How mobile unlock adoption in web3

Transcript

Hello. Um so hello everyone. Very happy to be here and honored. Um I hope you're enjoying the conference and NDAC. Um so my name is Phoebe. I'm from Greenfield Capital uh in the investment team and uh today we're going to talk about how mobile can um unlock um web three adoption. So uh I've been quite excited by this topic since a long time. So I decided to to explore it and to write an article about that. And um yeah the idea was to be looking as much as web 3 um um infrastructure that is or helping to create a mobile uh native

application. Then also what is happening in the in the web ecosystem. So for example like Revolute um Treasure Republic and Robin Hood not to mention it too much uh and um yeah so yeah so I've been very interested but also exactly what I was saying like what is happening also in the web 3 so for example uh company like um preview or turnkey in terms of security notification um uh EIP77 uh for uh O2 for gasless uh sponsor transaction and And so if you're interested, don't hesitate to reach one of us at some point. Um, so yeah, been quite excited for for a very long time. Um, and as I

was I was saying, I've been like looking at a lot of what the web 2 was already doing and how much did they expand. Uh, especially uh, one big use cases which was uh, Robin. Uh, little did I know it would be like the topic of the whole week. Um so yeah but what they've been like doing for the couple of years they decided like 10 years ago to go completely on mobile where while everybody else was on on desktop uh which was quite impressive and and scary but it went quite well since today they were like 25% of the retail market and 3% of the volume of the stock market which is like 1.6 trillions. Uh so yeah quite quite impressive but I think it's

as important as what's um I think it's a great example for like for the next generation of the web 3 application and um so I decided to invite it to invite two people to discuss a bit more about it who have been uh true believers on the mobile application and uh who are building in the web three right now. So here is com and and David. Hi everyone. Uh my name is K. I'm the country manager for France for Coinbase where I lead basically localization of the product, marketing rails and also regulatory developments. Uh exciting news regarding the regulatory developments. We received our Mika license a couple of weeks ago uh which uh obviously unlocks a lot for us in the country uh in the region and really

excited to be developing the region as well. Uh exciting to be here on this panel. Thank you for the invitation. Hello everyone. I'm David. I'm the co-founder of Rebine which is a mobile first DIY app uh mostly technical so I have a engineer background in D5 for a few years and yeah happy to discuss mobile today with you. So yeah for for me the first question that I really had was okay so uh they all decided like 10 years ago uh the web two to be only on mobile or mobile first and us 10 years ago we were like why mobile when we can be on desktop and for sure there is like multiple reason uh for security and infra and we didn't have all this um all this new um

infrastructure innovation that we have today but what were like really the barriers that we had a couple years ago go and why did we choose to go to the other direction? So I I guess that the issue is mostly technical. Uh so for a few years the tech was not there. I mean um defi has been originally done on desktop where you use like a wallet extension. Um if you want to have the same experience on mobile you need to first uh go to like unoptimized version of the website on mobile uh go back and forth to the w extension. Uh so it's very not usable and very far from what we can see in the banking or financial classic apps. So good news is now the tech is um way more ready. You mentioned before like wallet

infrastructure like privy or turnkey that now let you have an embedded wallet directly. So you have smart accounts, you have gas subsidies, you have batching of transactions. So now the experience you can have on mobile is way closer than what we have in like traditional banking apps. And uh I think this is the perfect moment to build to build on mobile. So the remaining topics now is how um because DeFi has been done for a few years now on desktop how you can bring these complex interfaces into something like uh the size of a mobile phone. So that's the the issue.

Yeah. because I was like discussing uh during my article with some people with some testimony and they've been saying yeah why why would I be on phone where I have like several like big amount of like crypto to send uh I want to do like defy strategy is quite complex how can a small phone uh can put me like all the information I need to be sure of my transaction so how do you how does rebind uh you think can fix that kind of uh problematics yeah that's a hard topic so of course on phone you have less fixes so less space but you need to show to highlight the same amount of information. Um so what we do what we bind is we say okay um the user wants to do something there there's an intense I want to swap A for B I want

to deposit this and this uh strategy right so what we show to the users is first what he wants to do from A to B and then some of them wants to see for example okay but I want to swap but which is the roots uh what would be the path to for my swap how how big is the fees what are the chain I'm going from and to so what we do is like a progressive disclosure of information. So you start from what user wants to do and for the ones that want to go a bit deeper, we we show more and more information uh uh around the around the the path.

