Binance Blockchain Week 2023 Highlights Growth of Web3 Ecosystem

Trust Wallet Shakes Up Binance Blockchain Week

The recent Binance Blockchain Week 2023 held in Istanbul, Turkey brought together global crypto and blockchain communities, showcasing the continued growth of the Web3 ecosystem. Despite being a Binance event, the conference featured several key players from the crypto industry, including Trust Wallet, a decentralized Web3 wallet provider acquired by Binance in 2018. The surprise announcement of Binance's own Web3 wallet caught many visitors off-guard, as Trust Wallet had been widely regarded as "the wallet arm of Binance."

Trust Wallet's Neutrality and Focus on Decentralization

Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn Chen, a former vice president at Binance, emphasized the distinction between Binance's centralized focus and Trust Wallet's dedication to the decentralized ecosystem. Chen highlighted Trust Wallet's neutrality, stating that it can serve and partner with anyone in the crypto industry. Trust Wallet, born in 2017 during the initial coin offering craze, aimed to provide an accessible mobile wallet and focused on onboarding users and developers to the decentralized blockchain world.

Strategic Partnership and Security Challenges

Chen explained that Trust Wallet became a sister company of Binance to create a better playing field, while still maintaining a partnership. Fixing user experience issues is relatively straightforward compared to addressing security vulnerabilities across the Web3 landscape. Chen noted that security issues can arise in blockchains, decentralized applications, smart contracts, or even at the code level of a wallet. Scammers account for a significant portion of security issues, taking advantage of social pressures to manipulate users into ignoring security warnings.

Community Effort Needed to Combat Scams

Trust Wallet's security team has observed the increasing sophistication of scams and has begun providing customer support to guide users who have fallen victim to fraudulent schemes. Chen emphasized that preventing scams and fraud is a challenging problem that requires education and community effort. She stated that it is not just a technology issue but an operational problem that the entire industry needs to address.

User Retention Strategies in the Bear Market

Chen highlighted the importance of user retention in the open nature of the Web3 ecosystem. Trust Wallet's strategy of building trust with users has paid off, with a 60% increase in total downloads over the past two years, surpassing 70 million downloads in total. The market share for weekly active wallet users on mobile has also doubled from 20% to 40%. Chen emphasized the need for projects and teams to prove their ability to handle challenges and mistakes, making users feel comfortable enough to stick around.

Preparing for the Next Billion Users

Chen discussed the readiness of the Web3 industry to onboard the next billion users, which depends on the risk appetite and profile of Web3 companies. She posed the question of whether Web3 offers enough utility and use case scenarios to attract new users. Chen also shared her enthusiasm for Web3, highlighting blockchain's potential to become the value transfer system for the internet and the value of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in tokenizing ownership and providing wider access.

Realizing Value for Society Through NFTs and Blockchain

Chen believes that innovation around NFTs and utilizing blockchain as a value transfer system will create real value for society. Regardless of the market performance of individual NFT collections, she stressed the importance of not being solely influenced by sentiment but instead focusing on the tokenization of ownership and its potential to benefit more people through better mechanisms.