Onboarding the Next Billion Web3 Users: Games and Onchain Summer | KBW2023

hi guys um so we're here today to talk about um onboarding the next billion users into games and onchain summer so welcome Ben and Juliano um first off thank you guys um for allowing us to have this space in this stage um and what an honor it is to be speaking up here with two such esteemed speakers so do you guys want to give an intro of yourselves we'll start with Ben thank you um thank you very much jie for that very gracious introduction esteemed I don't know thank you for uh attending everybody and and and listening to uh our talk today uh my name is Ben coo I'm the CBO of iscra um we are a an all-in-one web3 game platform where we not only offer web3 games but other web3 services such as a wallet a DEX a Launchpad um governance taking and those services and anyone whether you're a player or a developer uh gets rewarded based on your participation uh on the platform so if you use any of the services you run a node and all that stuff um you get rewarded my background is uh I'm an online game publisher from back in the day um I was you know uh fortunate enough to help Pioneer online games with a lot of Korean game developers into Emerging Markets uh in Southeast Asia such as the Philippines I went to India we went all the way to the other side of the globe to Brazil and then to Colombia and I've uh had the chance to work with many many Korean game developers and a buddy of mine we opened up a venture a joint venture in California and I've been there ever since so I I did this for over a decade and uh as many people know in the the publishing business it is a hit driven Capital intensive business and so you know uh my partners and I we decided to sell uh to a company called 10cent that I don't know if everybody knows but they are the major shareholder in some major video game Brands you may recognize such as fortnite League of Legends uh the Unreal Engine uh so I do have some uh familiarity with the game publishing business and I think on the iscra team there's a lot of folks like me but then there's also a lot of folks that are like you guys young cool web 3 native incredible developers and game developers and we're hoping that this experience provides a potent mix for uh what we're trying to accomplish so there you go and Juliana amazing amazing uh story B so uh everyone Thanks for thanks for coming uh thanks for KBW thanks for iscra thanks for uh also moderating JD and like so I'm I'm Juliano everyone can call me G um right now I'm a head of expansion for Asia at at coinbase and um I was my background is it's more into like um a social media tack guy I was I was I was with Facebook pretty early then I moved to uh Blackberry Messenger and uh worked for Tinder for quite a while the dating app but my journey with with with coinbase started one and a half years ago but my crypto stories I purchased my first Bitcoin in 2016 so it's it's pretty down to the rabit hole since then and and right now uh for everyone who probably don't know uh we just coinbase just incubated what we called base base is an ethereum layer to uh we built on top of uh op stack and uh what we are trying to do is is we are trying to accelerate um the economic freedom by bringing uh a lot more onchain use cases and building a very scalable layer to one of the most uh developer friendly lay player too and I think we just launched uh 5 weeks ago and and so far we we we receive a very overwhelmingly uh positive response and one of it is we just launched Onan summer and that's where we are here we're partner with iscra to basically like um bringing more onchain use cases uh to the crypto economy so we're talking about onchain summer and you guys just said that you guys you know you just launched that um so what does that mean for you both and how are you bringing the next billion users onto the web 3 got it so um I think we believe that in this decade with a platform or a protocol like Bas layer 2 we are be able to bring uh the next billion users on chain and 1 million developers to build on chain as well because we do started to see a lot of on use cases growing a lot of like ethereum active for is growing and and uh more and more uh whether it's developer whether it's users they're trying to do more scalable things under a layer too so that's why we create uh base but essentially what we believe inside the past 10 years of Journey of coinbase from 2012 we cannot do it alone we need to do it with Partners we need to like um basically just create a protocol where everybody can just like focus on building and building uh more use cases to to to to accelerate the crypto economy and and when I touch back about like on summer which is like a couple of weeks um where we are trying to build we're trying to let people experience what is very easy of bridging eat on base uh doing mint whether it's art music video gaming we partners with like tons of uh artists and projects one of it is iscra and I think what's really fun about this is people people starting to realize that it's easy to do something on chain right and I and I I think uh Ben can tell more things about it from an East CR standpoint but I think the the last uh from 1st September is already over but like the onchain summer spirit is still like happening so everything is like running perfectly right now uh which is um people having fun this summer so that's that's the most important thing right and how does this apply for you guys at iscra I I think that um you know the the partnership started because we had the shared idea about you know onboarding the next billion people and I think just like you know coinbase and bass believes it's going to be through content right whether it's music art um you know uh entertainment and certainly games uh hopefully becomes one pillar of that movement and so I think uh for us it was a great opportunity and in fact you know iscra we were focusing mainly on Emerging Markets um in the beginning but this opportunity with Bas which allows us to tap into the highly competitive um US market was really just a tremendous opportunity and you know we we're very very um lucky to have that opportunity awesome and um in terms of your collaboration what does it mean for you guys as you know a unit now that you collaborating and for the industry as a whole that's a tough question should i g age before Beauty come on just you know no I think I think um the the on summer