How Gaming, Metaverse Can Boost Philippines’ Global Blockchain Hub Bid

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Filipinos’ enthusiasm for trying new things and passion for gaming are at a whole new level – these qualities that are often overlooked but can potentially transform the Philippines into a blockchain hub, and Philippine Blockchain Week (PBW) served as proof of this .

Two years before the historic PBW event, millions of Filipinos faced shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the country’s unemployment rate shot to 17.6% at the height of the health crisis in April 2020 before plunging to 5% in September 2022, thanks be the government’s efforts to reopen borders and approved resumption of personal business.

While the global pandemic was seen as a dark period for Philippine society, it was at that time that the tech scene was shining, with new technologies gaining massive attention from different demographics.

From digital currency trading to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, Filipinos were not ones to miss trends happening on the other side of the world and used this as a advantage to help them ride out the pandemic.

P2E games like Axie Infinity, CryptoFights and My DeFi Pet became household names in these challenging times and have introduced the Philippines to blockchain.

Speaking to CoinGeek Backstage on the sidelines of PBW, President of Blockchain for Gala Games Jason Brink said that Filipinos’ passion for these games has restored the original use of blockchain – providing solutions to real-world problems and promoting inclusion.

“In the US, for example, people are primarily getting into blockchain because of fintech, and if you’re getting into blockchain because of fintech, you’re sort of selecting yourself a very narrow group of people who are ‘investor-type’ people and who are looking at this more from technical or fundamental analysis,” said Brink, noting that this is not what blockchain is about.

“But here in the Philippines, because people are so passionate about gaming and have gotten into it for other reasons, it opens up a whole new spectrum of activities that I personally find extremely compelling,” he pointed out.

Currently, Brink, together with a team of experts from the Web2 industry, is using blockchain through its Gala platform to transform the basic concept of ownership in the gaming industry and bring it into other branches of entertainment, such as music or film.

But Brink wasn’t the only high-level participant to notice the Philippines’ strong gaming market. 1Inch Network Backend Team Lead Nikita Koslov said that the majority of PBW participants are in games and have a high understanding of blockchain technology.

While Koslov is positive that the Philippines’ gaming market will flourish more after PBW, he hopes that the Filipino community will also consider jumping in and getting to know more about decentralized finance (DeFi) and how it differs from centralized finance (CeFi).

Koslov said that while there is strong competition between the two, DeFi offers more security and transparency, something 1Inch wants to showcase as it works to raise awareness.

Education before mass adoption

Filipinos may have shown their deep understanding and knowledge during PBW at the Marriott Grand Ballroom in Pasay City, but social media influencer Agon Hare emphasized that now is not the perfect time to rally the local community to adopt these technologies, especially the concept of a virtual world, or the metaverse.

Hare, the man behind Project Nightfall, said the metaverse community is currently exclusive to experts and individuals with in-depth knowledge of the space, who will serve as critical players in educating the masses about the metaverse and debunking misinformation.

“We need ordinary people who right now think that metaverse, Web3, crypto, is like an impossible thing to understand. We need them to be brought together and introduced to space,” he said, noting that this serves as the primary foundation to adopt new technologies and the metaverse across the country.

Hare added that it is important to work on simplifying the space to encourage more people to adopt new technologies.

Recognizing his capacity to influence on social media, Hare established Project Nightfall Philanthropy, a project that took over a year to develop with the goal of helping people in need around the world.

Not to be confused with Project Nightfall, a platform that generates valuable content, Project Nightfall Philanthropy is an initiative that runs campaigns to support the vulnerable or victims of disasters. While the latest platform is still in the works, Hare revealed to CoinGeek Backstage that his team plans to build its headquarters in the metaverse and use blockchain for the secure conduct of transactions. In this way, data integrity is built.

See: Blockchain will power the next generation

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