Cai Wensheng, Feng Bo, Zeng Ming Hong Kong Web3 Carnival Dialogue Full Text: The Evolution of Web1 to Web3

Angel investor and Meitu Chairman Cai Wensheng, Dragonfly.xyz founder Feng Bo, and former Alibaba Chief Strategy Officer Zeng Ming gathered at the roundtable to discuss the opportunities and challenges brought by the evolution of Web1 to Web3 for society, enterprises and individuals.

Moderator: Zeng Ming, former Chief Strategy Officer of Alibaba

Guest: Cai Wensheng, angel investor, chairman of Meitu; Bo Feng, founder of Dragonfly.xyz

From Web1 to the popular Web3, every evolution of the network paradigm will trigger a change in the social model. At the 2023 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, co-hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab and HashKey Group and organized by W3ME, angel investor & Meitu Chairman Cai Wensheng, Dragonfly.xyz founder Feng Bo, former chief strategy officer of Alibaba Zeng Ming and other guests gathered at the round table to discuss the opportunities and challenges brought by the evolution of Web1 to Web3 to society, enterprises and individuals. The round table was chaired by Zeng Ming.

Zeng Ming: Distinguished guests, good afternoon! Everyone listened to the very heavy content of the day, changed the rhythm a little, changed the way. The common feature of the three of us is that the most important point of our careers and lives is that we have accompanied the Internet since the early 90s, whether as direct practitioners, investors, researchers, we have seen the development of the Internet to the mobile Internet and to AI, and we have also witnessed the development of Crypto in the past 7 or 8 years. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the various success stories, failure experiences, and "rumors" I have seen over the years, and share with you in another way what I have learned from the past and the trend of possible development in the future.

Cai Wensheng: As Zeng Ming said, when Feng Bo and I appeared, people's introduction to me and Feng Bo was often "people who work from Web1 to Web3". This may seem like a compliment, but it also shows that we have not succeeded from Web1 to Web3, and we have been on the road. But still have to praise yourself, Web1 to Web3 many people are gone, but we are still there, indicating that we are veterans, veterans do not die, but slowly wither.

From Web1 20 years ago, to Web2 to Web3, times have been changing, but Feng Bo and Zeng Ming and I intervened in the earliest days. I happened to see "Why is this summit called Web3 and not Web3.0?" online today? In fact, there is a difference, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 is from a technical point of view Web1, Web2, Web3, why is it called Web3? It is also the third generation of the Internet.

In my own understanding, Web1 is the era of Yahoo, Sina, that era is more centralized, and the information we need is provided by Sina, Yahoo, etc. Web2 is Google, Baidu, WeChat, Facebook, boot can interact, boot can have options. But the problem that Web2 does not solve is to register an account, which requires WeChat consent, or even Twitter consent. One day Twitter is unhappy, even Trump's account can be closed, you can't sue it. The core of Web3 is that there will also be a platform in the future, but registering an account does not require the consent of the platform.

Second, you can take control of the data yourself.

Third, the data you have can be monetized, valuable, and become the owner of platform value, which is the core change.

I'll start here.

Feng Bo: I have observed that most of the participants are entrepreneurs, Hong Kong is a good platform, welcome to Hong Kong to start a business.

In the industry, today is still in the Internet era, the Internet era Web3 is just a codename, the best Internet products for the next generation of Internet applications are Bitcoin and Ethereum, not today's headlines and Meituan. On the basis of the next generation, the second half of the Internet begins, using the form of the Internet to manage and interact with assets and valuable information.

There are no real Web3 companies yet, and now everyone is sitting here, why are there so many people? Because everyone is looking for direction. Today is just a prospect direction, as for what Web3 is, in fact, no one knows. Professor Zeng may know a little more than we do, so we can look ahead.

Cai Wensheng: Bogo invested in Sina at the earliest, and also entered the mobile Internet in 2,000 years, what are the differences between the mentality at that time and the current investment in Web3?

Feng Bo: At that time, the first company was AsiaInfo, it was in Kabo, the overall infrastructure of the Internet, like Ding Jian invented dial-up Internet, there was ChinaNet, and then there was Sichuan Online, Shanghai Online, Sina was behind, from SSR Net, we invested in software companies at that time, software companies saw Internet opportunities, there was BBS at that time, and they said to change BBS to something that society can use.

The historical stage at that time was interesting, and the discussion was that SSS Net was used by professional software engineers, just as DeFi is used now, and now DeFi is used by professionals, all trained. Who will use BBS? The average user may not necessarily use it. DeFi will go through the same process, and DeFi in the future will be like opening refrigerators, microwaves, and mobile phones, without so many cumbersome steps, and then DeFi will become the most important financial means of human civilization.

