In this episode, join us in a new series on our show as we recap fireside chats held at our fifth-year anniversary summit where we featured several thought leaders and founders across industries sharing their insights on various sectors and trends shaping the future of ASEANnovation. And this second part of our series, we’re covering the future of Web3 mass adoption in a panel featuring Chin Tah Ang, General Manager of Singapore at Crypto.com and Sharon Lourdes Paul, CEO, and Co-Founder of Headquarters (hq.xyz) building the finance dashboard for Web3 teams. This panel was moderated by Jaeson Ma, Co-CEO of NFT platform OP3N, serial entrepreneur, artist & media executive.

Highlights and Timestamps

(03:09) Chin Tah’s and Sharon’s Journeys into Web3;

“In the same spirit that I launched myself into Brazil without speaking a single lick of Portuguese or Spanish, I decided I was going to go as far away from public service as I can. And that was tech and specifically Web3…” – Chin Tah Ang

“I was quite active in the developer scene back in 2017 – that’s when all the developers were raving over Ethereum and the ICOs and projects that were built on top of it. That’s what really started the whole rabbit hole journey for me and what eventually led to Headquarters.” – Sharon Lourdes Paul

(08:03) Challenges to Web3 Mass Adoption;

“…there are a lot of bad actors. There are fraudsters out there, and that hurts the industry because what we need to build is trust…Web3 users need to feel that their assets will be protected, that there won’t be a rug pull and there are no wash trades. They’re not being manipulated. So compliance is very, very important. The other part of that is education.” – Chin Tah Ang

(11:24) Building the Foundations of Compliant and Financially Disciplined Web3 Business Infrastructure;

“We are building a dashboard which aggregates all the common tools operators need to be compliant, to have all their financial workflows in one place, but more importantly for their financial reporting to be really at the level of accounting standards. What we are starting off with is unique to crypto, because we’re helping projects deal with many different types of sources of funds.” – Sharon Lourdes Paul

(14:22) NFTs Beyond the Profile Pictures;

“The NFT market’s definitely gonna grow, but definitely beyond just culture and social [applications]. So more about utility access and ways of actually creating value for it…a couple of things that probably are preconditions before it can go mainstream. Number one is the KYC, the security…what about intellectual property? What about contractual applications?… We have to figure out all these things, otherwise, it’s never gonna really take off.” – Chin Tah Ang

(16:11) Talent Key to Driving Web3 Mass Adoption;

“The industry actually needs on-chain adoption to grow and for this industry to survive, for adoption to happen, you need good talent. And also capital so that these talents don’t starve and can continue to build. Unfortunately, zooming out to the macro market climate, it’s a bit weak, hence crypto is just one of the many [sectors] that are being impacted. But fundamentally, are people building? And people are hence adopting? I’d say yes. So it’ll be hard to shake that away.” – Sharon Lourdes Paul

About our guests

Sharon Lourdes Paul is the CEO and Co-founder of Headquarters (HQ.xyz), a finance dashboard for Web3 teams to manage financial operations (also referred to as ‘treasury flows’) and reporting for more responsible accounting practices industry-wide. Its mission is to groom a generation of responsible Web3 operators by giving teams the tools they need for better visibility and control over their finances. A serial founder and operator with more than a decade in tech, Sharon was most recently the Head of Payments at Fazz.com and was part of StraitsX’s founding team, the leading payments infrastructure for digital assets in Southeast Asia and issuer of $XSGD, Singapore’s first compliant SGD-pegged and backed stablecoin. She is also an angel investor in seed-stage companies with a focus on FinTech, B2B tools, and Web3 tools.

Chin Tah Ang is General Manager, Singapore at Crypto.com. He was previously Executive Director and Head of Digital Industry Singapore (DISG), and before that Infocommunications and Media Director at Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB). He received his Masters’ in Philosophy, Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University and Bachelors’ in Economics, Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California Berkeley.

Jaeson Ma is a serial entrepreneur, artist & media executive. He is the founder and partner of multiple companies focused on accessing the Asian market through entertainment, media, and technology. In 2017, Mr. Ma co-founded Stampede Ventures with former Warner Brothers President of Worldwide production Greg Silverman. In 2015, Mr. Ma co-founded 88rising. Prior to forming 88rising and Stampede Ventures, Mr. Ma has been the founder of East West Ventures (EWV). Currently, Mr. Ma is a Senior Advisor to KKFarm Fund. He is also a senior advisor to private equity funds advised by Courage Capital Management, LLC that invest in music rights. Mr. Ma is also a venture partner with GoodWater Capital, a consumer tech-focused venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. 

