Kicking off Consensus with Atlas & Fundamental Labs’s Web3 Forum
June 2022
Arriving in Austin this week began with a sense of reflection on what the web 3.0 industry has provided us throughout the last five years, specifically the summer growth spurts — each themed with the likes of “DeFi/2020”, “NFTs/2021”, “DAOs/2022ish”, etc. When looking ahead this summer, something feels different, more defining for the entire industry than those previous. It could be the swirls of conversations ahead of the Consensus Conference later this week or the back-to-back panel discussions at the Web 3.0 Forum hosted by Atlas, a leading Web 3.0 infrastructure service provider, and its sister company Fundamental Labs, a blockchain-focused venture capital firm.
Kicking off the event, Raymond Yuan, Chairman of CTH Group, the supportive group of Atlas and Fundamental Labs, noted that “Web 3.0 is the next frontier of the internet, enabling users to own their digital assets, protect their data privacy and get permissionless access to blockchain networks and next-generation of finance.”
“Technology is rarely a linear motion — it is generally an explosion. Right now, cryptocurrencies and Web 3.0 is the only area that is bringing democrats and republicans together.” — George P Bush.
Yesterday there was little talk of fluctuating market prices and only on the notably themed “Building Web 3.0.” Discussions began with guest speakers, including Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and industry leaders and experts in applications (Mask, Azarus, TrustedNode & Truflation), protocols (BNB Chain, Polygon, Solana, Avalanche, Klaytn Foundation), and infrastructure companies (Atlas, Stratos, Chainlink, Airwaive, Ready Games) each extensively discussing opportunities being seen in and out of their respected ecosystems, the countless challenges they face, megatrends shaping the industry, and the most contested topic of ‘Web 2.0 vs. Web 3.0’ dynamics.
“While during a bear market, you see less excitement about the space on Twitter, when you talk with developers, they are still confident. Lots of people did not get into platforms like Ethereum to make a lot of money because they started building on it before it was worth anything. They got into it because they believe in building on it.” — Austin Federa, Solana.
“The future is multi-chain, and each chain will be an expert in its own thing. There may be one blockchain that is really good at gaming, one for NFTs, etc. In the end, there will not be one blockchain that succeeds; instead, there will likely be a larger ecosystem where we all have to work together.” — Sachi Kamiya, Polygon.
The second half of the event opened on the core topic of continued industry debate, Web 3.0’s environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) impact now and in the coming years. Each speaker pushed beyond any boundaries, emphasizing how Web 3.0 had encouraged not just conversation but required action around rapid green energy adoption.
“Aggregate energy usage is a problem. There has to be some way to better control this stuff in the long term. When you make more sophisticated infrastructure, you can radically reduce usage.” — Austin Federa, Solana.
Discussions continued around themes of fostering improved financial, healthcare, and educational outcomes for global populations, along with the need for offering enhanced tools to governing communities and societies alike, such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
“Only 46 US households worth of energy are used to run the Avalanche network.” — Philip Liu, Avalanche.
“Polygon plans to be carbon neutral this year and is hiring a head of sustainability sort of role to take the lead on this.” — Sachi Kamiya, Polygon.
The headlining speaker, former US presidential and NYC mayoral candidate and Web3 advocate Andrew Yang closed the conference. Mr. Yang gave a very open speech regarding his view on the current state of the US Web 3.0 industry, including today’s reported bipartisan crypto bill, the potential for DAOs (GoldenDAO), and the industry’s still unlocked opportunities ahead.
“I believe in regulation for the space, but commit to advocating for regulation to still allow you to build what you want to build without having to leave the US” — Andrew Yang.
The event concluded with participants, myself included, inspired and newly energized by the anticipation for what redefining innovations we’ll see built in the coming days of “Building Summer,” hopeful for the web3 future of tomorrow.
About Atlas — Headquartered in Singapore, Atlas is a global blockchain infrastructure-as-a-service group that drives the evolution of Web 3 — the next phase of the internet. The company offers a broad range of value-added services, including application-specific computing, node infrastructure, networking, hardware, API support, and storage for the Web 3 ecosystem.
Atlas is committed to being a global leading next-generation Web 3 infrastructure provider that advocates sustainable growth, green energy adoption, power usage efficiency, and stability to drive the Web 3 evolution.
Atlas operates in North America, Asia, and Europe with plans to expand in other regions. It is one of the largest application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) companies in the world.
As a firm believer in sustainable growth, Atlas aims to adopt 100% clean energy to power our computing operations by 2024.
About Fundamental Labs — We believe in blockchain and crypto innovations will redefine the future of human society. Fundamental Labs is dedicated to supporting the most promising entrepreneurs to accelerate fundamental innovations, mass adoption of blockchain technology, and creating value for a better digital society.
With extensive business-coverage, from Asia and Europe to North America, Fundamental Labs have regional headquarters and competent local teams to help us connect with a number of promising projects globally.
Fundamental Labs backs multi-stage crypto companies with as little as $500K and as much as $50M+. In addition to capital, we take a deeply empowering approach to help our portfolios to reach their full potential.
Fundamental Labs investments are covered in many areas like Layer 1/2 protocols, Web 3.0, crypto finance infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs, etc. We commit ourselves to work alongside our portfolio teams consistently to achieve their great success. Our portfolios included more than 60 projects like Coinbase, Cannan, Polkadot, Vechain, Binance Coin, Blockstack, Avalanche, Near, PlatON, Mask, etc.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Lauren Sorensen, Edelman US for Atlas (Lauren.Sorensen@edelman.com)
Adrianna Lau, Edelman Hong Kong for Atlas (Adrianna.Lau@edelman.com)
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