Glenn Tan - Real Talk: A Systems Perspective of Blockchain for Social Impact

Um, let me introduce you the next speaker. He is Glen Tan, director of global affairs for blockchain and good alliance. This is going to be the last talk before we go to launch. Uh, the speaker uh sir Glenn you will talk about real talk a system perspective of blockchain for social impact. So very shortly how blockchain can be used for our social everyday life.

How can we manage to put things on chain so we have decentralization transparency Glenn brings a global lens to blockchain role in driving system changes backed by bybit BGA blockchain for good alliance champions blockchain as a public infrastructure. In this talk, Glenn critics the misalignment between hype cycles and real world needs, calling for a shift of funding, narrative, and design. How can we use blockchain for real things, not for speculation? Thank you, Glenn. The stage is yours.

All right. Um, okay. Let me test the volume of this mic. Okay. Critique.

That's a very strong word. I don't really use that word because like hey but that's kind of cool. All right, good morning everyone just before lunch. My name is Glenn. I'm the director for global affairs at the blockchain for good alliance.

So really one of the first times that the BGA is really taking the stage to give a talk like this. Normally my talks give a bit more of a pitch on what the BGA really does. So this is really us deep diving into a deeper perspective of what blockchain for social impact really is. So, a quick introduction to myself. Like I said, I'm Glenn, the director for global affairs.

I lead everything in international partnerships for the global alliance of the BGA. Started my journey 2017 mandatory. Everybody always says what year they start crypto in. I have no idea why. So, I'm just going to follow that anyway since that's the trend of the industry.

I'm also a founder in the web 3 space. I dabble in RWA tokenization, specifically more for financial inclusivity. and I'm from Singapore. So, didn't expect um Naples here to be as hot as my hometown. Was expecting to escape the heat a little bit, but it's super super hot.

So, anyway, really deep diving onto what exactly the alliance really is. The blockchain for good alliance, we were founded last year in April by Bybit. So Ben Helen, the CEO and COO of Bybit, the world's second largest cryptocurrency exchange, have also founded the blockchain for good alliance, really to push and support blockchain's use cases for social and public good impact. So really our main goal is to ultimately position blockchain as a tool that has because it does have the capabilities to really align itself with the sustainability development goals of the United Nations. Now, the United Nations Development Program or the UNDP for short is also one of our key partners this year as I will explain in just a little bit.

So, really, we're just about a year old, but we have massive exposure around the world. Of course, we have grown pretty rapidly in many alliance partners, many partner types, and multiple active regions as well. So, we have a very significant presence in many regions even though we're a pretty small team in BBIT. And of course, what we really do, not to dive too deep into making this a sales pitch, but we are well powered by what we call the web3 key fund, which is a multi-million dollar fund given to us by bit to carry out our global initiatives. So, we sponsor hackathons all around the world, just like how we're sponsoring also the hackathon here in Napole.

We also have an internal incubation program. This is where we support and back blockchain projects that use the technology for social and public impact. We give them equity-free grants. We give them marketing support, legal and compliance support. Basically, whatever project needs, we can provide it at no cost because ultimately we are a nonprofit arm.

We also have a joint fund. This is where we work collaboratively with multiple institutions, L1 blockchains, VCs, the UN to really create large funding pools to push blockchain impact forward. And last but not least, the web three Oscar, which is a year-end event very similar to the Hollywood Oscars in which we have a global stage to support blockchain impact. No really pictures or it didn't happen, right? So our events and our collaborations, we have very strong international connections.

We work with politicians, we work with blockchains, we work with other universities and institutions. We have international partnerships with a lot of different players. We also do impactful hackathons. And of course, we celebrate the best players in blockchain for good across our four pillars. So really real talk, right?

What exactly is missing today? What is the mindset shift that is actually needed in society right now? and why it's now the right time for things because a systems perspective will really talk about what blockchain can really do especially in changing the world for the better and why it's not just an ideology or a fantasy. So some food for thought right a lot of times when we talk about blockchain by extension most of the world thinks it's about crypto and what's the first thing that people think about speculation. So here's food for thought.

Speculation and impact, they're not mutually exclusive. So why are we thinking about it that way? When somebody comes up to a regular person and talks about public goods, it's always nah. That's for the ministries. That's for government agencies.

