PBW 2023 explores the current state of the blockchain space

by · March 22, 2023

A panel of professionals working in prominent technology companies discussed the current state of the blockchain space at the ongoing Paris Blockchain Week 2023 conference.

Cointelegraph’s Editor-in-Chief Kristina Lucrezia Cornèr moderated the panel discussion titled “State of the Chain 2023” with panelists Ryan Nitz, Head of Solutions Architecture at Coinbase; Matthew Savarese, Chief Strategy Officer at Nasdaq Digital Assets; Rich Widmann, Head of Web3 Strategy at Google; Dante Disparte, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle; and Denelle Dixon, Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation.

The panelists discussed various topics and offered their insight into the current state of the Web3 space, from sharing the company’s current focus to their predictions for how 2023 would evolve.

State of the Chain panel discussion at Paris Blockchain Week 2023

One of the topics explored in the discussion was the industry’s challenges in 2022. Commenting on the topic, Disparte expressed his belief that the chain’s current state is “not strong”. Despite this, the Circle leader hopes that people will continue to build and develop in the midst of these challenges, which is evident among the thousands of attendees at the conference.

In addition, Disparte also believes that the current situation in space is a necessary phase similar to previous technological and financial industry failures. He explained that:

“You needed the dot-com bubble to burst to leave the development of the internet to ordinary people, business models and investors. You needed the 2008 financial crisis to get sweeping reforms to Wall Street even though those reforms might have failed.”

The leader also reminded the audience that many things “taken for granted” in the space are born in response to the failures of traditional financial systems.

PBW panelists share their views on the state of the chain in 2023

Meanwhile, other panelists gave the audience a preview of what their firms are currently focusing on. According to Nitz, crypto exchange Coinbase is currently trying its best to help onboard Web2 companies and eliminate the complexity barrier. He explained that:

“We’re starting to see Web2 brands evolve and start getting involved in Web3 and the crypto ecosystem. One of the challenges they face is a lot of complexity. This is why we at Coinbase are trying to simplify that experience.”

On the other hand, Widmann pointed out that although it is important for Web3 to reach more users, the Google boss emphasized the need to highlight something of value in the area. “Yes, we must have a billion users. Yes, we need more people using these technologies. But before we do that, we have to actually prove that there’s value there,” he argued, adding:

“They’re not just going to show up because they care about Web3, they’re not just going to show up because we asked them to, we have to actually give them something that will motivate them to move their feet.”

In addition, Widmann shared that Google’s current focus is thinking about how to remove entry barriers for new developers who can leave Web2 projects like Google to go to Web3 companies like Coinbase and build the next applications that will attract billions of users.

Related: EU’s MiCA crypto regulation is a ‘balancing act’: Paris Blockchain Week 2023

Savarese contributed to the discussion and shared Nasdaq’s perspective. According to Savarese, the listed company believes that institutions involved in the Web3 ecosystem are as important as anything else. Savarese explained:

“Where we see the opportunity is to bring many of them, whether they are in large pension funds, whether they are large asset managers, understand everything from [Know Your Customer] KYC elements to it down to how it trades.”

While many of the panelists focused on the present and offered their thoughts on the current state of the blockchain space, Dixon made some predictions about the future. According to the CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, 2023 is going to be amazing and challenging.

“I understand. Like, we’re in this place where we have a lot of regulators looking at us and saying things, but we can convince them otherwise when we focus on what we’re really good at,” she added.