Web 3.0 suffers from hype, fragmentation, say industry experts

Interconnectivity is on the way, even as various segments of the Web 3.0 ecosystem are largely disconnected from reality and one another, said Web 3.0 experts at Hong Kong Fintech Week on Tuesday.

See related article: Why appchains are critical to Web3’s future

Fast facts

Dominic Maffei, head of Hong Kong for SC Ventures, said “it’s hard to talk about a promising future” for Web 3.0 because there’s “a lot of hype” around the technology as it is still in its early stages.

However, he believes that following the pandemic this will be remedied as applications arise more often when “people are going out and starting to interact normally.”

Laura Shi, director of Asia strategy at blockchain software company ConsenSys, argued that this disconnect is also the result of most of the ecosystem’s activities happening from a Web 2.0 perspective, as should be expected during this transitionary period.
Shi projected that further Web 3.0 integration would come from non-financial use cases, saying the industry “should be looking for fun and social interaction” possibilities to utilize the technology in.
Forkast’s senior producer Megha Chaddah, who was moderating the panel, mentioned Web 3.0’s more malicious potential, citing reports of the technology being increasingly exploited for stalking and harassment, such as in December 2021 when a beta tester was groped on Meta’s VR social media platform Horizon Worlds.