Transcript

Jaeson: We want to welcome you to the first panel tonight here about Web3: Building the Future for Mass Adoption. We have some distinguished guests that I have the honor of welcoming, but we’re really here to talk about Web3. It’s been a buzzword for the last, I would say, 12 months.

Not too long ago, Web3 was not even a terminology. It was known as blockchain or crypto. And for many, that was a bad word. Somehow it got an amazing rebrand, maybe thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, who renamed his company Facebook to Meta. As we also know, VR and AR was also a vertical that for the last five years was not a hot topic and somehow it’s now the hot topic and rebranded as Metaverse.

So what is Web3? What is the metaverse and what does this all mean? We have companies like Binance that have over a hundred million users to Crypto.com with over fifty million users. But this is still just the beginning. This is still the tip of the iceberg.

We saw a boom but we also saw a bust. We saw over 2 trillion in market cap in crypto that was lost just over the last 12 to 18 months, yet adoption is still super incredibly engaging and strong. Interestingly, the US is only the one and only number one, I would say, first-world country and market in the top 20 ranking for crypto adoption.

Most of them are bankless countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Nigeria. What does this all mean? This is what we’re gonna talk about tonight. I want to first welcome the general manager of Crypto.com, his honorable guest Chin Tah Ong, as well as Sharon Lourdes Paul, the co-founder, and CEO of Headquarters or hq.xyz. Sharon, welcome.

Journeys into Web3

Jaeson: Both of you guys come from very unique, interesting backgrounds. I think it would just be very interesting to let the community here know a little bit about your background because before Crypto.com, you actually were a public servant here in Singapore for over 16 years doing all kinds of services. What led you to Crypto.com.

Chin Tah: Thanks Jaeson. So I spent 16 years in the Singapore government, mainly with this agency called the Economic Development Board. That’s kind of like the UK Trade and Investment Board. They create jobs; they’re the architect of the economy of Singapore.

And as part of that work, I was based in Brazil, in New York. I did some policy work and most recently I was in a joint venture between different government agencies, the EDB, Enterprise Singapore, and IMDA, because the government figured, “Hey, let’s break down silos, put everybody together.” Like most mergers, it was incredibly painful. So I was leading that for a couple of years. 

And I thought that it was time for a big switch. In the same spirit that I launched myself into Brazil without speaking a single lick of Portuguese or Spanish, I decided I was going to go as far away from public service as I can. And that was tech and specifically Web3, which we’re here to talk about today. 

“In the same spirit that I launched myself into Brazil without speaking a single lick of Portuguese or Spanish, I decided I was going to go as far away from public service as I can. And that was tech and specifically Web3…”

Jaeson: Sharon, equally interesting background, StraitsX, digital asset infrastructure adoption. I mean, you’re super early into this. How did you, I would say, transition from when you were in Web2 into now Web3? And tell us a little bit about your background.

Sharon: Thanks so much. I think the transition from Web2 to Web3 is actually quite natural, especially if you are very active in the developer scene. It may be surprising, but I was there back in 2017 when all the developers were raving over Ethereum and all the ICOs and projects that were built on top of it. 

And that’s really what started the whole rabbit hole journey for me. But what led eventually to Headquarters — shout out to my former boss Tianwei — was the opportunity, through the Fazz group, to get exposure to both Web2 and Web3 payments. Web3 payments being stablecoins, of course with StraitsX, and Web2 payments being how do we bridge normal fiat cash payment methods with the rising new, blockchain companies or projects. So I would say the experience from those past years led me to where I am today.

“I was quite active in the developer scene back in 2017 – that’s when all the developers were raving over Ethereum and the ICOs and projects that were built on top of it. That’s what really started the whole rabbit hole journey for me and what eventually led to Headquarters.”

Jaeson: And I know that Crypto.com just invested in Headquarters. Why did you?