When I arrived at Web2, my first investment company was Douban, when Wu Shichun came to me when he started his business, introduced Chen Hua who did search to me, and we became Kuxin Company. But at that time, the search was to crawl over a lot of useless information, and then we asked Yiming, tried train tickets, travel, real estate information, all of which did not have good information value, and later sold the company. Later, Yiming tried to make a property with something, but it didn't work.

Just at that time, the mobile Internet began, the screen of the mobile Internet is small, the headlines of the news are needed, everyone reads the headlines, so he named "Today's Headlines" as an entry point.

Entrepreneurs here, you also think about it, the real methodology is not a 360-degree turn, it is fine-tuning, fine-tuning can find a very big opportunity, Web3 is a good opportunity for all entrepreneurs.

Cai Wensheng: Feng Bo's inspiration is that it is better to vote early than to vote well, Dr. Feng invested in Sina as early as 1997, until the bubble burst in 2000, and then paused. Zhang Yiming was the first to vote when he was doing Kuxin, but because he voted too early, he didn't follow up.

Feng Bo: The crypto industry is also like this, we are experiencing great progress in human civilization, infrastructure construction, application development, not local, just like the Internet, although there is local adoption, but the most important thing is the basic update, technological update, social revolution of all mankind. Don't be in a hurry in the process, because Crypto is too free, one click can ruin a lifetime, and too free will cause a lot of unnecessary sacrifices. Entrepreneurs should pay attention to the most fundamental and essential innovation, let the times unfold slowly, do not rush.

Cai Wensheng: Actually, I was the same, my first entrepreneurial project at that time was the navigation site 265 in the Web1 era, which was sold to Google in 2008 and sold for 20 million US dollars, which was already very satisfactory. But then I had a good friend Pang Dongsheng, imitating 265 to make 2345, and later listed on the A-share market, up to 40 billion yuan, so sometimes it is not right to cash out too early.

Later, I started Meitu on the mobile Internet, and it was too early, and the earliest short video was Meipai, but because it came out too early, I didn't think about it seriously, so the later opportunity was given to Kuaishou and Douyin.

The inspiration from my failed experience with Feng Bo is that the entrepreneurial industry is a long-distance race, sometimes do not pay too much attention to short-term benefits, if you focus too much on the immediate value, you will not be able to get the maximum development.

When I came to the venue today, I was shocked, and the crowd outside the venue was crowded. I'm afraid to attend this kind of occasion now, because there will be countless people who want to take pictures and exchange WeChat with you on this occasion. I miss 20 years ago, when I went to Beijing and didn't know anyone, I could sit in the audience and listen to others' sharing, or I could take the initiative to find useful things I wanted. Everyone should cherish their time as a nobody, because that time is a good opportunity to accumulate.

Feng Bo: I asked Professor Zeng a question, you have studied deeply, in the future technological revolution, one is Web3 application form, one is Crypto, and the other is AI, how do you think these three things will develop in the next ten years?

Zeng Ming: Discussing the future is the riskiest thing.

Feng Bo: It's also the safest thing, because no one knows.

Zeng Ming: Everyone's wording is slightly different, and I discuss Web3 as an overall concept that represents the big technological changes in the future. It has three drivers of technological change, but which one is the hot spot has been changing, one is the hottest Metaverse about three years ago, and the technology driving force behind the Metaverse is actually AR and VR.

Speaking of "investing too early," I went to see a demo of Magicleap's AR glasses for the first time. The first thing I felt after reading it at the time was that it was not a question of whether it worked well or not, it was that you really couldn't tell what was real and what was virtual in the future. The latter product has some levels in Energy saving and Portability, and finally the product has not come out. But at that time, if AR technology broke through, it was actually a big breakthrough in human-computer interaction, from the earliest keyboard to the thumb input of the mobile phone, and now the voice that will immediately become popular, voice has also gone for 10 years. The next step, if you can interact with AI or the internet through your eyes, would be a creative breakthrough. Then there's brain-computer interconnection. This is a breakthrough in human-computer interaction interfaces, and in this sense, AR and VR are still very exciting technologies.

If Apple's products this year can wow everyone, it will be a big breakthrough; If the effect is not achieved, it may have to be tossed for another two or three years.

Second, we have been talking about the development of Blockchain, Crypto, from Bitcoin to now only more than ten years, the success is with Bitcoin's strong consensus, with Ethereum New computing platform, Smart contracts. Crypto is essentially a revolution in production relations, which provides a decentralized network that can make the circulation and trading of assets more efficient, but the problem now is that there are not enough digital assets to circulate and trade.

