By Riley Kaminer

Despite the crypto market crash mid-year, diamond-handed international investors and innovators still flocked to downtown Miami this year for Art Basel-themed web3 events.

At two conferences in particular, the MiamiWeb3 Summit at the Intercontinental Hotel and DCENTRAL Miami at the James L. Knight Center, speakers urged attendees to get through the so-called crypto “winter.”

“The colder the winter, the more people need Miami,” proclaimed Raymond Yuan, founder and president of web3 holding company CTH Group. Earlier this year, the firm established its global headquarters in Miami.

Mayor Suárez redoubles his commitment to the ‘capital of the capital’

Explaining CTH’s decision to be headquartered in the Magic City, veteran Chinese tech investor Yuan cited City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s crypto-forward agenda as a key motivating factor.

And for web3 bulls like Yuan, Suárez did not disappoint.

At the MiamiWeb3 Summit, Suarez painted a picture of Miami as “undoubtedly the city of the future,” with crypto as a key focus.

“Crypto is here to stay,” Suarez said, describing web3 as the “new building blocks of today’s economy.”

In Suárez’s estimation, web3 can be an economic engine for all Miamians, “but only if we can capture this moment,” he said.

If web3 is a “tsunami of opportunities,” Suárez urged Miamians to ride the wave. “If you ask me if web3 will succeed, I would tell you that it will with 100% certainty.”

Suárez’s advice for eager investors? “Sometimes you just have to breathe. We have to remember that this technology is new. Not all iterations are going to be successful. Not all companies are going to be successful.

One notable success story, however, is Miami-based Doodles, an NFT project turned web3 entertainment company. In a fireside chat with Doodles CEO Julian Holguin, Suárez cited the startup as an example of Miami’s global web3 prowess.

With companies like Doodles within our city limits, “we have the opportunity to become the capital of the capital,” Suárez said.

Making sense of the public policy landscape in the wake of FTX

FTX loomed large in attendees’ minds, with Miami as a city putting much of its crypto ambitions on the company in disgrace, and a $190 million sanctuary for the now-defunct company located in an arena just minutes away. these conferences.

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis broadcast to MiamiWeb3 from Capitol Hill to share her perspective on regulation, policy and the Responsible Financial Innovation Act. The bill, which she co-sponsored with New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, represents an attempt to create bipartisan legislation on digital assets.

One of the main problems that Lummis and Gillibrand are trying to address: getting everyone on the same page on definitions. “Cryptographic definitions are going to be important,” she said. “We have certain digital assets that have moved from proof of work to proof of stake. Have they now become values? How do our definitions fit with that?”

Untangling thorny questions like these has already proven challenging, Lummis shared. But he vowed to work alongside crypto innovators to better understand the web3 landscape.

“In a way, it’s a good thing that innovation has happened without roadblocks or regulation, even though consumers have been hurt in the process,” said Lummis, describing a “buyer beware” atmosphere in the space.

“Now, I think it’s more urgent to move forward with good regulation that still allows innovation to happen in the United States, but in a way that protects consumers,” Lummis continued.

A panel of international innovation policy researchers cast some doubt on some of these claims.

“This is about creating regulatory clarity, not regulation,” said Ananya Kumar, deputy director of digital currencies at the Atlantic Council. Benedict Cooney of the Tony Blair Institute echoed these sentiments, noting that it is crucial to “bring more stability to the [web3] ecosystem” as it becomes more mainstream.

On a more practical note, a conversation with central bank digital currency (CBDC) experts further underscored the challenges facing policymakers. On the one hand, the sentiment from the private sector, summed up by Jared Favole, a senior director at Circle, which sells the USDC stablecoin: “CBDC feels like a solution in search of a problem.”

Focus on the opportunity for creators in web3

Down the street at DCENTRAL, creators were at the center of many conversations about web3, NFTs, and digital asset ownership.

Rapper Timbaland (pictured at the top of the post) took the stage to present his pro-web3 perspective. In his opinion, web3 is a great opportunity for emerging independent musicians, who no longer have to rely on major record labels to distribute their songs.

“The independents are going to overtake the big ones,” he said, arguing that within two to three years, we will see the music community fully embrace web3. “All it takes is one con man to rush in.”

On his own, Timbaland himself is certainly one of these go-getters. He is in the process of launching a metaverse project and Beatclub, a blockchain-based marketplace for musicians. “We want to build the Amazon of heartbeats,” he said.

Meanwhile, pop star Annie Yi, the self-described “Madonna of China” (which she demonstrated by sharing a short rendition of “Like a Virgin” with the DCENTRAL audience), shared her thoughts on why NFTs are the future of music.

Along with his son, Harrison Yu, a celebrity in his own right, Yi has launched an LGBTQ-focused NFT project called Theysverse. “Our project is the first to support LGBTQ artists,” Yi said. “We don’t have co-founders: NFT projects are created by our entire community,” she said.

A Miami startup is helping pioneer the NFT creator ecosystem: OneOf. CEO and co-founder Lin Dai took the stage to make the case for creating more user-friendly web3 tools, having worked with a wide range of artists, including Doja Cat and the Biggie Smalls estate.

“Education is very important, but it’s up to product creators to make products that are easier to use,” he said, stating that it would still be difficult for non-web3 (or Web 2.0) native users like his mother to get on board with web3.

“We hope to help the next 100 million people connect with everyday artists through web3,” Dai said.

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