On October 17, the 10th Blockchain Global Summit hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab came to a successful conclusion. The theme of this summit was "Technology for the Future", which attracted hundreds of guests, many important opinion leaders from all over the world, and dozens of surrounding industry activities. At the meeting, PANONY&PANews co-founder and editor-in-chief Bi Tongtong served as the roundtable host, and focused on Web3 infrastructure construction with Amazon Web Services Web3 architect team leader Kong Lei, AGI Open Network growth officer Aaron Tsu, and IOSG Ventures managing director Gokhan Er, and launched a wonderful summit dialogue. The following is compiled from the on-site shorthand, and some deletions do not affect the original meaning.
Bi Tongtong (host): Good afternoon, everyone! I am honored to host this important roundtable discussion and share with you. I am Bi Tongtong, co-founder and editor-in-chief of PANONY&PANews. The topic of this roundtable discussion is "Breaking the Circle and the Future of Web3 Infrastructure". Web3 infrastructure is a hot topic every year. I hope that through today's discussion, we can bring you new knowledge and unique insights.
First of all, please ask the guests of the roundtable discussion to introduce yourselves and briefly introduce yourselves and your background and experience in the Web3 field, so that the online and offline audiences can have a deeper understanding of you.
Kong Lei: Hello everyone! I am Kong Lei, currently working in Singapore, serving as the technical leader of the AWS Web3 team. My team is mainly responsible for the construction of the Web3 team and ecosystem under AWS. The team size is about 16-17 people, mainly serving customers in the Web3 field, such as centralized exchanges. At the same time, we have also launched some new businesses, such as cooperation with the traditional financial industry.
Gokhan Er: Hello everyone! I am the managing director of IOSG Ventures. We are a fund focused on crypto industry investments and have been involved in this field since 2017. In the past few years, we have made a lot of investments in infrastructure and look forward to seeing more applications in this field. We have offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and New York, and we are looking forward to today's roundtable discussion.
Aaron Tsu: Hello everyone! I am very happy to be invited to participate in today's roundtable discussion. I am Aaron Tsu from AGI Open Network. We mainly focus on DAO and provide solutions such as SDK and computing integrator. We cooperate with Chinese software developers and now have a large number of registered developers to help our ecosystem prosper.
Bi Tongtong (host): Thank you very much for the introductions from all the guests. Next, we will move on to the first topic.
As we all know, L1, L2 and various application chains are already very abundant in the Web3 field. So, do you think that the Web3 infrastructure is mature enough to support a large number of applications? Where are the potential opportunities?
Kong Lei: We have made significant technical progress in L1 and L2. From our perspective, we are very concerned about the development of Web3 infrastructure. We have many top customers, including CES centralized exchange and other Web3 customers. From the perspective of infrastructure, we are not worried about its maturity. Since last year, the topic of mainstream application of Web3 has been discussed a lot, and it has become more popular recently. We have seen many application scenarios, and many companies have also put forward corresponding requirements.
Two weeks ago, I attended the Token2049 conference in Singapore, where we also discussed in depth how to solve the problems of L2 and related infrastructure. From a technical perspective, we have seen a lot of promising technologies. These technologies are designed to bring more users into the Web3 world and solve problems such as L1 efficiency. At the same time, we have also seen a lot of new blockchains launched. This is a direction we are still closely watching.
Gokhan Er: From 2017 to now, this field has changed dramatically. At that time, the TPS of blockchains such as Ethereum was only 15-20, which was the main problem at that time. But in 2020, the situation is different. Ethereum has put forward a roadmap, pointing out that the scalability and extensibility of L1 are limited, and expansion needs to be achieved through L2 solutions. This is also our only solution to achieve blockchain expansion. This year, we have seen a lot of L2 enter the official mainnet stage.
For example, Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, has launched many L2s based on Ethereum, and its TPS has reached 10,000, which is a huge improvement. It is expected that many blockchains will make breakthroughs in TPS improvement in the future. From the perspective of infrastructure, we have entered a turning point. The huge investment in infrastructure in the past is gradually paying off. I believe that it is entirely possible for L2 chains to attract millions or even more users. Compared with 5-6 years ago, we have made great progress, so I am confident about the future.
Aaron Tsu: L2 has been the focus of everyone's attention in the past few years. But from the perspective of large-scale application, we are still in the early stages. In the past, we paid too much attention to scalability, but not enough attention to security and user experience. For people without a technical background, the blockchain experience is still challenging. In addition, we also need to think about how to attract institutional users and enterprises to participate, which is a key factor in achieving large-scale, mainstream applications.