I feel like Crypto is in an awkward phase of moving from 1.0 to 2.0. On the one hand, Infrastructure needs to continue to break through, which is why Layer2 has received so much attention in the past two years, and ZK has many breakthroughs, because the Ethereum ecology or other supply chain ecology, on the basis of security and privacy protection, must solve the problems of scalability, application, and cost. On the basis of the development of infrastructure, the next round of application innovation breakthroughs will be formed.

Originally, I was a little more pessimistic last year, and I think the next wave of crypto is not so fast. But in the past six months, the big breakthrough in AI is still very shocking, and I think GPT is a technological breakthrough in general artificial intelligence.

Is ChatGPT the final winner? Is it the impact form of this round of intelligent AI products? There are still a lot of variables.

To sum up, I think the three pillars of Web3 technology, AI has surprised us and entered the next stage of development, and we will see great breakthroughs in the next two years. I personally believe that the breakthrough of AI technology has brought great value to the Crypto world, and AI will create a lot of digital assets, which can bring greater value to all participants through Blockchain and Crypto. The combination of these two may lead to the future creator economy, and I think that's a big direction. In that sense, we will usher in Crypto 2.0.

If AR and VR glasses take two or three years to brew, I think the first big explosion of Web3 will be ushered in in about three years. Whether it's applications or infrastructure, it's going to be very exciting at that time, and that big bang should drive the entire economy forward for about 10 years.

Feng Bo: Today, Hong Kong welcomes everyone to participate in Web3, and wants to change itself into a new city in the process of the evolution of the new civilization. Let's review again, what stage of civilization are we in? I think we are moving towards a software civilization and say goodbye to industrial civilization.

In the software civilization, we already have value-anchored Bitcoin, and the best product created by humans with the Internet is Bitcoin, because the previous business model changed the local Meituan, today's headlines, but Bitcoin changed how people make money and how to anchor value, which is the largest product of the Internet.

The second success was Ethereum, a genetic organism that represents the trust mechanism of the future software civilization. On this basis, when we enter this civilization, the explosion of Web3 is on this basis, and the future depends on the countless new applications created by everyone. Where did this app come from? We also don't know that this era and aesthetics are correct.

Cai Wensheng: Why is Web3 and blockchain so difficult? Because it is more a change in production relations, it touches on the organizational structure, and even the change of the national structure, so it will inevitably be distrusted or even hindered by the original traditional vested interests.

Now the development of AI means increased productivity, and any country and society must embrace it. AI can drive Web3 to achieve greater development, so I agree with Professor Zeng Ming that there may be a big explosion in the next three years.

The development of the Internet for more than two decades is more about the change of information, and has not touched the level of value and redistribution, but it has arrived now. Just like the Internet hasn't changed the banking system much before, at most it makes it more efficient. The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank in the United States may also be an opportunity for these traditional banks to rethink whether to embrace the opportunity of Crypto and Web3.

Feng Bo: Today there is no economic crisis, there is no financial crisis, it is the crisis of the legal currency, and the crisis of the legal currency is how the dollar is made, how it is distributed, how it is distributed, how it is stored, and this system has completely failed. The counterpart of the dollar is Bitcoin, what does Bitcoin create? Decentralized governance structure, mining, blockchain technology. Continuing this technology, mankind began a series of developments in Ethereum.

This thing is a technological and social revolution, how to exchange value after using the Internet to change human beings? How to exchange labor? How to exchange the financial service system?

DeFi is like e-commerce facing traditional trade, so in the future, we want to put the entire financial services on the chain, and this large system requires a long infrastructure process.

Zeng Ming: I would like to add two points, it is very interesting, the previous technological revolution, for the society, technology is neutral, only the technological revolution of blockchain is very different.

Let's start with BTC, which has very clear values on the first day of its birth, and decentralization to today's Network society, it has a very clear value.

Feng Bo: The individual is the foundation, the freer, the more efficient, the two major engines of human civilization: freedom and efficiency. The Internet is already free and efficient, but Web2 makes it less free, but very efficient.

Now Web3 is pure freedom, pure efficiency, freedom and efficiency is the most advanced system, human civilization will always evolve towards advanced and system.

Zeng Ming: There are two questions here that are very relevant, and it is more interesting to ask, Web2 to Web3 user migration.

