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- Head of Coinbase Southeast Asia Hassan Ahmed said the Philippines is a balanced market for web3 native startups and a focus for the region.
- Ahmed stressed the importance of getting more Filipinos into the web3 space and saw the Philippines leading the way to the rest of the world.
- Even though the infrastructure in the web3 industry is less strong compared to web2, the stronger community in web3 is helping to drive growth and encourage builders in the Philippines.
“I think what has happened in the last year and a half is that now there’s kind of a shift to become a more balanced builder and consumer market… And there have also been some promising web3 native startups in the Philippines before.”
This was stated by Hassan Ahmed, Head of Southeast Asia for cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, during a panel discussion hosted by Coinbase Ventures and BitPinas at Philippine Startup Week in November 2022.
Focus on Web3
“The Philippines, right now, is focusing on the web3 startup space. For a long time, the Philippines was really considered a kind of big consumer market and a progressive connecting consumer market.” Hassan added, noting that builders in the country are only focused on one goal, which is to ensure customers have choice and access to the use cases offered by products in the industry.
This is where Coinbase executives stress the importance of introducing more startups and projects in the country to get more Filipinos into space:
“Many Filipino user journeys actually start with crypto first. They get their first crypto, they don’t necessarily buy their first crypto. So just being able to build for that kind of problem statement that isn’t really happening in a lot of other places in the world right now provides a very unique angle of attack where you can start small (and) build for the local market.
“But I firmly believe that the Philippines is showing the way to the rest of the world, that over time, especially as web3 games get bigger or the ability to generate crypto gets bigger, issues like this (in) space will become global and I really believe that there are going to be a lot of multi-billion dollar startup companies and projects that are coming out of the Philippines for that reason.”
Why are there so few developers in the space?
However, Justin Choi, Head of Corporate Development at Coinbase Ventures, admits that the reason there are still fewer developers in the web3 space compared to the web2 space is because the tools and infrastructure available in the web3 industry are more complicated:
“Today, web3 developers actually represent less than 1% of the 31 million software developers, and why is that? We think it’s because the tools and infrastructure available to these developers are way more robust than they are for web2. So it’s actually really hard for developers right now, even (for) very experienced Web2 Developers to actually transition to web3 so you know that all of that is clearly changing and we’re investing heavily behind that and in fact, a number of monthly active web3 developers continue evolves as tools improve and so when we think about, for example, web2 and web3 front ends are similar, right?”
This idea was later approved by Elijah Tan, Head of Exchange and Vice President for Operations of local crypto exchange Coins.ph. According to Tan, although there are still fewer developers in the web3 industry, Space has a stronger community compared to web2.
“I think everyone is very involved right now. I feel very passionate about the Philippines and also across Asia or even around the world. Like, a big crypto event happens almost every two months or so, and there’s one that everyone attends. But in the Philippines it’s like a really interesting community, people get it almost every two to three weeks even like weekends, like a typhoon comes, and people just show up,” Coin executive explained.
For him, community energy is very important to inspire coaches, including developers, in this country because “in the end, web3 (builder) works together” to develop products within the ecosystem:
“Play-to-earn has put the Philippine light, figuratively speaking, on the map. The Philippines is in a very good position to take the global stage for web3 right now. Like, great developers have great communities, and people are familiar with crypto. I think some (users) have learned how to use wallets before they (learn to use) exchanges, which is really surprising.”
Solving knowledge gaps
Alvin Wong, Head of Investments at Maya notes that another trend he is seeing is educational platforms that are solving knowledge gaps by making cryptocurrency accessible through learning materials.
“It’s always easy to see how some of these web3 companies solve problems. For Maya, it’s more about identifying pockets where we can leverage our distribution, assets and channels. We definitely see education companies growing very fast. It was very encouraging,” said Wong.
Finally, the Editor in Chief (EIC) of BitPinas, Michael Mislos, highlighted one of the most beautiful cultures that the web3 space has – WAGMI!
There’s this thing on web3 called the “WAGMI” culture (we’re all going to make it), and that’s really what I’m seeing here in support of the special events we’re having right now, and even at offline events, you don’t usually see the competitors on out there, ready (to) work together to pay their bills or work on some projects together, and that’s something that’s definitely unique in our industry.” concluded Mislos.
The Philippine Startup Week 2022 (PHSW22), with the theme, “Homegrown Heroes: Cultivating Future Tech Giants,” is a 5-day conference, taking place November 14-18 2022. In collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (DTI), Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), and the QBO Innovation Center.
This article was published on BitPinas: [Recap] Strong Community Keeps the Philippines on the Frontline of the Web3 Revolution
Disclaimer: BitPina articles and their external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent and impartial news to inform crypto Philippines and beyond.
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