Web3’s Trust Dilemma: Bridging Technology and Human Confidence - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2024

very good morning everyone my name is paling and I'm from metacom now in 2020 when I was still in a quasi government organization I remember that I met a group of investors they were absolutely bullish about the web 3 as well as defi the promise of the blockchain technology and how it will revolutionize the entire industry then in 2021 they came back and said you know metaverse is the next thing and it was full of confidence but then in 2022 the unfortunate incidents involving Luna Terror and then FTX unfortunately would have affected a lot of people's confidence and the impression of the technology and web three I remember in the wake of the FTX incident it was a high-profile incident the Singapore Parliament was talking about it and several MPS questioned then um DPM as well as Minister for finance about task's investment in FTX now why am I sharing this I'm sharing this because there is a lot of concerns about web 3 and unfortunately linked to that is the fundamental technology itself which is unfortunate ladies and gentlemen I would say that currently we are here in token 2049 we are all believers but out there I would dare postulate that there is a trust deficit that we need to address and hence the Dilemma that I would like to talk about today blockchain as we all know here was originally invented or created to dis intermediate to dis intermediate the process the actors involved so that they can achieve greater efficiencies higher cost savings but also to decentralize so that we are no longer just relying on centralized notes or people we can democratize access more people can be part of that action and so in essence it is to temper proof and untrusted environment so that people can transact and interact with Creer confidence however as time pass I think we can observe by now that the technology on its own itself might have facilitated that sense of confidence that trust to a certain extent but on its own it's insufficient I highlighted some of the higher profile incidents earlier when I started sharing coming on stage but there are also other incidents for example scams moneya laundering these are very unfortunate incidents that are happening people lost their life savings and this would impact their confidence in web three in what we are able to offer for me I have come across several of these cases and it is heartbreaking so what can we do to rebuild the trust to rehabilitate web3 if I can put it that way how can we restore the trust in this space so that for the wonderful promises that wrey could bring can come to fruition so I would like to therefore take this chance to talk about how we can bridge between technology and human confidence now if I can posit I think there are three key pillars of trust that we could look at or three key sources of trust that we need to build number one institutional trust number two regulatory trust and number three industry trust allow me to say a bit more first on institutional trust well it may sound ironical that when we first talk about blockchain and web 3 we wanted to dis intimidate we want to remove some of these so-called centralized third party uh notes to validate and verify but if anything that we have observed by now over the past few years that technology alone while it has built up some trust facilitated that to some extent but it is not enough we need to have notes of trust such as the more traditional financial institutions such as Banks to vouch to validate and vouch for the Integrity of the system and this is actually happening in 2022 Bane Rel published a report and in the report they in in that in that article they also talk about a report that they did they surveyed um high level senior banking Executives as well as uh web 3 company CEOs and out of that survey report 60% of the bankers as well as 80% of the web fre CEOs believe that web free will be able to revolutionize the financial system and take over many of the functions that Banks could do but in the same breath there will also mention that they believe that for people to have greater trust to want to make use of the services involved they would like to interface with institutions such as the banks and even for crypto native this web3 firm the CEO who was interviewed in that same report that many of the customers including those who are Savvy with digital assets felt that they want to interface with the bank to have the bank to be able to validate the smart contract that is being used to enable the web free the blockchain banks institutions have got their strength I think we need to acknowledge that they have many years of experience building up their kyc kyt and they have earned the trust of customers and they are also moving into the space with at metac comp we have also observed this so our observation corroborates this we see that there are more financial in institutions and even the more traditional fexs coming in to explore the world of web 3 throughout conversations especially with the banks can see a wide range of them getting involved from just having internal conversation to cautiously experimenting with projects to even altering their internal processes and structures to embrace this change some of the other fintech organizations that have met with also are exploring this and more recently in the news we know that Swift is also looking at how they can make transactions between traditional and digital assets more interoperable so what this means for us is that we might have to start looking at some of these traditional institutions not as competitors but collaborators some form of coopertition may be useful in helping to rebuild the trust that we need for the weet free industry to continue to develop now allow me to move on to the second pillar which is regulatory trust I think many of our fellow friends and Industry uh peers sometimes would have certain concerns or feel a bit jittery when we talk about regulations now earlier as I mentioned as more traditional institutions especially like the banks coming into the web free space I think one can expect that adoption will start to increase and once adoption increases Regulators will now be more motivated to also want to come into the space to look at what's happening and see what they can do ultimately Regulators want to be able to protect the retail customers the masses I think this is something that we can understand but at the same time Regulators can play an enabling role in terms of the industry development so with Regulators coming in in a bigger way we can expect in more jurisdictions as well they will cover a wide range of areas from your protocol standards your kyc kyt requirements to how a digital asset