Bi Tongtong (host): Thank you very much for sharing. Next, I would like to ask about the advantages of AWS Web3 in infrastructure.
Kong Lei: This is a very broad question. I can briefly introduce our current projects and plans for the next few years. AWS has been deeply involved in this field for 8-10 years and has been involved since 2014. After I joined AWS, I witnessed the transformation of AWS. We used to have many early centralized exchange customers, and we hope to expand the solutions we built for them to the entire ecosystem. Therefore, from an infrastructure perspective, we now have a lot of development tools that can be used by the broader Web3 community. At the same time, we also have many decentralized solutions built on the AWS cloud.
In addition, we also provide many cloud-native solutions, such as blockchain as a service (BAAS) and data availability services, mainly for Web3 users. We can provide third-party and first-party services to help users access more Web3 applications. From a global perspective, we work with many top blockchain providers to provide multi-platform access. Currently, we are in the AI era, so we also provide a lot of AI-related resources. In terms of AI security, we also have two-way applications. At the same time, we are also exploring ways to combine Web3 with AI to achieve better applications.
Bi Tongtong (host): Thank you very much for Kong Lei's sharing. Next, I would like to ask Gokhan Er, from an investment perspective, when you make investment decisions and research, what factors do you pay special attention to in Web3 infrastructure projects?
Gokhan Er: In the past, IOSG was very lucky to find the best infrastructure projects in this field, such as Aztec, Arbitrum and other top L2 chains and leading privacy projects. The founders of these projects have some things in common, such as most of them are from top universities and have a good academic background. They have made important contributions in their research fields, such as zero-knowledge proofs.
But more importantly, these founders all realize that the best technology does not necessarily win. As a founder, you need to understand the business model, especially the business model in the Web3 world. Building a community is of unparalleled importance in the Web3 field. Therefore, as a founder, you not only need to be passionate about technology, but also need to show that you understand the importance of the community. You need to be very active on platforms such as Telegram or Discord to establish better connections with the community.
Take the founder of Arbitrum, for example. He is from Princeton University. In 2021, you can find him and ask him any questions, and he will answer them in person. This shows how much the founders of Web3 projects care about users and the community. Therefore, I think it is very important that if you see your project being questioned online, you need to defend your project in person.
Bi Tongtong (host): Thank you very much for Gokhan Er's sharing. Next, I would like to ask Aaron to share the impact of AGI on Web3 infrastructure and the opportunities and challenges that AGI and AI bring to Web3.
Aaron Tsu: This is a great question. Simply put, the integration of AGI with Web3 can bring transformative power. AGI can greatly improve the efficiency of Web3 infrastructure. From the perspective of opportunities and challenges, the challenges mainly come from the problem of centralization. The model of AGI is often controlled by a few early investors or major players, which is similar to Web2. In addition, the trust system is also a major challenge.
AI models are very data-dependent, but the data source itself may be biased. This bias will affect the results of AGI. If this bias is out of control, it may have very serious consequences. We are still in the early stages and everything is still developing. Teams working in this field are trying to define the problem and are constantly evolving in the process.
Developers always want to develop AI applications on the chain. For example, AGI can provide developers with templates that make it easier for them to deploy their own applications on the chain. Once these tools are more widely used, efficiency will also be improved.
Bi Tongtong (host): Thank you very much for sharing. Next, I would like to ask the guests to look forward to the main trends in the next 5-10 years.
Kong Lei: Although 5-10 years seems long, Web3 changes very fast. From recent observations, many people are paying attention to how we can use these networks to develop Mini APP. In addition to the existing ecosystem, we are also exploring the advancement of the application level. For example, there are many similar projects in Southeast Asian social applications such as Kakao and LINE. From a global perspective, we are also observing a lot of work that can be done in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China under compliance requirements. We can go overseas to find more opportunities, especially in these ecosystems. In social networks, we can find a lot of new consumers and customers, who are new blood and don’t know much about Web3, but they can become new users. This is the dynamic we have been observing.
Another point is that the introduction of artificial intelligence has brought a lot of technical resources and requirements. AI is essentially a decentralized network, which has a great demand for other technical resources, especially GPU resources. We hope to build our own framework with the help of AI, which has brought a lot of changes. Many traditional users in traditional networks can also look forward to the evolution of these projects. This is not only an opportunity for new blood, but also the evolution of existing networks. Our top customers are also doing this work.