That's for charitable organizations. Not sexy in the world of web 3. Not at all. No ICO, no quick token sales. It's not nice.

But what if you really started thinking about it in a very different lens? What if we started analyzing the actual real world impact and not just technical analysis where we look at trends when we look at returns itself and what if actual user benefits from real people in the real world who may not even understand what crypto is what blockchain is can actually give returns more than speculative projects. Ultimately the challenge in the world is not really about adoption but it's really designing systems that reward value creation beyond just trading tokens. So really we do know that the potential of blockchain is very diverse. Apart from just your typical meme coins created by interesting politicians, there are also multiple use cases around the world.

You can have blockchain in financial inclusivity, supply chain, sustainability, transparency in fundraising, making things more clean and clear for people, for taxpayers to know where their money goes, identity management, even disaster relief. So blockchain itself has so many use cases, but all these are still not getting the right attention that it truly deserves. It's 2025 right now. Blockchain is still a hype word. It definitely is cooling down a little bit, but it's definitely something that's still gaining attention and traction when it's being used.

But yet, even today, its use cases always remain under served, underfunded, under reportported. a brief insight because those are not just random theories. Last year research has shown that in the industry itself billions billions of USD were actually poured into the web 3 industry. A lot of VCs and angel networks that were primarily involved in web 2 are also entering into web 3 last year. Billions were poured into projects primarily for speculative purposes.

A lot less into public and social goods funding. Even ESG policies and mandates are growing throughout the world. We start seeing NOS's, we start seeing government agencies talking a lot more about supporting ESGs, about improving regulations around sustainability and improving the world. But web 3's involvement as a key word is always not too much there. And last but not least, of course, builders themselves always face obstacles when it comes to funding, when it comes to policy, when it comes to adoption.

At the end of the day, what's really missing? Are there a lack of good builders? No. Do projects really lack a sustainable building models? No.

What they really lack are right institutional partnerships and even localized adoption strategies. They're building things wrong. Many a time, you know, social good projects tend to stop at MVPs. They can get the initial traction, they prove it. They go to a VC, they go to an angel, they go to any other investor.

I have traction. This is my pitch deck. This is what I can do. But one look at it. Social impact.

Nah, not really a lack of interest in that area. There's even a lack of sustainable grants. Not many associations, institutions really give out sustainability grants for such projects. Worse still, there's no real world opportunities for, you know, for projects and builders to start recognizing that there are inherent gaps in society that can be built. A quick example, couple months ago, the blockchain for good alliance, we also sponsored a hackathon at Dutch blockchain week that was in Amsterdam.

The whole theme was on cyber security. We wanted to use blockchain and AI to improve transactions to make sure that funds are kept secure. But even then when we were just launching a theoretical hackathon, we couldn't find right and real world data sets to actually support the builders in building. It doesn't give people that assurance that understanding that real world problems really do exist. Ultimately the entire market lacks a structured pipeline to really take these ideas to policy and to people at the end of the day.

So really when we talk about building blockchain for good, what really comes to your mind right now? Charity? Not really. When we're talking about blockchain for good, especially what we do at the BGA, we're talking about real world changes in society. We're talking about building technology that empowers communities and giving these people and players real support that outlasts just funding cycles, outlasts just how fast you raise your preede or get your first token sale out.

We back we back them and let them build on evidence and impact based building. So at the end of the day, it's not charity when we talk about blockchain for good. What we're talking about is really real world impact. It's about redefining how ROI can actually be perceived when you think about blockchain and social impact. At the end of the day, profitable ventures really do exist.

A lot of the projects and partners in our ecosystem within the BGA support, you know, projects that are building for social good, but they are profitable with very sustainable building models. We have blockchain partners associations like Cello, like Stellar, they're actively also supporting, you know, blockchain projects for good. Even the Ethereum Foundation, the EF, they have a next billion initiative which is super interesting, very impactful for really sifting out the best stories for people for meaningful change. And ultimately what I want to say is the next billion people who come into the industry that we we're all sharing right now, they don't come for speculations. They come for solutions and they might not even know what the hell blockchain really is.

So 2025 right now is really a crossroads. 50 trillion by this year. I'm not even talking about what projections are going to be. I'm talking about this year right now where we see that you know 50 trillion projected in ESG assets and investments around the world but blockchain itself still largely absent. We talk about the growth of AI.