If you follow the Web3 definition I just talked about, in fact, the fundamental problem of this problem is that the original Crypto environment cannot do applications with a large number of users. The so-called move Web2 to Web3 will find out what I want Crypto to do? If you really put everything into the perspective of Web3, we have breakthroughs in AI technology, Crypto as the infrastructure of the value network, and there may be technological breakthroughs in AR and VR in the future.

We can imagine that maybe two or three years from now there will be a very shocking game, this game uses NFTs, uses all the value exchange networks, and actually uses AIGC technology to bring about a breakthrough in experience. If you can still see it with VR glasses at that time, it is a completely immersive experience, then a product will reach a qualitative leap for Web2, it may be a prototype of complete Web3 technology, and then the migration of users will naturally occur.

The migration of Web2 to Web3 users over the past year or so is a false proposition in my opinion. When ChatGPT appeared today, 100 million users passed in two months, and no one discussed how to migrate from Google, and everyone's reaction on the first day was that Google was going to die. Everyone is thinking of countless ways to move the so-called traditional Web2 users to Crypto, to the narrow sense of Web3, I think that is going in the wrong direction, we must not create enough user value to let users directly up.

Bo Feng: I think the biggest difference between Web2 and Web3, or Web3 and Web2, is the difference in aesthetics. The big migration has already begun, and as for which bridge the crowd crosses, everyone may not know.

The first victory in e-commerce was SaaS in 2002, when SaaS was locked up at home for the first time. But after SaaS, many people tried e-commerce for the first time. Back in 2000, there was a panel dedicated to what kind of users are suitable for e-commerce, and the conclusion was all of humanity, and we spent a long time discussing, what kind of users are suitable for crypto? All of humanity, but we don't have many application systems yet, because of infrastructure bottlenecks.

For example, when the first Online World Cup penalty video was sent to Sina, we recorded it for 4 hours to record it, how did we design Tiktok from then on? It is impossible to design Tiktok. In the same way, human evolution and instrumental civilization are based on systems, and we are only in early systems today.

Cai Wensheng: Let me add that the popularity of large-scale users may have a certain relationship with hardware and technology.

Indeed, Web1 Chinese Internet in 2003, when there were only 20 million users, SARS occurred in 2003, everyone was at home, at that time it was the game that promoted its development, e-commerce was the next two years, when the game "Legend" was grand, which was the emergence of an application. The second application is bandwidth, which basically had no broadband users in China before 2003 and entered broadband in 2003.

Feng Bo: At that time, the most troublesome thing was the charge, and SMS charging saved the Internet for many years.

Cai Wensheng: The outbreak of the mobile Internet is related to two things, and he has been investing in the mobile Internet from 2004 to 2008 in the early days, when he invested in the Symbian system. Including HTC at that time, the system was not good enough, the technology was not comprehensive, the iPhone was born in 2009, including Android in 2010, the entire operating system brought a huge revolution.

Taking China as an example, the real popularity in China was also the emergence of Huawei and Xiaomi in 2011 and 2012, which successfully reduced the selling price of mobile phones to less than 2,000 pieces.

Feng Bo: After the new mobile phone came out, the highest installed capacity at that time was Toutiao and Dianping, because after buying a mobile phone, it must be installed.

Cai Wensheng: Google just came out of the first generation and the first machine is 78,000 yuan, you can hardly accept it.

The Crypto we are talking about, now that the Ethereum fee has dropped to 1 or 2 US dollars, but it is still equivalent to more than a dozen yuan, can it be lowered by another step? Doneness goes one step further.

The second condition, like the game in 2003, is that the game is the easiest to pull the user. Just now Bogo said that in 2004 and 2005, he made money by texting through SP and paid for a month, which is a bit of a game entertainment content.

Feng Bo: I voted for OKEX, Lao Xu told me before, do you know? Deposits in the future are deposited in Bitcoin and Ethereum. If you think about it today, the banking system of the dollar has collapsed. I believe that in three years, there will be 2 billion people around the world who have saved digital currency, as for whether it is earned from games, earned by running, or earned by playing 3D mahjong, it does not matter, the important thing is that DeFi will become the financial system on which the world lives. Including NFTs, NFTs are a tool, NFTs are the smallest economy in all of humanity, just as Tiktok is the smallest TV station in the world.

We are now experiencing a technological innovation that for the first time since human civilization has taken care of everyone. The original innovations were all Benefit rulers, which was a national revolution.

Zeng Ming: In this sense, only the three of us discussed more, and there was a lot of consensus.

I think Bitcoin is a bit like a genius product that came out of nowhere, a little beyond its time, and we spent a lot of time taking the values and worldview behind Bitcoin a big step forward through blockchain, Ethereum, DeFi and a round of innovation.