Chin Tah: Well look at Sharon and the company and the business thesis. Why wouldn’t we? That’s the question that we should be asking. So we are very proud to have co-led the round with our partners, and we are very excited about the work that Sharon and her team will be doing for Web3. And I think this is something that I hope we’ll be talking about later, which is there’s a lot of excitement around cryptocurrency, but really Web3 is a lot more than that. And as the industry matures, we’ll see more and more enterprise-oriented companies such as HQ.xyz, and they’ll be paving the way to lead adoption. 

“There’s a lot of excitement around cryptocurrency, but really Web3 is a lot more than that. And as the industry matures, we’ll see more and more enterprise-oriented companies such as HQ.xyz, and they’ll be paving the way to lead adoption.” 

Challenges to Web3 Mass Adoption

Jaeson: I think we’re in a room where there are forward-thinking investors and people who are investing in crypto. So I don’t need to preach to the choir, but for those of you who are not super familiar with Web3, what is it? Very frankly, we have what we call Web1, Web2, and Web3. Web1 was the internet genesis or the boom in 1994, ‘95 , ‘96, which they call Web1 equals “read” where you’re able to search for information, receive information, and that was the beginnings of Netscape. That was AOL. That was Instant Messenger. That dates us back all the way to Yahoo and Google. Put in information, receive information, and you’re able to read and collect data.

Web2 was really 2004, 2005, when we saw the boom of what we now understand as the social media generation where you’re now able to do what we call in one word “write.” You’re actually able to publish content, whether that’s on Instagram, whether that’s on YouTube, whether that’s on Facebook or push a button and get a car or Grab or Uber to come to you. But in Web2, most of that value accrued to these major tech giants that we know as FAANG, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, meaning these new pyramid companies, where at the top there is a new Pharaoh, like a Zuckerberg or a Bezos, etc., who leveraged all that data for their own organization and the ones that actually gave value actually benefited very, very little. 

So in Web3 is this notion of the word “own” or ownership, that now because of blockchain technology, because of the ledger, because of the smart contract, there’s transparency and there’s no need for a middle layer or middleman. Now everyone can be direct and the world can be bankless through transparent technology.

So with that being said, there’s this massive promise and excitement around Web3, that there’s ownership, we can be direct with our fans, we can own our communities, we can own our assets and our identity and our securitized identities. 

But there’s also a lot of friction. So there are a lot of Web3 challenges right now. What are the challenges that we’re facing in Web3 to actually get to main adoption or mass adoption? How do you see it happening over the next five to 10 years? 

Chin Tah: Let me begin with a little story, right? So just a couple of weeks ago I was in the police station doing my work because we are partners at Crypto.com with the Singapore Police Force in helping them combat scams and the nice police folk who are hosting us there told me to my shock and horror honestly that more than half of all crime in Singapore is scams, and a lot of those scams are cryptocurrency related. 

Now they recognize that it is nothing intrinsic or nothing wrong with cryptocurrency per se. It’s just that it’s the flavor of the month. So the point of sharing this story is — make no mistake, there are a lot of bad actors. There are fraudsters out there, and that hurts the industry because what we need to build is trust. 

So I can’t speak for other companies, but at least in Crypto.com, our focus has always been on compliance and security. So in compliance, I would like to just quote my colleagues in compliance, they always say, “We’ve got big boy licenses.” So we work with progressive, open-minded, but also very tough jurisdictions like Singapore or Australia, Europe, the UK, and the US. We’ve got licenses in all of these geographies. This is no mean feat. 

In security, we’ve got the highest levels of accreditation. We have third-party audits from Deloitte as well as the IMDA in terms of data trust and protection. So I’m very proud of that. And I think this is the only way to have a sustainable future in the cryptocurrency space.

And more generally, Web3 users need to feel that their assets will be protected, that there won’t be a rug pull and there are no wash trades. They’re not being manipulated. So compliance is very, very important. 

The other part of that is education. And here I’ll just make a very short pitch. We want to see how we can educate retail investors, not just in digital literacy or Web3, but also in financial education. So it’s actually hitting on multiple fronts. We’d love to partner with the Singapore FinTech Association, the Blockchain Association of Singapore, and the MAS and Elevandi to see how we can raise the level of retail investors in Singapore so that they can protect themselves. 

Jaeson: And I just want to ask one more question, how do you guys view security? 