should be categorized or treated to even the marketing and promotion of such products and services will be a full range but at the same same time they could be play their enabling role but like how for example just to illustrate licensing regime it is honorous but it has its merits because when there is a clearly articulated licensing regime they set out what can or cannot be done or at least what must not be done and for in and for companies or players who are able to meet these criteria it is a mark of trust that it gives to the customers to say that at least this company its services its products would have met a certain minimum standard so it helps to increase that sense of confidence and that trust that may be needed to promote greater development of the industry and so I think it is important for Regulators to engage with industry players a lot more to understand what is happening what are some of the pitfalls and how we can work together to enable the development of the industry and likewise for industry players like us to respond and be upfront and be more open to share with Regulators to promote that understanding because when Regulators if they operate in vacuum if they do not understand what is happening or what this is all about they will tend to take a conservative the safest approach and that would always be a no that's not what we want coming to the third pillar which is the industry trust this is where we all come in as industry players we are right at the Forefront we know what is the latest development what are some of the gaps that we need to to fill so on and so forth and so for us we can come together we are able to put forth common standards not only are we able to craft it we are able to better it and then we share it common standards are useful because it makes things more interoperable more consistent more predictable verifiable that's just part of it and of course for each and every one of us we represent a node in the ecosystem in the whole chain of activities and if each and every one of us hold ourselves to high standards to high standards of Integrity transparency code code of conduct for example then we will be able to ensure that the entire space the ecosystem has got high integrity as well that is secure and safe and over time that reputation will grow and we can help in turn to build confidence but more than that we can come together as a groundup allies to make this work I don't think we can ever guarantee that there will not be any Bad actors out there but if enough of us are committed to this cause committed to ensuring compliance clean web free I think with critical mess we will be a formidable movement a formidable impact for the rest of the industry and in turn outside of the web free community we will be able to convince more people about the merits of what we are able to offer then this is where I would like to talk about metacom metacom as what we have when we were first founded we want to be the compass of the industry we want to do what is right and help to contribute to the development of the industry and so we believe in having a web three with a purpose so to do so uh obviously over the past year since our founding in 2018 we've had our fair share of Learning Journey and through all this journey we have gained very precious experiences and learned from some of the pitfalls and some of the uh little stories that we have gained over time and one thing that we realize is that compliance is important in building up the confidence that our clients have with us and of course with the Regulators because we are a masas licensed financial institution here in Singapore so whe whether it's from the onboarding the kyc to the type of products and services that we design we believe in compliance by Design and because of the experiences that we have gained over time we came up with something that I thought would be useful to share and that is wallet save now this is not a product that or service that we proactively Market but I just want to share this as an example of why and of what we believe in in terms of web three with a purpose now as we go into this business as we interact with more clients as we build up that experience we realize that it is very important that we keep every note clean as clean as possible and for wallets it's something that we all need in order to transact on chain and so for wallet save we decided to put together this service drawing on different databases so that we can screen the wallets that we transact with it's not only to protect ourselves but to also protect the customers yourselves and we are availing this not just to our own customers but also to the general public as well so if anyone is interested you can leverage this now for this what we want to do is to ensure that people have the tool to be empowered to screen wallets before they start the transaction before just in case some tainted tokens get into your wallet and taint the rest and here it's not just as a matter of protecting the transactions but also in the hope of building up an intuition a form of habit and intuition so that everyone is mindful of what it means to transact in a safe and clean manner so this is the little bit that we wanted to do to contribute to this bigger purpose bigger cause now for metacom what we do is that we want to bridge traditional Finance with the digital asset side with the digital financing site or in short crypto Finance but at the same time we also want to do our part to bridge between the technology as well as human confidence for us as a licens entity in Singapore we want to do our part Singapore has done a lot to ensure that this is a vibrant ecosystem where fintech players where technology where anyone who believes in the digital future can Thrive we have the digital infrastructure we have the policies we have the environment we're interoperable within the region and Beyond and so for us as a licensed entity here in Singapore we want to be able to plug in to what is being offered to us we want to be able to work with our partners and friends to create this safe clean environment M where everyone has the confidence to transact and interact in we want to be able to inspire confidence in the broader Community out there to know that it is safe it is fun it is exciting many possibilities in web three and so this is why we on a mission to build a web three with a purpose and so with that I thought that we could therefore call to action R all our industry plan players here to also join us in this movement do our part to ensure that for each of us as a note in the ecosystem that we promote a clean web free and with that thank you for your time and um let me also play a short video on what metacom is all about if Will indulge me thank you everyone [Music]