Latest Innovation in Web3 | European Blockchain Convention 9

Let's do this. I think we can. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, please find a seat before we start. My name is Bill Alami.

I am the founder and CEO of Paris Lab. We are a startup Paris Lab. We are a startup studio and incubator based in Paris based in Paris . Hmm, I'm here today with Typhoon and Uldis, who will be accompanying me on this topic of web 3 innovation. Hmm, so for a quick introduction, I'll ask the speakers to quickly introduce themselves quickly introduce themselves , and then we can move on to the question.

So, Typhoon, please continue. Good. Uh, thank you very much to everyone here. My name is Typhon Karabugli. I am an ecosystem manager at Huawei Cloud.

I am actually responsible for partnering with web3 companies. Thank you. And you? Hello everyone. Congratulations on making it to this, uh, red panel, or whatever you call it.

So, my name is Ulysses. I am the CEO of Nexpay. We provide banking services to underbanked industries, and obviously this industry has been extremely underbanked for many years. And we've been, uh, helping companies and innovators in this space and in web 3, uh, for about 5 years now, uh, helping them with banking, helping them with crypto brokerage, and crypto brokerage, and , uh, basically providing the financial foundation for their projects. Thank you very much.

So, we both have a cloud technology and infrastructure representative for application developers application developers , as well as payment and banking departments for mass adoption. So let 's start with, in order to create a mass adoption, you need proper training, as well as payment channels that make sense in their business model. And what I saw today is that most of these providers have very huge commissions. So can you tell us a little bit about how you see innovation in this area to be able to attract that next million billion users? Yes.

I think one of the key issues in this area is, uh, lack of trust, and lack of trust increases barriers to entry. This increases the cost and makes it more difficult to do business. And whatever projects are in or around Web 3, almost all of them require some form of payment . And the payment methods in Web 3, in cryptocurrency, which are, let's say, not based on fiat currencies, they are, let's say, very, let's say, well, they are almost completely unregulated, let's say, so far, which, on the one hand, is very good because it's easy to manage, easy to configure. On the other hand, it prevents a lot of players from entering this space, creating products, creating projects, because they just feel like there's not enough infrastructure to guarantee that guarantee that any users that they're going to add to their, let's say, their platform, their metaverse, or wherever, their money will be safe, their transactions will be processed.

Um, so I think that, um, there's a huge potential huge potential , um, from the regulation that's coming along with the Mika directive in Europe, because it's just going to level the playing field, make the rules pretty clear, and open the door for anyone, whether it's banks, big tech companies, whether it's anyone, to build in this space with confidence, with clear regulation, that what they're doing is compliant, what they're doing is, you know, safe, and what you know, safe, and what they're doing can unlock value for users, for end users. And as these, um, large institutions and companies join this space, obviously competition is increasing and prices are coming down. So your question about high commissions, um, should be resolved. And you also talked about regulation. Um, there are huge restrictions on KYC and AML, um, how to say it, when creating and using these, um, services, and I'll give you an example.

Some of the services require KYC, um, when you use 1000 euros. Some others when you use 10,000 euros. Um, how are they, um 10,000 euros. Um, how are they, um , what's the difference between the two of them? Hmm, first of all, where are they licensed?

So it might matter. Secondly, it's the culture of compliance that they have, what their risk appetite or risk tolerance is, and ultimately, it's the regulator of that region, of that jurisdiction that sets the tone on what can and can't be done. Hmm, I think a lot can be solved through decentralization and the implementation of cryptocurrency protocols. However, in today's world, this does not mesh well with the existing financial system. So I think it's going to take countries quite a while to figure out: how can we combine traditional with, um, Web 3 traditional with, um, Web 3 , with decentralization, with, let's say, less, less control, less, um, less, um, checks on people interacting.

And I think that, uh, potentially we could get to a point where, uh get to a point where, uh , this, uh, will be a tipping point where the overload of transactions with AML and KYC requirements will lead to a lot of innovation in this space and a consensus among people and governments that, “Hey, maybe, you know, it’s not that you don’t need to ask a thousand questions about a 500 euro transaction 500 euro transaction .” So, of course, and, uh, where do you think is the best place to build these kinds of services that essentially minimize, uh, the risk of fraud, maximize, maximize the threshold amount for KYC, while staying at the level that Mikas thinks should be defined, because, uh , I think there's going to be a massive change in the Cape Town landscape in Europe in terms of where crypto projects and crypto companies are based, and that's going to depend on Mikas being implemented quickly, efficiently, and intelligently. So, I think countries will compete for a lot of business, similar to how it was when the fifth AML directive was implemented and countries in Europe started to apply AML rules to cryptocurrency businesses. The next path, you know, sent a thousand companies to Estonia, then a similar number to Lithuania, because they were fast, efficient, the rules were clear. And now there will be a huge, let's say, market division, or market redistribution, depending on which countries will be the fastest, most efficient, and smartest in implementing Mika, because companies in this area are very flexible and very much looking for clear, reasonable, and understandable rules.

So I think I can't answer that question now because things are going to change a lot next year, by the end of next year, who will be the first to issue these licenses and provide these clear rules? Perfectly. Thank you for that. Typhoon, I'm looking at you now. You came from Hue, a fairly large company, and you're in charge of the cloud part and connections to the Web3 ecosystem.

Can you tell us a little more about what you do? We are actually responsible for partnering with Web3 companies, but I can definitely say something about this . I think everyone in this audience everyone in this audience who uses a mobile phone for the end user is very important, but before we start looking at the end users, we need to go to the hardware level. So the basic layer of network infrastructure, if fixed, we can provide a good scalable network infrastructure, and also every service that the end user, starting from the interface, will use to pay for DABS, and other solutions. If the infrastructure is not in order and is not able to work, then we will have a very big problem because we cannot connect many users.