Once chatted with a friend, and at the end of the conversation he repeatedly asked the question: Will all of Crypto's companies end up being utopian? I said at that time that even if it is utopia, the civilization of human society is promoted by the social practice of utopia after utopia, and each utopia will always leave something valuable to push society forward.

Thanks to the development of AI, in the Web3 era, the next several technological innovations will produce a huge explosive force later.

We've also said before that the whole Crypto is like doing it for robots, not the collaboration between people and people, but more like the collaboration between machines and machines. If AI explodes, more things are between machines. Ethereum's Smart contracts are the simplest command, but the simple command that can be executed by machines may be the smartest thing in the machine world.

After so many years of hard work for the future, we may soon have a real technological explosion, and I feel more and more intensely.

Cai Wensheng: We know that the development of technology will bring a lot of unemployment, just like the emergence of cars and tractors at that time made many farmers unemployed. More than 100 years ago, 95% of the United States was farmers, now less than 2%, and then the development of the tertiary industry (information industry) left industrial workers unemployed.

Will the next development of AI make most of them unemployed? It will definitely be.

Bo Feng: Better employment.

Cai Wensheng: I think Web3 can solve this problem. How to say? What is the remaining 80% going to do?

For example, when I was in my fifties, every time I went back to my hometown, I found that my classmates had not worked every day for 20 years, playing mahjong every day, and my hometown was a rural area, and they did not do farm work.

Cai Wensheng: 80% may not be able to find a job in the future, but they can still make money. Playing games in the future will also give you money, in the future you will also give you money when you watch movies, and things that should be entertained in the future can also make money through Web3, solving 80% of employment in disguise.

Feng Bo: Better employment is hard work in the farmland, the same.

Zeng Ming: We still have a few minutes to go, what else do you two want to talk about?

Feng Bo: I think Hong Kong has chosen a good historical moment to welcome entrepreneurs like you. Hong Kong has traditional finance, and there are hardworking Hong Kong people, if Hong Kong continues the current momentum, it will definitely become an important city in the future economy, and I wish Hong Kong and so many friends who support Hong Kong usher in a new financial and technological spring.

Cai Wensheng: In fact, before every major reform, most people are blindly optimistic in the short term, thinking that they will soon change all aspects of the world, but they are always too pessimistic about the medium and long term.

I remember in 2000, when Wang Juntao was the CEO of 8848, he specially held a 24-hour survival test, allowing several people to watch a room, give him cash, whether he can survive. We can all imagine at the time that the Internet saved us from eating, but we still have to eat now. Looking back at the past 20 years, the Internet has really changed everything around us, the way we communicate, the way we shop, the way we entertain.

Bo Feng: Didn't we make a bet? Three people say when humans will not eat, I say 200 years, you say 20 years.

Cai Wensheng: The three of us were having lunch at noon, and Feng Bo asked his child, "In another 200 years, will you still eat?" His child replied, "No." Zeng Ming and I both criticized Feng Bo, you are too pessimistic, my view with Zeng Ming is that for about 30 years, we may not eat anymore.

Bo Feng: Now that 1.5 million people in Japan don't leave their homes, they are doing what they are willing to do on the Internet, where they can make money and eat very simple drinks and food.

Cai Wensheng: Now many people will fast lightly, there is one person who has experimented, Kurzweil, the author of "The Singularity is Near", he has lived by taking pills every day in recent years, and one day he may not even use pills, just charge it, dare to imagine.

Now we do often encounter short-term difficulties, such as I once let my friends for many years buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and then I myself was very uncomfortable, because he told me every few days that it fell again, and I said why don't you look at this matter by year? If you look at it by day and year, Bitcoin and Ethereum are often in a state of decline. If the time is extended to 2009 to the present, it will increase tens of thousands of times. Ethereum appeared in 2014 for only a few cents, and now it has risen tens of thousands of times.

If you stretch the time and take the year dimension as the dimension, the industry is still developing rapidly. Similarly, AI may be combined with Web3, and in the next 20 years, it is difficult to imagine what the next 20 years will look like, but people must be optimistic and positive to look forward. There is a saying that says well, because if you believe, you will eventually see.

Zeng Ming: Thank you! I will quickly add a point that the overall macro environment for everyone to start a business is very difficult now, and I think the fundamental reason is that after 2015, the dividends created by technological progress are not enough to drive the global economy one step forward. Perhaps in the next three or five years, when various technological advances converge, when we enter the next technological big bang cycle, it may lead to the further development of the global economy, and the overall environment will be much better.

Thank you!