Okay. And like for you like uh Coinbase, so I know that you've been like more and more into the idea of like mobile and most of like I mean certain amount of percentage of people are using your mobile application. Why would you think it was the good idea first for other people to build on mobile and also for you to get more and more involved in that area? Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think we need to start with like where adoption is today. When you look at the the figures in France, we have 6.5 million people holding crypto currently. That's about like 12 or 10% of the population. And 70% of this population is either like millennial or gen Z. And and the interesting with with this population is that these are people

that have lived and grown with like mobile first approach. be uh ordering food in your mobile, having like investment strategy on your mobile, dating on your mobile and so now this is like also a great way like to embrace more and more the financial system for them on mobile phone. Um and so the adoption is here and the tech is now here as well. Uh we discuss also like smart wallets. This is like a major innovation in the space to bring more and more people also on mobile to access D5 protocols, D5 uh application as well.

Um, when we look back at the experience to like create a wallet for someone that was new to the DeFi space, it was like a 15st step really painful process and now thanks to smart wallet, you just forget about the technical difficulty and you just focus on the application and get getting like exposed to the DeFi world. So I think both like the adoption and now the innovation out there for us to just go big on mobile. Anyone anything to add? No, no, yeah, I agree. I think that as we mentioned the tech is here now. It's way easier to onboard new newcomers uh thanks to the technology. So what we had before is with the seed phrase everything is from the past now. So um yeah we we are very close to to to be to

be fully com compatible with what's we have now in web two let's say. So now you would say that there is no more barriers anyone can do anything on mobile. I mean there is probably one u which is of course the the stores the Germany of the stores because they can say yes or no to to have you in. So I thought about the app stores or Google play stores. So that's I think still one of the big big blockers. Of course there is some alternative to this uh like progressive web apps for those we know where you can install from your from your uh like browser you can install on the home screen your application. So it's a way to bypass this but still people are not super used to that. So uh the main entry point for mobile now is still the stores. So I would say that's

it could be one of the reason why it's still hard to have proper defy on the on the on the mobile app. I mean also we were like having some conversation about you to have like um other like strategies and you were telling me that this will take a bit more time because also like regulation because of the app store. So yeah exactly it's part of it. I mean on desktop you are kind of free and if someone like say okay you need to stop you will stop. So, but you can still offer your product and start to to have people coming in you use it. On the mobile, it's a bit different because you need to go fur through the store and then uh have your user and make make and use your your product.

Okay. And would you say that? No. Oh, yes. I would say it. Uh would you say that for example like we were like talking about this conversation about should we be mobile only or mobile first but like the other opportunity would be like to be mobile maybe first and then having like another product a bit like how Coinbase is doing with advance and beginners doing the same like a very like mobile first with easy defy trading buying having quick uh strategies and then we be a more develop and less regulated um uh desktop app. Yeah. So on our side we are like

mobile first of course we the mobile first company we start with this uh I can understand that some specific use cases for example if you have like maybe big amounts or very specific defy actions that you want to ensure you you do it on on on desktop because it's it can be re reassuring uh I can still expect to have like a desktop app. So I would say it's mobile first but not only um especially also for like B2B where usually you you do operation in the in like office time you are in front of your computer so you can have access to it. So I would say uh for B2C it's mobile first.

Okay. And um so we were talking about like also like what how to target who to target uh depending on mobile desktop blah blah blah would why would you say like Coinbase what's your like growth strategy for retail and is it different for sex and and for your Coinbase wallet? Yeah. So I I think there's there's a couple thing here indeed like for the application itself. We have different strategy. We are working really heavily on the localization of the product to make sure that no matter where you are in the world, you have like the same level of excellence that you can have like in the US or in other geos where we have like a really I localized and I

integrated products. Uh so that's like a major topic for us in France, in Italy, Spain, all the countries where we are live today across the EA and also across the world. Uh so that's like one of the major thing to do to target like the retail users to to have them comfortable with like payment trails that they know to have them comfortable with like on boarding process that they know as well. Uh and so that's on the localization side of the process and then on the marketing side indeed depends on the the audience I want to target either this is like beginners audience and you just work on like tutorials and guides to make them understand crypto and progress into the crypto world. And this is what we see also with all the ecosystem that we've built across the different

products uh the different product suit from like the simple app to the advanced app if you're a beginner or if you're like a pro traders and then if you want to go to the DeFi world then you go to the onchain um on the on the coinbased wallet and then you can explore all the defy ecosystem. So it really depends on like the segmentation what you want to do and how far your knowledge is basically of the technology. And for example like for advance I mean we were like talking about how like device strategy could be easy um easier to see on on desktop compared to mobile. How much like I don't know design UX UI do you put effort in your advance on phone or you just don't care and you say to people go on desktop and No, we do we do put a lot of effort on

