After "graduating" from Ant, they flock to Web3

The two technology revolutions that are highly anticipated in the tech industry are AI and Web3. AI is expected to reshape productivity, while Web3 is anticipated to reshape production relationships.

In the tech circle of 2023, there are heavy news almost every day; it is the year of generative AI and also the year of deep bear market for Web3.

The total funding for Web3 in 2023 was only $3.6 billion, a decrease of 78% compared to nearly $16 billion in 2022. In contrast, funding in the AI sector reached $25 billion in the first half of the year. Paradigm, one of the largest venture capital firms in the crypto space, is undergoing a paradigm shift, stating that it will no longer focus solely on cryptocurrency and the Web3 domain, but will also expand its areas of interest to AI.

People who once thought "Web3 is the new sexy" now feel that "Web3 is no longer sexy" and have turned to AI.

But it must also be acknowledged that this deep bear market in Web3 seems to be more lively than before. During the bear market, some people are still discussing compliance, ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof), and Bitcoin ETFs. There are also those who choose to enter the market at this moment.

"When I communicate with colleagues at Ant, I often draw comparisons between AI and Web3, as their developmental trajectories are quite similar." Jerry Li compares that over the past sixty years, there have been three waves of artificial intelligence, each time with funding ranging from billions to tens of billions, with peaks and troughs constantly alternating, until OpenAI emerged. "This new large-scale technological revolution requires going through one cycle after another to truly bring about leapfrog development."

Jerry Li once had several prominent labels: former Chief Architect of AntChain, former Director of Apple China R&D, and the top scorer in the college entrance examination of Shanxi Province, and now he has another one - a newcomer in Web3.

Of course, strictly speaking, Jerry is not a newcomer to Web3. After graduating from Tsinghua University, Jerry worked in Silicon Valley for over 10 years, and then returned to Shanghai in 2015 to establish Apple's Asia-Pacific R&D center. In 2017, Jerry joined "Ant Blockchain," which had not yet upgraded to "Ant Chain," at the level of P10.

"The industry is still too early; compared to AI, it has not yet reached the previous round of development. Currently, the total market value of the entire cryptocurrency market is less than half of that of Apple alone." Compared to his former company, Jerry feels that the Web3 pie still seems too small.

Of course, compared to AI that is over fifty years old, Web3 seems to still be in its adolescence.

The concept of Web3 was first proposed in 2014, while its predecessors, the concepts of "cryptocurrency" and "blockchain", were first released in 2008 through Satoshi Nakamoto's "Bitcoin White Paper", which is only 15 years ago.

Rebellious and unstable, the growing pains of Web3 have left "parents" shaking their heads. After the FTX crash with a market value of $32 billion last November, regulators around the world began to impose strict controls on this "naughty child."

At this juncture, at the end of 2022, Jerry left Ant Chain and officially went all-in on Web3, starting the public chain project Artela. He stated that he would not consider doing anything else in the short term. When asked about the reason, Jerry cited a famous saying from Ant: "Because we believe, we see."

The Artela team has chosen the public chain track, which belongs to the infrastructure of Web3, also known as the "highway" of Web3, as there can be no transportation of everything without a road.

In the public blockchain space, there are long-established Web3 foundational projects, such as Ethereum, which have already built their own moat through the "network effect" of their ecosystems. There are also several all-star projects that come with golden keys.

"Although the public chain market has a lot of competition, it is still very imperfect and has a long way to go." Recently, Jerry has been attending meetings worldwide, which is his first step in adapting to his new identity. After running around, he gained a lot. "After communicating with many projects, our confidence has actually increased."

The biggest difference between Artela and other chains lies not in the current "involution" of Scalability, but in Extensibility, and it is compatible with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), allowing developers to transfer applications with a single click.

This is to prepare for the future of Mass Adoption.

Mass Adoption is a term frequently mentioned in Web3 discussions. In other contexts, it can also be described as the "iPhone moment of the industry" and the "last mile". However, the core issue is quite clear: how to enable ordinary people to use Web3?

The "Ant Gang" in the internet era is the architect of Mass Adoption. In their context, Mass Adoption is more about building another "Alipay" in Web3.

Of course, it is full of experience. Artela's CTO Qiu Honglin (alias: CP) has previously supported the underlying architecture of Ant Group's digital collectibles platform, Whale Explore. He stated that Whale Explore had already achieved over a hundred million daily active users through its New Year 'Five Blessings' campaign. "At that time, we had already achieved stable on-chain transactions at the billion level, while Ethereum had only reached several million. From a certain perspective, it can be said that Ant Chain has truly reached Mass Adoption."

CP was once an OG of the Ant Chain team, having joined the initial form of Ant Chain in 2015, when it was still an interest incubation group.

"They say that if someone in Ant Group wants to talk about blockchain, by the time they ask the second person, my name is definitely mentioned." CP's hair is slightly curly, and when he speaks, there's a hint of a Cantonese accent. It always feels like a casual chat, but upon closer listening, the content he expresses is very professional and detailed. Ant Chain holds the highest number of patents globally, and CP alone possesses hundreds of blockchain patents.