Chin Tah: So for security, we’ve worked very, very hard. Let me give you an anecdote of how strict it is. If you ever visit our office, you won’t see a single logo of our company anywhere in the building because they’re trying to keep it super low-key because they’re concerned about physical security. When they talk about phones, they’re always wondering about protecting their colleagues from scam calls.

So the extent of security that we have is not just the cyber security protocols that we have in place, the processes and policies we have in place, but just like consciousness around how we approach security. So I know that’s a pretty long answer, but I just wanted to share that I was surprised — and I come from the government guys — I was surprised by the investment in security.

“…there are a lot of bad actors. There are fraudsters out there, and that hurts the industry because what we need to build is trust…Web3 users need to feel that their assets will be protected, that there won’t be a rug pull and there are no wash trades. They’re not being manipulated. So compliance is very, very important. The other part of that is education.”

Building the Foundations of Compliant and Financially Disciplined Web3 Business Infrastructure

Jaeson: And Sharon, to that point of compliance, we’ve seen rug pulls, we’ve seen a lot of fraudulent behavior within the top levels, all the way down to a small NFT project that runs away with millions of dollars. You’re solving that with infrastructure and compliance. How are you approaching it from a Headquarters perspective and why did you start HQ.xyz to solve these issues?

Sharon: So, just a quick introduction to what Headquarters is about. We are building a dashboard to aggregate common tools, to make it really easy for operators in the scene to be compliant and actually have all their financial workflows in one place. Most importantly, this means their financial reporting will really be at the level of accounting standards.

Because right now, unless they’re a company of a larger size like Crypto.com or at an enterprise level, SMEs in this space can get lost because a lot of them are also first-time operators, first-time founders. I know now the market has slowed down, but during the bull run, what instigated me to start Headquarters was the number of projects that were pushing out, really fast-moving DeFi projects. 

Smart contract risk was a top priority, but that means that their back office was a huge mess. Payroll would have been late for all; vendor payments as well were just as chaotic. [Projects would] just pick any wallet [to manage their internal workflows]. Some projects may have used that capital to take care of their personal expenses rather than the company’s. So they are very haphazard, but now that there’s a bear period, people can slow down, and kind of get their back office and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)  sorted. So we’re just really one of the tools that are helping them.

But to kind of answer your question, rug pulls happen really at the end of the day because of these personalities. They come down to bad actors. In a bull market, everyone gets greedy. They get away with it because if you lose a dollar, you could make $10 tomorrow. So that is the reality.

But now that things are back to a bear market, you would probably get flamed very badly if you’re a bad actor. So the market will correct itself. But l regulations are coming in that are forcing the entire market to regulate ourselves. It’s helping to push for proper governance — are you authorized to make the transfer or are you just supposed to get approval from elsewhere? So after all the recent rug pulls, the entire market has learned its lesson. We expect that from our counterparts as well. 

Jaeson: And the dashboard that you guys are creating, could you share a little bit more about that? 

Sharon: Obviously we’re trying to build a lot, but what we are starting off with is, unique to crypto. We’re dealing with many different types of sources of funds. 

There’s fiat – which means you’re dealing with a bank account, there are crypto-friendly fintechs – so you could be dealing with a hybrid, and then there is the technologies stack – which means getting integrated. But at the same time, a lot of us are believers of the principle – “not your keys, not your assets”. So we also have funds in our non-custodial crypto wallets. You don’t really access them through APIs, you access them by signing the smart contract.

So it’s pretty troublesome actually when things are not in one place. And that’s where people get lazy and hacks happen or bad actors surface. So we’re really just aggregating different sources of wallets, custodial and non-custodial in one place, bringing all your transactions to one place, and then your records to one place.

“We are building a dashboard which aggregates all the common tools operators need to be compliant, to have all their financial workflows in one place, but more importantly for their financial reporting to be really at the level of accounting standards. What we are starting off with is unique to crypto, because we’re helping projects deal with many different types of sources of funds.”

NFTs Beyond the Profile Pictures

Jaeson: We only have five more minutes, but I have to [discuss] this keyword — NFT. What is it? Is it here to stay? Is it going to come and go? 