the mobile. Uh indeed like this is like something also that's being asked of the trader. They want also to be spontaneous. They want to be able to act fast uh when the markets are moving. So we're meeting them where they are as well. And it's when they're not like in front of the desktop. They need to be uh they need to be able to access a high product like high quality product, a working product with like the relevant features they can also access on the desktop but on their phone. Okay, cool. And um so what do you think about like how can like the mobile like development can have an impact on like um like the financial like growth market? Um yeah what's your thought about it? Yeah. Um I do think that the

more and more we go into mobile, the more and more we have like high priority product uh with mobile and the more and more like crypto so is mobile first. uh the more we're going towards like a genuine global financial system where we don't have uh where like financial and economic participation isn't really bound by geography or banking infrastructure but by access to quality products and permissionless decentralized uh products which is the case uh with the onchain products that we're trying to build. Um and I think we'll see that there's like two major uh two major elements in the global financial system that mobile first approach uh is advancing on. The first one I guess is making accessible in region where they want to in region like

Argentina and Turkey for example where they don't have like stable currency and they want to protect themselves from inflation to have access to product like USDC on base to just be able to protect themselves from like their local currency. And the second one is uh for the 1.4 four billion people that are unbanked in the world uh being able to access a global financial system um because these are people that have phones but they don't have access to the right banking infrastructure. Okay. And um sorry um sorry I I was wondering also like after like this whole announcement that we've been like listening for the last two days is Coinbase already today

afraid of Robin Hood. Um I I guess like this is a good thing also that we see new players like the new fintex like old fintex sorry go more and more into the crypto space because this is also a testimony to the journey that we've been on with like more and more adoption uh by retail users. Uh so I think it's a good sign for the entire industry. Uh Coinbase has like a cryptonative platforms. We're always pushing like the the space further and we kind of see three free three phases of adoption. The first one is crypto as an asset uh itself like a tradable asset and this is where everyone is positioning theself at the moment. But there's like more important fa like

different phases that are the revolution the revolution sorry of the financial system. That's something on which we're working really hard with product like based uh stable coin uh making sure that we provide the right infrastructure for the financial markets and then the last one is obviously like going more into an application phase um and this is some fair where we work like with B and the wallet and then we didn't forget you um how rebind today can actually challenge something like Coinbase wallet do you really have some product more innovative and as good as what they're building right now in DeFi.

Um I mean we are afraid of big play like this. Now Draco aside I think our strengths at at rebind is that uh so first we are we are new so we have no no legacy. We don't have any like centralized entity on the side. So we can build product that like serve the the the defy codes uh without any I would say conflict of interest maybe or we we don't cannibalize another product because of an integration of D5 product we have on rebind. That's I think a great strength. Um so of course I I agree with K. It's it's very nice to have more and more players coming in uh even coming from purely fintech. Uh we we love to see it. It's a testimonial of the necessity to go to go full on on defy full on mobile. So it's a it's a

big plus for us. Of course we are pretty new pretty pretty small team. So we need we need to double double compete being even more like pushy. But I'm I'm very very confident about the the the future of of Rebine in this in this whole ecosystem. Okay, cool. Um, now another topic which is very like mobile first is uh payment peer-to-peer payment uh and and anything else. Uh or are you both going to integrate it in your in your application and product? Yeah, uh I think it's a very great use case of mobile application. Uh of course it's a nice vertical at Rebine. we have already like a kind of payment in place where you can uh basically you create a wallet an account you have a username attached to you and you can send to

anyone or send a payment click uh so I think this is a nice use case um it's not the core of our application uh I think some will do it very well and it will be like very specified product we see with Kraken launching crack for example maybe Coinbase you have other other solution in the in the on the side for this but uh I think this is a this is a great addition Yeah. Yeah. To to build on that, uh obviously payment uh is core narrative at the moment for us as well. Uh payment stable coin. This is something that we're really focused on. Be it on the retail side, but also on the business side. We just launched a product called Coinbase business to also allow payment uh for businesses around the world to leverage

