Web3 adoption could come via the enterprise, but the real boom will be through startups

As the race for enterprise adoption in web3 accelerates, some people believe it’s not one-sided growth, but a journey where both mainstream enterprises and crypto startups can bring on new opportunities.

“The signals that we see right now are that the innovation is coming more from enterprises,” Gagan Mac, head of product and senior director of web3 services at Circle, said on a panel at the Avalanche House event in Seoul, South Korea.

For example, Nike and Starbucks launched their own NFT-linked services: a marketplace and a loyalty program, respectively. “NFTs may be down in value, but every single person who minted a Starbucks NFT with the Odyssey program, they’re all positive, and the value of their NFTs have grown,” Mac said.

Dan Sun, startup success manager for web3 APAC lead at Google Cloud, said that this market is still nascent. “We’ve been seeing what value we could bring to the new emerging markets and what kind of positioning we should be taking,” he said. “So we’re still discussing, we’re still learning, and we’re still seeing which values we can provide.”

Lowering the barrier to entry could be as simple as fixing the terminology to make the technology and web3 elements more approachable. This is something we’ve seen happen with big brand companies getting into the space; they use terms like “digital” or “virtual” instead of calling it web3 or the metaverse.
But what about the startups? “I think both parties have chances,” said Lihan Lee, co-CEO and founder of web3 data intelligence platform Xangle.