and our collaboration is just like um is over like I said earlier is overwhelmingly receive a positive feedback and and um even like if we if we seeing this internally even from a coinbase standpoint there's a lot of like more people realizing the important of doing something on chain like we call it with Jesse Paul like our creative uh creator of Base um the onchain energy is just like increasing so what's very important about about Bas and and this collaboration as well is is telling uh a lot of Enterprises out there this is how basically like a big giant like coinbase like trying to navigate the onchain world so so this collaboration is just like telling how doing onchain doesn't needs to be very complicated but when you have like a shared knowledge and a shared mission to bringing the next billion people on chain you can do it in a very fun way I think um that's all I can say I I think that the this collaboration was a massive undertaking um just for iscra itself so I can't imagine what it's like for coinbase to do it 19 times with 19 different partners um and you know the the results for us anywhere were we're staggering I think you know in 7 days we managed to hit almost 880,000 unique mints in seven days right and to be you know uh featured next to Major Brands right such as cocacola Atari you know parallel and to have you know the same type of Engagement was really incredible you know and then we'll take that right and uh if we had to do it all over again we'd do it in a heartbeat you know so thank you very much for that thank you man so so I'm assuming that the collaboration so far has gone really well yeah I mean I think that um you know the exception is you know Eugene our CEO you know I called him in Singapore I was like dude 79,000 unique mints what do you say and you know Eugene is like no 79,000 is good it's good 100 would be better right and I don't know what it is with you Koreans man like you guys you know you won't take the a it needs to be like an A+ you know what I mean and uh but yeah so so yes we will try harder next time but I'm satisfied so there's a lot of um blockchain games within the space there's a lot of web three games um what is it that you guys are bringing uniquely to the market that you think that only iscra and Bas are able to deliver um I think that we are all in agreement that you know this space there is a lot going on so how is it that you guys are bringing something different so I'll take this one I mean I think um obviously like I said for us uh it was an amazing opportunity to partner with uh somebody as as as huge as Bas right to enter the US market um in fact yesterday we were having a great conversation and and somebody asked us you know also a tough question like you're asking uh what's your guys' superpower right what's your secret sauce and my simple answer to that is Korea right um my own experience in game publishing is that not many people acknowledge this but Korea started online games MMO RPGs they started free to play they started the loot box right and I think that um if there's any place that's going to solve uh the business model um and the engagement for web three gaming it's going to be here and so I think that um what makes us different is is again in this phase of the project we're we're focusing on korean-based game content which it's already starting to show in our data the engagement is through the roof right um and uh yeah I think we're off to a really good start thanks to the support of of base and the same question to G oh um I think no that's a very overwhelmingly response F thanks thanks for all the the the credits and I think uh Bas is just new we just like um starting uh launch m n five weeks ago and so far so good but I think what we believe as well to scale the crypto economy we need to be uh available everywhere but like doesn't necessarily need to be in person but I think we like right now in Korea there is uh two of us which is me here and and our uh SEI there uh which is flying down from New York and I think the fact that we are here to basically celebrate the onchain energy and onchain summer with isar say I think it's telling something right I think we do believe on uh a very important piece of of of Asia and and I think because base is still learning and I think uh coinbase also like trying to learn and adapt things so for us doing things right and and learning and adapting very fast with Bas is just like a very important key element to achieve our uh Mission so yeah and like for the core mission of Bas because this is something that's kind of not really the norm and tradition for the path that you guys have led you know before you guys were in exchange and that's that's what you guys have built and that's what you guys are known for um how does that kind of change the future standpoint and the Future Vision of what you guys are building within the world uh perfect so um I think Bas is kind of like um a mission statement or like a we call it internally a secret master plan of Brian Armstrong because we launched coinbase back in 2012 but I think the past 10 years what we are trying to do is basically how we be able to scale the crypto economy in whatever way possible right and I think uh after we launch an exchange we are trying to launch our coinbase wallet and we are trying to launch our uh usdc together with with with Ciro and then we launch our first token which is uh coinbase e and now it's basically we incubate base so whatever that we basically built as a company as an organization is following that kind of like master plan so the fact that we are here today is like telling that we believe at coinbase we will be able to kind of like on board on chain to from a 10% to 100% in this decade so we kind of like really really positive and bullish to what we are working internally and then I think this question is for Ben so how did you guys come about and choose Bas as the partner in particular for this great question I mean I think um you know and I tell this to everybody all the time you know a lot of success is based on timing and luck right and and I think that uh it was great timing that um you know in some ways The Clash game kept getting delayed because we kept tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and then when the developer said oh we're finally ready to launch in August you know we've been talking to coinbase and semi and they were like hey oh we're doing this thing in August