We talk about the growth of digital infrastructure. We talk about even the previous couple of talks what is good about AI, how fast it's growing, stuff like that. But yet when players in the world talk about AI, we also talk about more demands for transparency, more demands for verifiability. But all these are blockchain's native strengths. So why isn't the word blockchain for sustainability growing at the same rate?

from our own you know partnerships that I've been building for the alliances with different governments around the world. We also start to realize that NOS's and various government agencies are also starting to really take a push and take a hard stance in seeking out tools that help them to push goals to meet the SGS to create trustless interoperable systems. They always come and say how can we do it how can we do it better and blockchain tends to always be that answer. So at the end of the day, who are we really building for when we talk about blockchain for social impact? For you and for me maybe, but I I dare to say that it's for the people who are really not in this room right now.

We're building for people like farmers in the quietest rural areas. We're talking about people who are refugees right now. They don't have identifications or don't have identifications anymore. We're talking about even smaller local mayor offices, governments and they have a lack of real blockchain developers that can help push their vision forward or at the end of the day are we really building just for grants. You know, are builders really doing this just for a quick fund raise and a quick token sale?

Even at the BGA, I tend to see a lot of projects that come to us and say that hey I am building a blockchain project. Can can I get a grant from the BGA? And we go cool. What is your what are you building creating a memecoin? So what's so good about memecoin?

It's blockchain for good because it makes people rich and being rich is a good thing and they literally submit such stuff to us which is kind of hilarious but it it's kind of like a greenwashing or really for us it's a value washing for us to suit the programs. So even today we see a lot of projects they try to twist and turn their way in order to really suit a quick fundraising but the direction that they're building maybe might not be the best thing. It might not be the right thing either. So at the end of the day the shifts that are needed are really across the industry right for builders itself we really need to start designing for users at the end of the day who may not even understand and may not be crypton natives and for building real world problems another feedback that we get from projects is that they don't understand how compliant they need to be how ready they need to be or how credible their initial backing needs to be in order for to help them scale at the end of the day for investors not just for VCs or angel investors or family offices But even for traders who call themselves investors because we buy Bitcoin and crypto. Even for us, it's really a call to not look at social impact as things that are boring, things that are unscalable, but they are the right ways to get mass adoption in the world.

Because it's only when people who start to use an application and they don't understand what is the technology behind it, that is true mass adoption. When I take an Uber, I have no idea what the hell the language is behind. I just take it because it works and that is real mass adoption and that's how it really gets there. So it's a call to really look at the target users instead of just the white paper. Look at who's benefiting.

Is there a real world problem for ecosystems for organizations even for the blockchain for good alliance ourselves? We always need to back ambition not alignment. We always need to convene really start building bridges because bridges are not as easy to do as it seems. Really crossconnecting worlds between web two and web 3 different age gaps different generations different industries is not the easiest. But ultimately it's also an open call to all of us to start pushing that entire paradigm forward.

So what really gives impact in society today? Major players, major institutions that we work with will continue giving us the impact and the push in order to shift things forward. So our involvement and the entire industry's involvement with major and legitimate brand names like the UN, like other NOS's, like government offices will actually start to give our entire industry a lot more legitimacy in pushing the entire social impact with blockchain movement forward. And really for us at the blockchain for good alliance, what we want to do is always go beyond the buzzwords. Be that credibility for projects in the space who are building be that last piece of the puzzle to help them scale up and also to give them a global impact even if they're just building locally for smaller projects.

And of course a quick run through of what we're doing. We want to surface real world ideas, support promising projects, co-und, and lastly celebrate true blockchain impact. And then of course my last slide that I'll go is just a quick call for you to join us. connect with me and you know I'm always open to looking out for new projects new partners as well and I think I missed one slide so just taking a real quick one just a quick shout out at the end of this year we are having a massive event at UN city in Copenhagen in Denmark this is in our collaboration with the United Nations development program so it's going to be a two-day conference held directly at a key UN building in EU so we're very excited for how this is going to push blockchain for social impact forward so yes once again my QR codes are there for telegram as well as for LinkedIn if you guys want to get connected. I'm always on the lookout for new partners.

So, your expertise is going to be very important for us at the alliance to really help us continue scaling and growing. And if you just want to say hi, my telegram is there. Do let me know your background as well so that we can see how much of an insightful chat we can possibly have. And that's all I have for today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Glenn.