NFTPs have come Uh yeah, absolutely. Uh I think um right now you're you're you're absolutely right. I think uh the NFT marketplace uh is a little bit barbaric, to say the least.

You see like really, you know, we were talking about yesterday how, you know, like skin skin colors can like, you know, really really varies uh on NFT project. Uh uh but but you know, overall, I think uh NFT uh at the moment like uh the landscape is very uh is very good, and I do think NFT moving uh in the future, uh no no matter if it's like, you know, finances, uh, you know, IP iteration, or public good. Uh, like there's a lot of use cases on it. And actually, Pat, I want your insight as well on this thing. So, what do you think NFT can impact in public good industry?

projects that are for public goods that it's really just a contribution to a community to help like just really help help the world and who whoever needs it. And I also go into NFTs for for things that I like. I'm my background is in e-sports and gaming, and so GameFi is a really big thing thing for me, and I like to support a lot of these new game develop indie game companies who are using NFTs to really support like the launch pad for their indie studios. The games on the market right now are they're okay, they're mediocre. They can't really compete 100% with our AAA titles in the in the industry yet.

But I think that I've seen so many things on like BSC, on Ethereum, on Polygon. I'm really excited for 2022 to kind of see the impact that these these NFT projects are going to have as they release like full-fledged titles. Absolutely. You know, I feel like GameFi projects nowadays we see like Axie Infinity being very innovative, and of course a lot of folks from traditional gaming industry trying to jump in. And I think moving moving forward maybe 5 years down the road we'll see this like much more fruitful result from a lot of the developers and the builders here.

Building like, you know, AAA sort of like gaming economy, NFT marketplaces, and also furnish furnish games with with blockchain integrated into it. I'm super excited. Yeah. I want to lead that up with I think a lot of people ask this question is are white lists still like the future of NFTs, right? I'm I'm currently building my own startup.

I also try to do a couple different side projects, and I find it extremely difficult to also be able to kind of chat all day inside of 10 different Discord groups on the hope of getting a, you know, access to a mint. Do you see this like kind of being the the status quo for 2022, or do you are you seeing a couple innovations that people are allowing other people outside of just spending like hundreds of hours of time to get into projects and kind of be a part of the community? Like is there anything new happening? Uh well, honestly, you are absolutely right. I think white list is like, you know, it's not blockchain enough.

It's like it's it's really creating this like centric, you know, sort of like community where like exclusive amount of people can access. But for me, I think like in 2022, I don't think the the landscape would have changed too much. Like people will still have like project will still have like white list just because it's more organized. But until like we have maybe some sort of protocol that's actually a good idea, right? Of, you know, organizing and orchestrating around NFT white listing or like, you know, properly distributing NFT NFT white listings.

I think until then, you know, we and and and I'm really looking forward for like projects that can come out and build on on stuff like that. So, more organized structured NFT projects. And I'm going to lead that into access. So, for me, like I I've been working for about 10 years. I I got into crypto pretty early, and so it's weird in 2021 that I went from going from Web 2 purchases on my credit card and having like, you know, barely small fee to now me it being normalized that I spend almost $60 a transaction on Ethereum.

And the reality is that you when you look at countries outside of like like the major countries around the world, $60 is someone's full day paycheck. It could be for some countries a full week's paycheck, right? And so that really it makes it very difficult to kind of break into smaller countries, countries that are in developing nations. What do you see as like the like kind of like what we need to do to onboard those users? Like are there are there better options that we can do to to kind of push for community in those regions?

Uh yeah, absolutely. I think uh there are many projects that are uh in developing nations that are trying to build a more affordable cheaper uh layer one uh infrastructure that uh provide access to a lot of third world developing nations. Uh you know, Polygon being one of them. Uh I think you know, Binance Smart Chain is cheaper than than Ethereum. Uh Avalanche, right?

So, all the layer one protocols are um you know, like uh like they're basically providing grants for a lot of folks to to build on top and also uh grants access to uh third world developing nations. And also uh you know, I I recently came across uh a few projects that actually incentivize success economics really helps incentivize uh folks uh you know, joining in. Uh that's why we see like uh blockchain community is only getting larger and larger. Uh you know, like I I I believe Pat and I, we both joined the the space uh uh quite fairly fairly early, right? Like uh we see the space grow and flourish and uh honestly, you know, like uh I I I'm just super excited.

Yeah. Yeah, and lastly, I I guess this is a a big one for me. So, I've noticed a lot of my friends trying to enter web 3 and a lot most of them aren't even developers. I think with every single person I've talked to, it's been very difficult for them to get around just like how do I enter the space? If you're a developer, like you have the skills to kind of understand the background.

You can use platforms like Rabbit Hole, platforms like Buildspace or Thirdweb and you're able to kind of test these projects and build them yourselves. But what about like the the high school kids who are interested in doing their first project or you know, maybe they're interested in making a DAO? Like what are your thoughts on kind of the the education side of entering web 3 and like what what are some of the improvements that we can make to to make it easier for the general public to enter this space? Uh yeah, I think a lot of the folks in the space right now have a lot which is really good. I think you guys have access to, you know, basically get coin.

You guys have access to like a lot of, you know, free free free hackathon events and whatnot. And many of us like, you know, big organizations and institutions unlike Web2 point out like, you know, we we we suck you dry. Like they suck you dry, right? Like we provide grants and like educational resources. We have like, you know, like a lot of the projects are open source.

You can learn like Nowadays, I think there are just I actually wouldn't say there's not enough resources. I would say there's too much resources. You just have to get out there and like just look for it, right? But I do I do believe that in like like going back to the your previous question, right? Like, you know, maybe third world developing nation a lot of developers they're lacking the resources unlike us having the luxury of doing, you know, like all this cool events all over the world.

But yeah, I mean I mean overall like the resources are available and you know, like I would be more than happy to you know, like provide access to some of the resources if you guys want to come up to me. Yeah. So I guess the answer for me is really we're we're missing a little bit of curation. We have all the resources are available, but it's just so much information overload that it's hard to do. I'm not going to lie, that's what happened to me and I'm very thankful for the Ethereum Denver community for actually hand holding me through that process.

I also just want to shout out one project. So there's a there's a team from Sri Lanka here at Ethereum Denver this year. So it's a 19-year-old and a and a 24-year-old and they're starting a company called Matana and they're trying to provide education for their own region. So blockchain is something that's looked down upon inside of their current country. It's their first time in the US and their goal really is to be able to provide education of how to start programming in Solidity and all these other languages for free so that users can actually get into this space and kind of uplift their lives through remote education.

Oh, that's that's awesome, you know, matter of fact, I think the co-founder was literally sitting outside and he was like, "Yo, I can't access Hobby." You know, like it's I feel so sorry about folks that, you know, doesn't get access as much as we like to get we want them to access certain amount of resources. And I I think I think by, you know, providing resources to those projects are what we as in big institutions should strive for. Yeah.