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Web3 Culture Is 'Not Dead' but as Strong as Ever, Say Brand Leaders
Creators, leaders and builders from the NFT space spoke about the resilience of Web3 at CoinDesk's annual Consensus conference.
Updated Apr 27, 2023, 1:54 p.m. Published Apr 26, 2023, 10:02 p.m.
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AUSTIN, Texas — While the latest market cycle included the collapse of several major crypto firms and the slowing of non-fungible token (NFT) sales, brand leaders are confident that Web3 culture is not dead.
NFT project Deadfellaz co-founder Betty; chief marketing officer of Alo Yoga Angelic Vendette; director of emerging technology of Diageo North America Devin Nagy; founder of Studio LOGIK Julian Gilliam, and Web3 head of United Talent Agency Lesley Silverman shared the stage Wednesday at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2023 Festival, highlighting the amount of energy currently flowing in the crypto ecosystem.
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"I've seen a lot of narratives online saying that the culture is dead," Betty said. "And people have been saying that since I started. It's not dead. The underlying ethos and the underlying desire to disrupt and to build something new and to challenge systems have been around forever."
What is unique about the Web3 space, according to Betty, is that people have a chance to empower the community “so that it doesn’t just stem from the brand itself.” Community members are “stepping up in building alongside you and authentically getting value out of it."
Read full coverage of Consensus 2023 here.
Gilliam noted multiple signals that demonstrated the resiliency and vitality in Web3, such as the recent moves by Starbucks, MasterCard and Adidas.
“When you take all these top brands creating case studies and proof of concepts and exploring the space, that creates another entry point for someone who's in another part of the world operating the culture in a different way," said Gilliam. "The leaders that we have in the space right now, whether it’s an NFT project or a [decentralized application], they’re solving problems for a specific group of people.”
While the Web3 culture is alive, what is dead are organizations with "platforms that build without looking at the ecosystem as a whole," said Betty. Organizations seeking to only benefit one group of people are "dead," she added.
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At Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Leo Fan questioned Midnight’s use of Google Cloud and Azure, as Charles Hoskinson justifies hyperscaler partnerships.
What to know:
- At Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Cysic founder Leo Fan warned that blockchain projects relying heavily on hyperscalers like Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure risk recreating single points of failure that undermine crypto’s decentralization ethos.
- Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson defended partnerships with major cloud providers for the Midnight privacy-focused network, arguing that global, privacy-preserving systems require hyperscaler-level compute while cryptography and confidential computing protect underlying data.
- The debate between Hoskinson and Fan centers on how to define decentralization, with Hoskinson prioritizing cryptographic neutrality over hardware ownership and Fan urging a hybrid model that limits reliance on Big Tech and extends decentralization to the compute layer itself.