Sharon: NFTs are starting to go beyond profile pictures. They’re evolving into different types of memberships across social clubs or financial clubs. I’m starting to see financial products adopting NFTs, just a representation that you own something that’s unique unlike anyone else. The market’s still evolving so, we just need to go back to what’s non-fungible, right? It’s just a representation of our identity or membership, and that’s so wide.

Chin Tah: So I think the market’s definitely gonna grow, but definitely beyond just culture and social [applications]. So more about utility access and ways of actually creating value for it. So just a couple of days ago I was at the launch of the Singapore FinTech Association’s Web3 subcommittee, which my COO Eric Anziani chairs. 

And at some point, they talked about, “Oh, you know, we are gonna create a commemorative NFT for everybody who turned out for the launch event.” And there was a stir in the audience. There’s something very emotional and interesting and fascinating about NFTs. And this goes to both yours and Sharon’s points around the ability to engage your audience to build that connection with your brand in a very direct and visceral way.

So I’m excited about NFTs. I’m bullish on it. I’ll just say a couple of things that probably are preconditions before it can go mainstream. Number one is the KYC, the security, and the ESG. It is just like everything else in web three. And it’s backed by a token. So you have to make sure that you know who you’re dealing with. You have the proper controls in place. 

The other thing I’m going to say, and it’s more unique to NFT, is what about intellectual property? What about contractual applications? Who owns that artwork? There’s a bit of a kerfuffle that’s happening out there right now. We have to figure out all these things, otherwise, it’s never gonna really take off.

“The NFT market’s definitely gonna grow, but definitely beyond just culture and social [applications]. So more about utility access and ways of actually creating value for it…a couple of things that probably are preconditions before it can go mainstream. Number one is the KYC, the security…what about intellectual property? What about contractual applications?… We have to figure out all these things, otherwise, it’s never gonna really take off.”

Talent Key to Driving Web3 Mass Adoption

Jaeson: Last question. We got a minute and a half, so I want to maybe just ask a general question for you guys to respond to. We’re in this bear market and some people say “bear is to build”. But a lot of people are also asking, is this the end of crypto? 

And I had a question, a conversation with Yasu, the founder of Animoca. He’s one of our investors and our lead investor actually. And we’re very thankful. But I asked him, I said, what do you think of this bear market? And he said it’s very interesting. He said back in 2017 in the last bear market, everyone really thought this is the end of crypto. Forget blockchain, forget cryptocurrency. This is all a scam. It’s crypto cowboys, et cetera. 

He said it was very interesting when this happened a few months ago and the market crashed and there was a downturn. People weren’t asking is this the end of crypto? People were asking mainly how low will bitcoin go and when do [they] buy? And so he was [saying] it’s very interesting that people now are more educated. They’re more aware. They have a long-term view, but obviously, it’s like the internet. 

You have like one to 5% adoption in the first few years. Then it starts to hit a little bit more mainstream until five to 10 years later, it gets mass adoption. What’s your view long term on crypto and what do you think it’s going to take for mass adoption?

Chin Tah: Maybe a few other data points before I finish off. We also know that a lot of the devs in Silicon Valley, they’re not moving away from crypto. They continue to move into the space, into Web3. So that’s always a sign of joy because it just proves the problems there are still interesting and the market is still nascent. So there’s a lot of stuff that we can still build together.

Sharon: The market’s definitely here to stay. In general, crypto’s an interesting industry because, like why you said Jason – it’s not just about the ownership of things, but ownership of what? Ownership of, really, my assets. 

In Singapore, it could be the COE (Certificate of Entitlement) of a car but on-chain. The industry actually needs the adoption of on-chain to grow and for this industry to survive. 

For adoption to happen, you need good talent, and capital so that the talents don’t starve, they can continue to build.

So I think you see all the ingredients here. Unfortunately, the market climate zooming out of crypto is just a bit weak, hence crypto is just one of the many that’s being impacted. But fundamentally, are people building? And people are hence adopting? I think yes. So it’s very hard to shake that away.

“The industry actually needs on-chain adoption to grow and for this industry to survive, for adoption to happen, you need good talent. And also capital so that these talents don’t starve and can continue to build. Unfortunately, zooming out to the macro market climate, it’s a bit weak, hence crypto is just one of the many [sectors] that are being impacted. But fundamentally, are people building? And people are hence adopting? I’d say yes. So it’ll be hard to shake that away.”