From social media to big tech to retail, a growing number of web companies are striving to create a “super app” that provides the kind of convenience Asian web surfers take for granted.

In a perfect world, such a super app would serve as a kind of one-stop digital door for all your online needs, with banking, payments, savings, investing and more, connected to a world of products and services people need everywhere. your daily life. Some of these apps, like the future WeChat-based version of Twitter that Elon Musk claims to be building, would also integrate social media and user data.

“Buying Twitter is an accelerator to create X, the application of everything”, Musk tweeted in October.

What is a super app?

Millions of Chinese citizens have already become dependent on super apps like WeChat, which allow users to multitask on one platform, from buying food to hailing a taxi, applying for a loan and even getting a divorce.

It’s a far cry from 2011, when WeChat was born as a fairly simple messaging app that quickly grew its user base to include a large percentage of the Chinese population. Building on this growth, in 2013 WeChat started adding additional services, such as a payment platform, then expanded into other areas: shopping, taxis, medical appointments, bill payment, food delivery, etc.

Fast forward to 2023 and WeChat now offers thousands of different services. Most of them are available as applets within WeChat that have been designed using the development tools it provides. WeChat’s biggest rival is Alipay, which also has over a billion users and offers many of the same types of services. Together, the two apps have succeeded in transforming China from what was largely a cash-based society to one now heavily reliant on digital payments. In doing so, they allowed the Chinese economy to bypass intermediate steps on the road to building a cashless economy, such as debit and credit cards.

The super app concept has taken off across Asia, with similar offerings provided by GoJek in Indonesia and Line in Thailand. Each of these super apps integrates financial services, and that backbone is a common thread that ties all the others together.

What super apps will come next?

While fintech platforms like PayPal and Square seem like obvious candidates for the super-app crown, several players in the Web3 and crypto space are also emerging as strong possibilities.

Crypto has its ups and downs, but it is rapidly growing in popularity among a larger segment of the population. With regulation on the horizon and the increased legitimacy it will provide, Web3 could quickly emerge as the foundation for a new generation of super-applications. It would also be advantageous, because Web3’s decentralization ensures that users remain in control of their data. This negates many of the privacy regulations that are holding back traditional “big tech” players, as well as concerns about what Musk might do with our private data. At the same time, crypto-based finance and payments (known as DeFi) will ensure much greater inclusion, meaning anyone will be able to use these super apps to organize their lives.

A cryptographic application that is ahead of the game right now is block banka payments app that unites crypto and fiat payments on a single platform with a sleek user interface that provides a clean way to access centralized and decentralized finance, plus neo-banking services, all in one place.

The best feature of Blockbank is that it allows users to exchange cryptocurrency for fiat and vice versa directly from the app. It also offers a debit card for making payments, built-in KYC checks, and integration with Unstoppable Domains. This is key as it means users can purchase a custom domain name from within the app to replace their complex crypto wallet addresses.

Providing a similar service is utorg, an Estonian-based super Web3 app that relies on a central payment gateway for fiat-to-crypto purchases. boasts many modern Web3 functionswhich includes a non-custodial wallet, swaps, NFT integration, portfolio and yield savings accounts, and combines them with regular banking features such as credit cards.

Plateau meanwhile has created what is quickly becoming a super application for Web3 and the metaverse. Upland is the creator of an eponymous virtual metaverse world that maps directly to the real world, and is one of the fastest growing such platforms in the world with over three million users at last count.

The reason for this growth is the large number of services, features, games and opportunities. available throughout Upland. It is a place where people can meet and socialize, play games, shop and much more. It can be accessed from any platform – the web, Android, iOS or a virtual reality headset – and revolves around a thriving, decentralized, ownership-based economy.

Within Upland it is possible to do almost anything that is possible in the real world, such as buying and owning property, creating your own content, and hosting it there. In the last year, it has added new features such as its in-game chat tool and its NFT minting platform. Perhaps the main reason for Upland’s success is the business opportunities it provides to its business-minded users. Anyone in Upland can start a so-called “Metaventure”, which is a business within the metaverse that can focus on almost any domain.

Another part of the world that has not yet embraced the idea of ​​super apps is Africa, but jambo seems well placed to change that. After raise $30 million In the Series A funding last year, Jambo aims to create a hub for Africa’s entire digital economy, all in one super app that it is currently building.

Africa is a good place to build a cryptocurrency-focused super app because it is home to a young population that is highly interested in digital assets, in part because millions of its inhabitants are unbanked. African citizens typically do not have access to a robust financial services infrastructure, so the decentralized and relatively secure nature of cryptocurrencies is very attractive to people in the region.

Jambo’s initial focus has been on integrating play-as-you-win games that meet local bandwidth considerations, such as Axie Infinity, into its ecosystem, giving its users a way to earn money playing video games. It is also building a non-custodial wallet that will provide access to savings, payment and DeFi services.

Web3 super apps can make all the difference

Like the traditional and centralized super apps WeChat, AliPay, Line and GoJek, this new generation of Web3 super apps shares a common theme with finance. Only in their case, they all revolve around DeFi rather than TradFi, with cryptocurrencies serving as the key medium that lubricates the wheels of their burgeoning in-app economies.

By expanding crypto-based payment applications and wallets to integrate with other types of applications and services, it is possible to bring a lot of convenience to users who need to multitask in their daily lives. Buying items, paying for services, and more, plus, it all comes back to the crypto-based app at the core. The bottom line is that people should be able to access and manage their finances anywhere, whether they’re shopping, visiting the doctor for a checkup, or sitting on a plane flying to their next vacation destination.

Super apps can be used to deliver the financial services people need to access at the drop of a hat in a personalized way. By integrating with crypto, we have the added benefit of democratization, giving underserved communities and the unbanked access to the super apps that will soon dominate our lives.