Your network, your Your network, your website, or your company will experience disruptions. So we don't want to run into that, because if you want to have a very reliable, uh have a very reliable, uh , infrastructure that cloud providers, like Huawei Cloud, but also, uh, our competitors, they have to be responsible for providing the infrastructure for web companies so that they can easily host nodes, connect their databases, provide a CDN so that the end user has a very good infrastructure and also an environment, it's easy to do transactions between Alice and Bob. What is the most important technical part for web developers using the cloud using the cloud ? Is this a knot? Is it scalability, availability?

Uh, node placement or node setup is very complicated. You need a computer. You need to spend around 2000 euros and it needs to be turned on every day. But if you use your personal computer, you can no longer use it because it is a node. Therefore, you are better off using the services of a cloud provider that provides certain templates where you can easily post a note in a second so that you can build your company in the cloud your company in the cloud .

And now in cloud infrastructure, everything is changing because you have low-code vendors, no code vendors, which also makes it easier for everyone to start a company. So you need a little technical knowledge, but it's not like in the cloud bubble where you have to build everything from scratch because the cloud companies are actually implementing their services. If they're going to implement more and more, then it's going to be very easy for every company in the world to set up their, ahem, web environment. Good. So, you answer this question about everything related to, ahem, hosting.

Um, but, um, what about the trend, for example, towards decentralized cloud computing? Are you working on this a little bit from a cloud technology perspective, or is this something you're paying attention to? Um, decentralized. Yes. Every blockchain Yes.

Every blockchain company talks about decentralized solutions, but they still host their solutions in the cloud. Yes. But still, if you're going to host some of your nodes in Huawei's cloud or competitors', um, Huawei's cloud, you can still have some clouds in your own environment, or you can decide to, um, host some nodes in the community. It's still decentralized because you're not putting everything in the clouds. So, you are not dependent on centralized data centers.

Good. Very interesting. And I have another comment, because I've heard a lot about people building, um, what they call a multi-cloud or cross-cloud application. Hmm, do you think this makes sense? Hmm, wait, hmm, one of the services we provide at the moment is hybrid multi-cloud, essentially multi-cloud, essentially , is that you can host some services on the Huawei cloud.

You can have an edgecloud or an on-premises data center, but you can also move entire clusters between different types of cloud providers. For example, you can buy a data center and install it at home. You can put it there, but you can also connect to the cloud. Some information or, um, confidential data or very important things need to be, um, online. You can store this in Premiere or maybe move it to the cloud from time to time.

When you need to think about, uh think about, uh , when there's a peak time, let's say the billing market, some companies need a lot of nodes and services, then you can scale with the cloud, having onrem or hcloud services, thank you, and I'm turning to you two now, uh, outside of your area of expertise, what are the latest innovations in Web 3 that you think are very trendy and worth noting, uh, first of all, is that international organizations like ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, are doing a lot of things to standardize blockchain, uh, interoperability. It is very important for companies to actually use these services, which can be very interesting, but they need to be adopted. Another thing that's very innovative is the Ethereum community, because they offer Ethereum for real estate tokenization or account abstraction , or different kinds of solutions and other, uh, blockchain uh, blockchain providers, or L1 or L2 solutions, they actually follow Ethereum because they're , uh, the biggest in the blockchain sector. Thank you. And is there any innovation that you think will spark the next bull market?

I think one thing that's going to come back into the headlines is the metaverse, different metaverses, virtual reality, and, um, these online characters that you can create, um, in the world of games. I see many similar projects. I see a lot of really cool technology that Facebook is releasing with the new Quest products, and I also saw this conversation between Lex Freidman and, um, Mark Zuckerberg, which felt like, um, a whole new kind of metaverse, not like your cartoonish, um, world, but like a real personal interaction. So I think a lot of the hype was dispelled by, um, a bare market, a lack of funding, and, um, a lack of, um, interest. But I think with the next wave of the bull market, I think the money will come back into this industry and the projects will get a lot more visibility and, um, a lot more interaction between people will happen in the metaverse.

Thank you. I want to close with one last word, perhaps a last word from both of you. What is the main lesson you learned from the previous bull market or this bear market, as an entrepreneur and, uh, as a corporate representative? This is a very good question . I think, uh, I think companies need to make very smart investments, uh smart investments, uh , with the money that they raise.

And if you have a huge investment, uh, you can definitely last a few years if you 're going to use it very properly. But if you, uh, don't allocate your investments very well, then companies can easily die, and we've seen that in several bull markets. Some companies have disappeared completely. Even they raised 30 million, 20 million during the ICO boom, they are not here. Some companies have done very well with their investments.

Money is king. Be careful where you spend your money. I think you need to really think about how you're going to survive the next bull market, either for 10 years or maybe 20 years. And it's about allocating your, um, your resources. This applies to every company, not just blockchain just blockchain companies, but every company in the world.

Thank you for that. I think the main lesson for me would be that I'm all for innovation, and also in finance, but you have to be very careful when it comes to financial engineering and every wave. I've been through two cycles in this space, and each wave is accompanied by some innovation, and because it's a very financially driven market, it's usually accompanied by some kind of financial engineering financial engineering . And there was a lot of, um, a lot of, um, pain, disentanglement, when people think they understand economics, but there are different layers of economics that maybe they didn't understand, some second-order or third-order effects. And, um, and I think you just have to be very careful when, um, when, um, following these innovations.

Hmm, you have to support them, but you also have to be very careful. If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Thank you. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you.