would you guys like to we were like oh yeah all right maybe you know and and so and like I said for me you know Global expansion really is is kind of our our focus and I really couldn't think of a better way to enter the US um you know with with this kind of support and and I think that um you know as I shared earlier I think it it was really tremendous so yeah great um okay so next question is do you see any challenges in reaching the next billion web 3 users and what do you think you guys need to do in order to overcome those I I can take that first so we were talking about this earlier right I think that from the web 3 gaming perspective the real challenge is going to be actually demonstrating the value of digital ownership right I think everybody kind of we get the concept uh from web 2 where we know there are black market economies that happen on the side which is going to be made more feasible and possible with things on chain um but I think it still needs to be proven with the right content uh for web 3 right and I think to to us that's one of the biggest challenges the other big challenge too is to prove that maybe the value of digital ownership doesn't only mean earning right there are other things you know besides just earning like collecting real engagement and the sort of thing so um at least from a web 3 gaming perspective that's that's what kind of we're looking at or we're trying to to to solve that that issue and and from a base standpoint I think it's it's back to like the original idea why base is being incubated by coinbase and I think I'm just going to quot it our uh Jesse poock when he spoke in e CC in Paris is like um I think coinbase needs to kind of like if coinbase want to do um on chains right what type of like things that we need to do and I think we come into like a conclusion what for a big scale coinbase um we just need to basically find a one very scalable strategy to do it and I think in in order to do it I think we partners with optimism and we creating like a layer too and uh for us after creating a layer to what's next I think uh our belief is like by making everything is easy and simple uh for user to basically participating on chain and just like making uh developers also building at speed and fast it's one of the way for us to to creating more onch use cases uh then we can go to like our mission statement which is bring the next billion users on chain but I think right now um whatever that we talk right now because we just starting very early and and uh whatever that we want to achieve we cannot do it alone so that's why also we work with uh op Collective op stack to to kind of like building this super chain thesis because at the end of the day bringing the 1 billion users can you cannot really do it in alone and you just need to do it together in a very scalable way right so you've talked about um you know bringing the next billion users on and we've talked a little bit about how we're going to do that through gaming what do you guys identify as kind of the next Trends in the gaming sector I think one of the things you know I have to credit my buddy for coming up with the term is uh gamer way right I think that right now in the space everybody talks about the whales that trade alt coins and all these things and the gamer whale is a creature that has existed since the beginning of like online game communities right and they emerge if you are able to create a great experience right for everybody and the community gets big enough to do that there's always somebody that kind of leads that Community not just in earning right normally these are the guys that start the black market and all that stuff but at the same time they really are leaders of the community right it influences the game experience and all that and you need these kinds of people and I think that's something that um you know I'm curious to kind of see what happens with the new uh generation of games that are coming out that we're seeing not just ours but everybody else's right everyone's focusing on real engagement um you know so uh it'll be curious to see if if that's what kind of pans out yeah any comments from eugi for the okay awesome um so in closing then um would each of you like to share any closing remarks um or any exciting updates that you guys might have first no I I think for us we just like so happy and like really overwhelmed again with with uh whatever that we achieve under five six weeks right now and I think we are learning we are adapting to like what's next uh for for base but I think really Our intention to just like really on board a lot of like Blue Chip players to to base so when everybody's like ready to basically move to base and doing an onchain transaction they can really see experience and do the the everyday uh decentralized application they they already see outside right so that's really it and and um I think right now we're just like really trying to um absorb and also learning because there's a lot of people want to talk with us right now which is amazing but I think what I'm trying to say is BAS is permissionless everybody can build on base without even me telling what to do and and I think so far we just like really appreciate with all the builders and users who come to the platform and like sharing the onchain energy with us and yeah that's my my my final remarks and and yeah yeah go over to you I think um in closing you know what a difference 12 months make right uh now I'm sitting on a panel here with you guys I mean incredible right uh it just shows you how unpredictable also the industry can be and this is something that I've felt when I was doing this a long time ago with game publishing right you really don't know what'll happen um you know and we hope that we just signed four more games that we're going to be launching uh in the next four to 6 months and we're hoping to just continue to do the things that work right like this partnership with Bas and you know we're seeing some real traction and we hope it uh it continues so um wish us luck thank you thank you guys okay so that wraps up the the session ladies and gentlemen once again please give a big round of applause for those two gentlemen as uh they have shown us uh what's going on with the gaming market with the web fre users and our our amazing job as moderator to our JD Lee so please give a big round of applause once again thank you so now if you could you uh step down then we'll go