What do an award-winning singer and tech entrepreneur have in common? A firm belief in the true potential of the next iteration of the internet in bringing positive change to how things are done despite its shaky start
In recent times, we’ve witnessed the boom of Web3 on the world stage followed by its whimper. A mishmash of controversial stories, major crashes and general scepticism has taken a lot of the energy out of the initial momentum offered by blockchain technology. However, it is undeniable that there remains massive untapped potential in Web3 for entrepreneurs and innovators alike.
During a panel at the Tatler Gen.T Summit 2023 titled Unblocking the Blockchain: Why Web3 Matters, award-winning singer Hanjin Tan and Web3 entrepreneur Gary Liu of Hong Kong-based Web3 startup Terminal 3 exchanged insights on the value they have found in these technologies and how they can best serve creative and business-minded leaders of tomorrow.
Here are five quotes from them that will help you make more sense of Web3.
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On the benefits of the lack of ownership
“Web3 is a version of the internet that is decentralised, where each of us as individual users can own our identity, our data and our assets,” said Liu. “I know that that might sound relatively simple but it’s incredibly difficult to bring into reality. Think about it this way: right now on the internet, we all exist constantly 24/7 and we own nothing. Facebook owns us, Google, Alibaba or anyone else. We own nothing. Your primary identity, your most important identity in your life right now, is almost certainly a digital identity of some kind; it’s not your actual passport identity.”
Tan added, “The beautiful thing about Web3 is it offers an option. We want to help the world and help our peers make life better for other people. The only constructive way is to offer and build options outside of incumbent options. Incumbent options mean the oligopolies and monopolies that Web2 is about.”
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On the dream of Web3
“We believe in a world in which individual personal data can be freely composable,” said Liu. “This means that it can freely flow across applications and protocols while remaining fully private. That does not exist today. You have to choose one or the other. Either your data is fully private—and therefore it doesn’t move from one place to another—or it does move and makes the internet magical but it’s no longer private and is completely exposed to everyone. We believe that there should be a world in which both can coexist. The beauty of blockchain technology is that because of the encryption of blockchain and the cryptography that now exists, we can make that happen.”
For Tan, “People create their own culture and together we create trends and directions. If you do it on Web3 on encrypted protocols to encrypt the internet, then you start to create personal ownership that you can monetise in the future.
“The dream is that it will be meritocratic. The dream is that it will be equitable. The dream is that people will be able to make rent and won’t have to wait for incumbents to pay them a pittance for their content.”
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