Gokhan Er: I agree with Kong Lei. In our industry, many people overlook that many current blockchains are built for Web2.0. Now, the era of artificial intelligence has arrived. In the next few years, the whole world may experience some great changes. We are all looking forward to the development of technologies such as AGI. Artificial intelligence can be transformed into artificial intelligence for specific purposes and become the "pillar" supporting the online world. We hope that blockchain can be more widely used and reposition itself to prepare for the post-pan-AI era. Many of our projects are also working hard for this change.
In addition, we will have a blockchain-based payment system that will be used globally. Coinbase is the largest company in the United States, and the system they want to use is a system that promotes globalization. If you look at the blockchain system, payments on the blockchain are currently very cheap and have a cost advantage over traditional payment systems. If the payment system of Coinbase or other companies is not fully perfect, then I think blockchain can help them build a better payment system.
The third point is that we are now in the era of stablecoins. This is related to the previous infrastructure and basic knowledge. Because infrastructure needs to be used by people, either the application becomes mainstream, which is more likely to be achieved; or the application is used in games or social networking, and a very good trump card application is obtained. If it is not achieved, it may not make our future so bright in 5-10 years. I am very much looking forward to some of these applications being realized in the next few years. I think it is more likely to be realized in the social field rather than in the game field. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.
Aaron Tsu: I think we need more detailed user stratification, modularization and templates. At the same time, we also need to look at the operability of cross-chain and the cooperation between chains. Finally, key technologies also need to develop cloud computing and general artificial intelligence APIs. These are the key forces that can drive the progress of the industry and may make enterprises and individuals believe in the future of Web3.
Bi Tongtong (host): My last question is, can you provide some advice to entrepreneurs, developers in this field, and those who are willing to build innovative Web3 infrastructure?
Kong Lei: I am a computer science major, and I think everyone should know a little bit about how computers work. Because Web3 is more decentralized now, it needs a lot of technical developers, especially from the perspective of artificial intelligence. I think everyone should have some basic knowledge of artificial intelligence. It doesn’t have to be at the level of an engineer, but at least you should have some understanding. This is beneficial to you personally and to the entire Web3 community.
We see a lot of advanced or experimental projects that try to improve certain specific problems, such as using GPU resources or taking advantage of new infrastructure. Developers want to see more experimental projects. Take China's WeChat Mini Program as an example. From a global perspective, some companies and applications draw inspiration from us, and then after two or three years of development in China, they can take root and bear fruit in various parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia, Europe, and especially Eastern Europe.
So, how can we replicate these ideas and practices in other places? I think we can put them on similar local platforms and use the Web3 framework to attract users.
In addition, reliability and security are also very important. Security is the first priority and is crucial to many Web3 companies and users. If you want to build an application, security must be the primary consideration. Because security is very important, good projects are often more secure. You can choose a certain topic area or project area. From my personal point of view, I encourage everyone to step out of their comfort zone and not only pay attention to the dynamics in their own small circle, but also look at more opportunities, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and other places, to see what is happening in the world. We can cooperate with many people and establish connections with many developers.
Bi Tongtong (host): You mentioned a very important point. We can learn a lot of inspiration from traditional industries.
Gokhan Er: We are probably living in the most exciting times right now. This is a critical transition period for the past one or two generations, and even for the next one or two generations. I believe some major events have already happened.
AI transformation, such as ChatGPT, is an unprecedented trend, which contains many opportunities, especially for entrepreneurs. I think there are more and more opportunities for everyone to disrupt the status quo, especially in the field of crypto economy. I suggest that everyone should focus on bigger problems and expand their vision, rather than just improving existing products. I hope everyone can be more ambitious and better understand their own values and where they are reflected, such as blockchain or other fields. I hope everyone can do their own projects within a big framework.
This has core significance in many social and cryptocurrency fields. We must work hard on the core aspects, especially social apps, as well as on-chain and off-chain applications. I think these are very important. The above are my suggestions, thank you!
Aaron Tsu: These two colleagues have already spoken very well. I am not an entrepreneur, so I will not interfere. I want to talk about some key issues, that is, don't speculate, don't just focus on what is in front of you, and you must focus on the problems that Web3 can solve in the real world. Thank you!
Bi Tongtong (host): That is to say, the vision of the market and products is very important. Thank you, everyone. The roundtable discussion ends here. Thank you very much for your insightful sharing. I believe that your conversation has brought a lot of insights to the audience. Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much!
