Stop Talking About Web3
My top takeaways from NFT Paris and ETH Denver, and the startups you should know about.
Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️
In the last two weeks I’ve attended NFT Paris and ETH Denver. After a long bear market, the energy, optimism, and quality of ideas and discussions is at its highest in a long time.
Today I’ll share my most important take-aways with you. Why should you care?
Both conferences are very different:
NFT Paris is all about consumer Web3, culture, luxury, and fashion with a lot of brand execs and creatives attending.
ETH Denver is about infrastructure, crypto, and everything in between.
For Web3 mass adoption, both are complementary and equally important.
Let’s dive in.
During the Web3 LinkedIn Live Series, SMT CEO, Tyler Moebius, and Marc Baumann have explored everything from the power of sports fandom in branding to the revolutionary ways Web3 is reshaping loyalty programs. In this final session, expect discussion of exclusive SMT case studies from top global brands. There will be an interactive live Q&A - so get your questions ready!
NFT Paris: Beyond Web3
TL;DR: I haven’t come across anything entirely “new”. NFTs, on-chain analytics, phygital platforms, digital art and fashion have all been around for 2+ years.
Most of the start-ups have been building on this for the last 2+ years too, resulting in more maturing discussions around use cases (see map below for a list of start-ups).
Although big luxury brands show interest in Web3, their engagement has been limited to small-scale activations. We've yet to see comprehensive, cross-platform campaigns that significantly drive engagement and revenue. Instead, these brands continue to experiment with:
Digital product passports (authenticity, ownership, resales)
Single NFT collections or capsule collections tied to an NFT
NFT-based member communities & co-creation
In 2023, brands like Nike, Starbucks, Lacoste, Fiat, and Gucci have led the pack with their initiatives.
Sephora is the latest new-joiner with “Sephora Universe”, an immersive, multi-brand beauty platform. It gives us a glimpse of how future activations could look like:
Connecting physical and digital
Community-driven
Gamified through ownership incentives & rewards
Immersive1
Oh, and by the way: Parts of it are on-chain without the users realizing it.
This reminds me of Chris Lyons’s, GP at a16z crypto, quote:
“We have to stop talking about Web3. I’ve worked in the music industry and I never went to an mp3 conference!”
So what?
The infrastructure (scalability, UX, interoperability) and the tools to cover the marketing stack (analytics, attribution, tokenization, virtualization) are maturing.
Brands have recognized that blockchain, digital assets, virtual, immersive commerce are the next frontier in consumer engagement.
But approval processes, budget allocation, and proof-of-concept cycles are long. Even if brands step in now, we might have to wait 1-2 more years to see these elements coming together.
They’ll have to demonstrate that there’s a market for that and that consumers care.
My guess? They will, but only if we move from isolated experiments to multi-platform, easy to use, digi-physical experiences that are truly useful and exciting.
More impressions from Paris:
Community: The community is stronger, energetic, and as more positive as ever. The breadth of projects is incredible. Culture, technology and brands are converging, and Paris is the right place for this.
Web3 bubble: Both the main conference and side events still felt part of the “Web3 bubble” with little outsiders. That’s fun if you know a lot of people, but we need to grow beyond that.
Big names: Paris-based Arianee, Absolute Labs, Aura Blockchain Consortium, GMoney’s 9dcc, Yuga Labs, The Sandbox, Polygon, and Animoca Brands had a strong presence – the usual suspects.
Noteworthy: “Sephora Universe” announcement and Louis Vuitton’s Director of Innovation, Agnès Vissoud, sharing the stage with Megan Kaspar, to talk about the future of digital craftsmanship.
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ETH Denver: Just Buidl
ETH Denver was focused on infrastructure. The breadth of projects and micro-communities was so large that it’s hard to pinpoint key narratives.
It’s also notable that this wasn’t just about Ethereum. Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, Polkadot and other L1 and L2 communities were present as well.
I spent most of my time at side-events talking with people.
These are the themes I heard over and over again:
Crypto x AI: A year ago, the convergence of crypto and AI was much less obvious. Now, the picture becomes clearer. Some examples:
On-chain GPU leasing (Akash Network, Bittensor, etc.)
“Self sovereign intelligence” (Morpheus, …)
AI models trained with on-chain IP (Story Protocol, etc.)
Bitcoin
Ordinals: “Bitcoin NFTs” popped up at beginning of 2023 and are now gaining steam with a wave of new collections and buyers. Bitcoin ensures the highest provenance of any chain.
L2s: Big topic at the conference (Lightning Network, Stacks Protocol, Liquid Network)
Tokens & points:
Launching a token is en vogue. It helps to solve the cold start problem, amplify momentum, and align incentives with the community.
It’s also an attractive way for investors to gain instant liquidity.
Farcaster & Frames:
Possibly the first, mass-consumer ready social network that’s on-chain.
Everyone is excited about its new “Frames” feature, which Frames lets people build small apps that run inside of posts. I did a deep dive on Farcaster here.
Restaking (Eigenlayer, Octopus Network, etc.)
RWAs & Programmable IP (Centrifuge, Ondo Finance, TrueFi, Boson Protocol, Fermion Protocol, Story Protocol, MINTangible, etc.)
Literally no one talked about NFTs.
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What’s Next
Infrastructure continues to improve, which means:
Scalability (Ethereum layer 2s aren’t yet scalable enough)
Better tooling (libraries, wallet-as-a-service, etc.)
Better UX (wallet onboarding; key management; cross-chain interoperability)
Commerce (RWAs, IP, financialization, etc.)
More privacy
Eventually, infrastructure will be abstracted away and the focus will shift towards consumer applications and experiences.
Ever more of what we own and do will live on-chain.
Our assets and behavior will become tradeable, trackable, measurable.
For example: I've spoken with numerous startups that are beginning to tokenize consumer engagement (e.g. watching an ad, reading an article, sharing content, visiting a place) to generate new data points for brands.
Some names: POAP (experiences), MintPass (travel), ViewFi (content), FabricPay (content), Frak (content), Farcaster (social), … etc.
In the past, this type of engagement would have gone unnoticed.
The end game?
Most of our lives will become tokenized, most physical objects will have a digital twin.
We’ll have “on-chain graphs” for everything. And brand engagement will become hyper-personalized.
That’s it for now.
Talk soon,
– Marc
PS: Follow me on LinkedIn and X for shorter insights.
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Over 80% of Interbrand’s Top 100 Global Brands have already launched immersive commerce experiences.
Great being on the panel with you!
Great as always!