Philippine Web3 Festival 2022 Recap: What’s Next?

The Philippine Web3 Festival has finally come to a close. How will this week-long event supercharge the future of NFT, Web3 and blockchain gaming?

From networking sessions to interactive booths, informative speeches to panel discussions, game reveals to gameplay demos, and so much more, the first Philippine Web3 Festival held at Marquis Events Place, Bonifacio Global City, Manila, goes to show that Web3 is more than just a buzzword for its community.

Despite the negative connotation associated with blockchain, this has not stopped Filipinos from the daunting task of educating the masses about what NFTs, Web3 and blockchain really stand for.

Celebrating a week-long conference focused on this new emerging technology, I set out to attend the event in-person to find out what it could mean to the future of the industry.

Here is a rundown of the highlights across the 5-day event.

Day 0 (Registration)

The Philippine Web3 Festival kicked off with its official registration cocktail open to all Web3 Festival ticket holders on November 14 at The Island Bar, Bonifacio Global City. A precursor to the event’s official kickoff party, ‘Panimula’, held at Revel at the Palace, organised by MetaverseGo, HashZ, and MetaCare.

On the same night, I connected with Mark, aka Grawlix, a Community Manager at Kryptomon – a play-and-earn game reminiscent of the classics Tamagotchi and Pok?mon on the Binance Smart Chain. Interestingly, the game launched its Open Beta in early August and is set to introduce its very own Kryptoverse very soon. For anyone interested, you may check out their website for more details.

Day 1 (In-Person)

The first day was off to a hot start with Jeffrey Ian Dy, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Information and Communications Technology, kicking off the conference with the ICT strategies in making sure that the country successfully rides the next wave of iteration of the world wide web. Dy shared that whilst the Philippines lack the technology and the skills capability, as a nation, it is one of the early adopters of Web3.

The opening address was then followed by a quick trip down memory lane. Colin Goltra, Global Chief Operating Officer at Yield Guild Games, took to stage to share the history of crypto in the country, featuring a book published in 1999 called ‘Cryptonomicon’, detailing a cryptocurrency startup in the Philippines by Neal Stephenson, a fabled science fiction author.

At the conference, Goltra said: “The author identified the Philippines as the future epicenter of adoption and this was back at a time when cryptocurrency was still the stuff of sci-fi.”

Goltra also noted how the Philippine Web3 Festival resulted from “a decade-long undertaking and hard work in the crypto ecosystem” fast forward to today.

One of the most unmissable highlights of the day however was the keynote speech from Jeffrey Zirlin, aka Jihoz, Co-founder and Growth Lead at Sky Mavis, the creator of the popular game Axie Infinity.

Zirlin proudly shared that despite the bear market and carnage in the crypto space, there are still over 232,000 monthly active addresses in the Axie ecosystem and quietly the largest NFT project of all time by volume traded, beating projects like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes.

Zirlin said that Axie is synonymous with the Philippines and that the game’s beating heart is strong in its community. As a token of his gratitude, Zirlin shared alpha leaks for the first time on stage followed by an interview to discuss the future of the game and his vision for the country’s growth in Web3 gaming – more specifically with Axie Infinity.

Zirlin shared: “We try not to look at what other people are doing, we try to invent things – that’s our bread and butter. If everyone is trying to copy us and adopt our models, then we know that we’re winning.”

Numerous panel discussions and fireside chats were held afterwards, discussing the future of Web3 gaming and the role of the Filipino community in the space.

Filipino NFT artists Sheila Ledesma, Jopet Arias, Bjorn Calleja and Sevi Loves Art also graced the stage to share their journey in transforming their art into NFTs and how it has helped them in their artistic venture.

Wrapping up the conference was perhaps the most controversial panel of the day from Nichel Gaba, Founder and CEO at PDAX, Wei Zhou, Chief Financial Officer at Coins.ph, Farrah Rodriguez, Country Manager at Amber Group, and Kenneth Stern, General Manager at?Binance Philippines, where they sat down to discuss the latest epic news in crypto FTX’s downfall.

The panel shared similar sentiments on FTX’s collapse, and they all agreed that blockchain space generally must have smart regulations with strict implementation on global exchanges.

Whilst the conference delivered exciting keynotes, and heated panel discussions, the outside of the conference halls situated booths from various game studios and event sponsors giving away free swag bags and merch to lucky festival goers.

One booth stood out to me and it was Farcana, a third-person shooter boasting its striking, high-quality graphics and three playable modes – zone control, battle royale, and survival. The team shared the demo version, playable only during the exhibition, with all trade visitors. Farcana is a play-to-earn title scheduled to be released in its first Alpha instalment in Q1 of 2023 – until then, we’ll have to sit back and wait.

Closing the day were networking parties hosted by BreederDAO, BlockchainSpace, Mirai Labs, and Tier One at Xylo.

Day 2 of Philippine Web3 Festival

The central theme for Day 2 was all about blockchain infrastructures and the funding necessary to grow the Web3 industry, with seven keynote speeches presented by Polygon Technology, BNB Chain Labs, Binance and more.