the stable coin infrastructure. We have the stable coin team from Coinbase. First row if you want to say hi as well. Um and and I guess yeah on the P2B payment we've seen like for a non-crypto infrastructure it was really painful if you wanted to send money abroad if you want like to send money offshore um and and now with like stable coin and infrastructure like base for example you can have like payment in less than a cent for less than a second uh and this is something quite revolutionary. Um so yeah the the payments is really something at the core of what we built today. uh the the wallet uh our wallet team also are are working closely on this subject um and they're revamping

the entire like wallet experience with like payment at the core of it as well. Great. Um, another question that I I had um was now that we've been like another like very features that everybody is talking about is um AI agent and agent in general. How both of you um AI will be integrated in your in your product? So maybe David you can start. Yeah sure. Um so so of course this is like a very big topic at the moment AI agents and how we will interact with with blockchain in the future. Um for now we are building an interface at Rebine. So we are still have the mobile app. Uh but I have a strong conviction that in the next coming years or even months people

will interact way differently that what we have now. So it will not even be like desktop versus mobile. It will be like how we interact with with our um with our finance. It could be like by voice by chat message by just having autonomous agent. So this is something we are we are experimenting internally not the core focus now because I still think uh we'll need the interfaces for that but uh but of course uh it needs to be added in the mobile app in the whole experience being able to to drive your your finance from from from text or voice or even in auto autonomous way.

Yeah. and you yeah obviously like AI is also something we're working really closely on be as like an internal team using like AI tools to to make us like more efficient to have like more uh analysis on data and to build better product basically and then on the user experience uh we're also like working on different products we have uh some AI agents uh to to help you like also launch mini apps on fara for example so we have like different integration Um yeah, what would be like um the next thing that you want to see on on mobile?

Like what what as like also user what would you like to push in your each of your companies? Uh what do you think that should be there in the market and that we need to add? Oh, this is a pretty broad question. Uh I guess yeah go going more and more into a place where we have a mobile first approach to even like technical products. uh if you want like to go more and more into a mobile first approach when you want to lend borrow when you want to to stake and all of this like technical uh like all of this like defy products that could be technical and that could require in the past having

like a desktop uh screen now having like a mo mobile first approach to also democratize the space and make it more uh user friendly uh to be able like to to access like mass adoption I guess because you would you say like it's not enough. The UX of Coinbase is not good enough yet. No, I guess like what I'm trying to say is that we're pushing ourselves also to integrate these type of products. We've just launched the D5 borrow in in uh in the US for example on the app. Uh we also launched like a text uh Dex product as well. So, we're getting there, but it takes time also like to think uh the UX first and and to push like also this technical like product into a more user

friendly approach. Okay. And I wanted to go back a bit more about like how do you like describe yourself? You try not to cannibalize your different um user like different product. How do you try to to put the right retail in the right place? Um, I guess we're just trying like to meet the the user where they are. If they want like a simple interface, go use like the Coinbase app. This is like really user friendly interface for you to use. If you need like technical products, go change Google uh financial products, go to the advanced app. If you want to go to DeFi World, be my guest.

Like we really want to to we have at our core like to build like the most secure and easy to use products. So on each of these different categories be it like the beginner the administrator the the deny we're trying like to meet their needs with the right product and uh for you um David um more and more consumer like if they don't find exactly what they want so the right token the right product the right he will just like okay I'm going away I'm going to another defy another defy application today you have again going to use wlet but you have also legend defi app infinite Next we are getting getting more and more like uh discussion um how will you be always first or always have

what exactly the consumer needs like are you not afraid like if I'm going to your application and I I want to buy the token and you don't have it then I will just go away and then I won't I won't come back because I will find another app who has it that that's a good question we um so first of all you site only like very good competitors or like players in the industry so uh so of course we are we are competing with everyone a lot of new ones coming. Um I guess at some point you need to to choose your your targets for for who you are building. Rebine is by definition very simple. It's not like a super app where you can have everything. We try to have uh as much as as much defi product as possible. I mean in a sense that we we we do some kind of

cation where we think okay this this product is is very nice to have these strategies are nice uh tomorrow maybe we're going to have the ability to to land and then borrow on on on rem directly. Um so of course uh some users may not find what they want will not have like all the token all the memecoin existing all the uh but if you're good enough uh I mean good on what you are doing the best I mean super simple experience easy on boarding the ability to to send to to to go on strategies swap tokens on any chain on crosschain uh I think this is our strength and um yeah if if you need a new token just ping us on telegram we can see what we can do And you know what I mean? We want to want to build with the users and and

trying to understand really what's what they want before like going Okay, cool. But thank you so much for the two of you for answering all uh all my questions. Thank you very much.