Regarding Extensibility, CP gives an example: "In games, besides the input from front-end players, there are also background elements, such as map refreshes, time and weather, or when a big boss dies, the little monsters next door will also be eliminated, etc. In blockchain, there are no background tasks, because all executions in blockchain must be interacted with by the users."

In the future, running Fully On-Chain Games on Artela may become "the Earth still turns without you," meaning players design the rules, and the system operates automatically.

For blockchain, which is currently a bit difficult for playing board games, achieving smooth interactions requires higher demands on the computing layer. "We want to achieve a hundred times that of EVM." Thanks to the experience accumulated on AntChain, CP added, "In fact, current test data shows that we are already able to approach two orders of magnitude on the computing level."

But they do not want to replace Ethereum; projects on the Ethereum chain can be transferred to Artela with one click. CP's "abstraction" summarizes the features of Artela: "Simply put, if we liken the EVM to the CPU of the blockchain, we are adding a GPU to the blockchain." In simpler terms, large games can be played on the blockchain in the future.

"In the era of Internet finance, services like Jiebei and Huabei are innovations that went from 0 to 1. We, as a group, have experienced the process of transforming a vague concept into a concrete commercial product, and we understand the complexity behind it." CP believes that taking the same path again in the era of public chains presents many challenges, but fortunately, we have experience to refer to.

Most of the team members at Artela come from Ant. "A cohesive team of a dozen people progresses similarly to a team of twenty or so." Established only a few months ago, Artela has secured $6 million in seed funding, led by Shima Capital, with participation from A&T Capital, Big Brain Holdings, SevenX Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Amino Capital, and others.

Artela's testnet was launched in September, and it is currently adopting a targeted invitation system for its ecological partners. Defi and Fully On-chain Games may both constitute future focal points. CP stated that Artela does not intend to engage in the typical airdrops and conventional combinations seen in public chains, but rather aims to explore innovation with ecological applications. They are focused on development in the coming months, with an official public test expected around December.

It can steadily achieve hundreds of millions of daily active users, and without a doubt, Ant Chain has already reached the ceiling in certain areas of Web3. However, their activity seems to be somewhat isolated from Web3.

Just as the decentralized nature of Web3 should bring about "open source" rather than "patents". Compared to the mainstream direction of public chains in foreign technologies, there is a certain "mismatch" with the non-token blockchain, also known as alliance chains, which is more suitable for the domestic context. Ant Chain aims to establish a different path for Web3 in China, an open alliance chain, and industrial Web3.

As early as 2017, Ant had already believed in the future of blockchain. At that time, the industry was not yet formed, but Ant had regarded blockchain as a core strategic initiative. "At that time, Ant said it would focus on investment, but actually, not many people understood it, and we were a very small team. After reading a lot of foreign literature and reports, I felt that this thing still had great potential, especially in the context of globalization, where there could be financial applications, I think it is particularly valuable."

Jerry, who serves as the Chief Architect, has been studying the white papers of Bitcoin and Ethereum. As his research deepens, he increasingly believes that blockchain is the next stage of "serving finance with technology."

In the same year, Jiang Guofei, the "big brother" of Ant Chain, joined Ant Financial as Vice President and President of the Financial Technology Business Line, overseeing Ant Blockchain. The strategic level of Ant Chain within the group continues to rise. Ant Chain is gaining momentum, with applications in cross-border remittances, supply chain finance, electronic bills, and judicial evidence... In a short time, industry-based applications are fully landing and blossoming.

In 2018, Alipay Hong Kong launched a blockchain-based cross-border remittance feature, allowing over 180,000 Filipino workers to send their wages home without having to wait for several days and pay relatively high cross-border fees. Inclusive finance, Ant Group had already achieved successful case studies early on.

CP also once became the company's internet celebrity engineer. Jack Ma mentioned CP during the second World Intelligence Congress, along with his widely circulated matchmaking anecdotes.

"We have an engineer at Ant Financial who wrote on his dating profile that he was an 'engineer', a code-writing programmer, and as a result, no one clicked on his profile; the girls were not interested in him. Later, he changed his profile to 'blockchain engineer' and received over two hundred love letters."

In 2020, Ant Blockchain announced a brand upgrade to Ant Chain, and the company's executives stated that the decision "is no less significant than the decision to establish Alipay."

However, three years have passed, and Ant Chain, which has been deeply cultivating the Web3 industry, has not welcomed any truly "Alipay"-level applications.

Taking cross-border remittances as an example, a relevant person in charge at Ant Group told the WSJ that there are no technical barriers to cross-border remittances, but the support for this technology varies by country due to different policies and regulations. Therefore, such projects are more customized. "At that time, we collaborated with Standard Chartered Bank, which has always been our long-term partner."

Even during the Spring Festival, Whale Explore, which has over a hundred million daily active users, faces the problem of unsold collectibles and difficulty in breaking out of its niche. Previously, the digital collectibles launched by Whale Explore were mostly cultural and artistic products, making it hard for young people to find them trendy. "But my dad really likes it; it's the only product I've made that he has consistently used." The work content of CP is closely watched by family members, and Whale Explore may be the easiest product for them to understand.

"Although Ant Group is very advanced in financial technology, the domestic regulatory framework mainly revolves around consortium chains. This actually removes the essence of blockchain, which is to use digital assets as its value.