Niel Trinidad, Vice President at GCash, the leading mobile wallet provider in the Philippines, opened the floor as the day’s first keynote speaker.

Trinidad talked about defining the Web3 ecosystem: “At GCash, we believe in the power and potential of the Web3 ecosystem in the Philippines and that we have a role to play. As the number one e-wallet in the country, we believe that our role is in helping accelerate adoption, drive education at scale and grow trust throughout the ecosystem.”

An interesting keynote speech from Dr. Dimitry Mihaylov, Chief Scientific Officer, at Farcana Labs, followed the opening keynote. Dr. Mihaylov shared how they started with a small mobile game to collect player data based on gameplay progress, anxiety levels, and more before finally developing Farcana – the AAA game that it is now.

A myriad of panel discussions was further held around the safety and lifestyle solutions and simplifying onboarding of non-crypto natives into the metaverse through education and games with the help of gaming guilds and the community in achieving the goal.

Lorne Lantz, Founder of Breadcrumbs – a blockchain investigation tool – shared noteworthy advice on one of the panel discussions: “For anything centralised, check to make sure that they’ve been regulated, that they are in jurisdictions that are legitimate. These are some of the basics but it all comes down to educating yourself to protect yourself.?

I couldn’t agree more hence – DYOR.

Further, into the second day, Alvin Kan, Growth Operations Director at BNB Chain Labs, joined the Philippine Web3 Festival remotely to discuss the role of BNB Chain for gaming in emerging nations.

Leon Foong, Director of APAC at Binance, also tackled how Binance wants to prioritise education, community building, and rebuilding trust in the blockchain space in the country.

The rest of the day continued with discussing education, community building and onboarding with Peter Ing, who shared why guilds are essential in the Web3 ecosystem: “Education. We still have this problem that crypto is still too technical. Microguilds create micro-communities that help them understand. They also onboard people, it’s really, really important.”

More keynote speeches and panel discussions covering how to build a thriving Web3 gaming and entertainment ecosystem and Esports for blockchain gaming.

Closing the day was the awarding of the Philippine Web3 Hackathon winners.

Day 3

Creators, creatives and the gaming side of Web3 were all the buzz on the final day.

Allan Pineda Lindo, aka Apl.de.Ap, a Filipino-American singer and songwriter from the popular music group – Black Eyed Peas took the stage to share his journey into NFTs and Web3.

For the uninitiated, Apl.de.Ap launched his NFT collection in collaboration with AJ Dimarucot in May 2021, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting First Mint Fund, a fund that covers gas fees for first-time NFT creators in Southeast Asia, helping them kick start their career in web3.

The singer and songwriter hyped the crowd as he performed one of his popular songs, “Bebot”, live on stage and one of his songs from his latest album set to be released in a few days.

With Gabby Dizon and Peter Ing on stage, the Philippine Web3 Festival representatives announced to donate 1 million Philippine Pesos (17,400+ USD) to the Apl.de.Ap foundation. Sevi Agregado, a Filipino NFT artist, also gifted an artwork to celebrate the singer’s childhood in Pampanga.

Sebastien Borget, Co-founder and COO at The Sandbox, also joined the conference remotely, inviting creators to bring more of the Filipino culture into the metaverse. Borget shared: We are creating a new format for entertainment that goes beyond gaming but uses the gaming mechanics to define engagement and retention.

More on Web3 gaming, keynote speeches and panel discussions continued throughout the day, tackling the importance of mobile gaming in Web3, why Web3 needs communities, the hottest gaming titles for 2023 and so much more.

Concluding the final day of the event was Peter Ing on how the industry can be legitimised by partnering with regulators: “Connect with people who regulate and be regulated by the BSP because this provides legitimacy. This is basically the pathway to adoption.”

Day 4 (Axie Open Manila)

With the bulk of the keynote speeches now concluded and the hallowed halls of Marquis Events Place emptied, it was time to switch attention to one of the most anticipated side event of the week – the Axie Open Manila.

Held at the Circuit Makati, the last day of the Philippine Web3 Festival was dedicated to an all-day Axie Esports Tournament. A total of 256 players flocked to battle one another in a race to win the $120,000 cash prize.

The tournament was equally exciting and intense, but at the end of the day, Spamandrice stood above all and won the first-ever Axie Open Manila Tournament, whilst Zaratustra and Martinsuuuu were awarded 2nd and 3rd place, respectively but the celebration wasn’t quite finished yet!

Wrapping up proceedings was a 2-day Thank You After Party hosted at La Union, a famous surfing spot in the Philippines, and PlayMining Night for those staying at the Metro.

Opinion

There isn’t a consensus as to what the next technological advancement of Web3 will be except decentralisation and one of my key takeaways is knowing that this emerging technology can make national economies seem provincial and traditional technologies a thing of the past.

The Philippine Web3 Festival may have successfully given the global community a glimpse of how blockchain can transform local industries from finance and banking to education and governance by dispelling the stigma and translating it into a necessity through education and onboarding, implementation of security regulations, and building solid communities through collaboration.

The increasing number of tech players moving into Web3 and the keynote speeches delivered throughout the week demonstrate that the metaverse can and will be significant to global societal changes.