Why I'm Still Building in Web3

I started buying Ethereum again recently. Everyone is afraid of crypto and chasing AI, so I figured I should make like Warren Buffett and get greedy while fear is in the air. We’ve been through enough booms and busts to know that crypto isn’t going away, and in a world rife with AI deepfakes, there might be an important role for the blockchain. Crypto’s enabling technologies, like fast L2s, have been developed such that truly great consumer experiences might be around the corner. In that world, ETH is looking pretty cheap.

It’s easy to fluff shitcoins when the market is up—but what about people courageous enough to keep going even when it’s cold and dark? I wanted someone who’s still building during this crypto winter to provide a nuanced perspective, so I invited Kevin Kim to write for us. Kevin is a product manager at Phantom who previously worked at Meta and ran a blockchain startup years ago. He’s been a believer through many booms and busts. He’s also one of my oldest friends—we went to a high school summer program and college together. I think he’s a smart, nuanced thinker, and a good writer. So he’s the perfect person to bring us this piece today. —Dan

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When one of the most infamous people in your industry is facing up to over 100 years in prison and another barely dodged jail time, it’s impossible not to reflect on your work. Even though FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao were guilty, I am still happily working in crypto. 

The last 12 months in my market of choice have been rough: the SEC has targeted popular cryptocurrencies like BNB, SOL, and MATIC as securities. The agency has sued major exchanges Coinbase and Binance for facilitating their exchange. In August 2023, Ethereum, the most robust NFT market, saw sales volume decline over 75% since February. The recent Stake.com hack of $41 million capped off a staggering $2.5 billion-plus lost in hacks since the beginning of 2022.

But none of these events impact the promise of web3. Despite the hacks and miscreant CEOs, it still is a major upgrade to the internet and the financial system. Beneath the wreckage is a stronger foundation than we’ve ever had: tens of billions in capital, an influx of world-class talent, and trading volume and stablecoin inflows at two-year highs. Many talented people have ignored the noise and continued building.

I’m one of those people. I’ve spent the last two years on the front lines as a staff product manager at Phantom Wallet, one of the rare web3 companies that reaches millions of users. I’ve been building in web3 since late 2017, spoke about laughably early blockchain UX at the 2018 Ethereum conference, and built one of the first integrated smart contract wallets in 2019. I’ve also built software for hundreds of millions of users at Pinterest and Facebook, so I bring a practical, human-centered perspective to the wild west of web3.

In this piece, I’ll reiterate why I’m still building in web3, and explore three trends that I believe are optimistic signs for the technology in 2023.