The fourth Paris Blockchain Week 2023, held at the Carrousel du Louvre, ended on March 24. Paris Blockchain Week 2023 covered topics such as web3 art, open finance, enterprise blockchain, public policy, and investing in web3. In this article, we will talk about the highlights of PBW.
Paris Blockchain Week 2023 Highlights
PBW 2023 was a huge 3-day event. During the event, hackathons, startup competitions, investor events, Web3 sessions, and many more events took place. In total, more than 10,000 people attended the event, and industry pioneers such as Animoca Brands, Algorand, and Ledger were among the participants. Let’s explain what happened from the first to the last day of the event.
March 22 Highlights
The main topic of the first day was Web3XP, offering informative ideas for brands and content creators. The summit focused on the transition from Web2 to Web3 and how to integrate Web3 into the metaverse.
First, Michael Amar, president of Paris Blockchain Week, and Neal Stephenson conducted a panel discussion. The topic of the discussion was the issue of interoperability in metaverse games. Then, Richard Muirhead, co-founder of Fabric Ventures, spoke about inflation, Bitcoin price, banking crises, and the emergence of Web3.
Failures Did Not Overlook
Following Muirhead’s speech, investor Marguerite de Tavernost spoke about how the bear market is the right time for crypto. According to Tavernost, projects need to gather the ingredients to make a big exit in the bear market.
The rest of the day was filled with talks about decentralized networks, global crypto trends, and blockchain technology, not to mention last year’s and this year’s failures of USDC, FTX, Celsius, Terra, and 3AC. The first day of Paris Blockchain Week ended with the following speech by Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger:
“You can try to explain why you think it has flaws, but you should always have reasonable doubts. If you don’t believe in God, that’s OK. But you should always have reasonable doubt because you will discover the day you die.”
March 23 Highlights
Day 2 of the event started with a speech by Jeff Hasselman, Head of Web3 at Amazon Web Services. Hasselman talked about the interest of many companies, especially Amazon, in Web3. Immediately after the speech, the first panel of the day, “The Need for Yield.” It started. The main topic of discussion was yield farming in the crypto sector.
Alexandre Dreyfus, founder, and CEO of Chiliz, then spoke about the adoption of blockchain gaming tokens. In addition, he mentioned that decentralized blockchain games attract more attention from users.
The Ethics of Web3
One of the events that marked the day was undoubtedly The Ethics of Web3 panel. Moderated by Moojan Asghari, co-founder of Thousand Faces, the panel focused on the ethics of Web3 and blockchain technologies. Lauren Apiarius, the founder of Blockwall Digital, argued that Web3 is being used by some malicious entrepreneurs and that investors should take precautions in this regard.
As March 23rd came to a close, Jeremy Allaire, CEO of USDC provider Circle, commented on the future of money. According to Jeremy, the current international monetary system is outdated and inefficient. He called on the US Congress to rectify this situation.
Last Day
The last day of Paris Blockchain Week 2023 was marked with awards. On the last day, 7 awards carefully selected by the community found their owners. Here are the awards and their winners:
- Web3 Personality of the Year: Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum)
- Best Impact Blockchain Project: UNCHR in Ukraine, Cash via Blockchain to Internally Displaced
- Enterprise Blockchain Project of the Year: IPWe (IBM/Casper Labs)
- Best Web3 Educational Platform: Binance Academy
- The Best Web3 Brand Initiative of the Year: NBA/Sorare
- Best Web3 Content Creator Award: Anthony Pompliano
- People’s Choice Award: Cardano Foundation
The massive 3-day event was filled with speeches by industry leaders, various panels, and sessions. The event, which attracted more than 10 thousand participants in total, ended with a wrap-up brunch.
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