Ryze Labs Ryze Up E02 - Waev CEO Phil
Revolutionizing Data Ownership and exploring the Integration of Data3 and DePIN.
1. Introduction
Welcome to the Ryze Up segment brought to you by Ryze Labs. Ryze Labs serves as a bridge between the East and the West, aiming to accelerate the development of web3 in emerging markets and influence the global web3 world. Local Insights, Global Impact—let's embark on this journey together. Time to Ryze Up.
Ryze Labs has successfully invested in high-growth potential projects like Polygon, Sui, Solana, LayerZero, and Wintermute.
Host: Joven, Head of Business Development at Ryze Labs, focuses on expanding the fund's outreach to global developer communities and helping portfolio companies with go-to-market strategies.
Special Guest: Phil, the Founder and CEO of Waev. Waev is a trustless data exchange protocol that records user data usage consent on the blockchain. By providing enterprises with private keys, Waev ensures privacy for user data.
2. The Birth of Waev: Convergence of Data and Web3
As a serial entrepreneur, Phil's career has revolved around product, technology, and marketing. He initially worked for a big data company for several years, managing data quality for enterprises, addressing challenges in understanding customer profiles and accumulating extensive industry experience.
Subsequently, he founded a tech startup called Logo Mix. The company offered an online platform for small businesses to establish their brands. Phil spent seven years operating the company and successfully sold it to the U.S. publicly-listed company, Deluxe Corporation. Following this, Phil took charge of several digital marketing-related departments under Deluxe Corporation.
Phil later became an angel investor, participating in "The Investment Dao," an angel investment organization composed of Web3 entrepreneurs and developers. He has been closely monitoring the development of Web3 and decentralized technologies, believing that these technologies can provide better protection for data privacy. He has also pondered on how to leverage the transparency of public chains to enable enterprises to handle and share data more effectively, while respecting consumer privacy, and ensuring they receive the desired value and benefits. This contemplation led to the birth of Waev.
3. Data3 vs. Web2 Data: Revolutionary Shift in Data Ownership
Concerning Waev, its core product aims to leverage blockchain technology to immutably record user data usage permissions on the blockchain, thus safeguarding user data privacy and processing data only in ways agreed upon by consumers.
Of note is Phil's concept of "Data3," emphasizing the integration of decentralized technology with data processing, thereby pioneering a new paradigm of data ownership.
So, how did the revolution in data ownership take place? In the Web2 era, the essence of data ownership lay in entrusting data copies to enterprises, forming substantive data ownership. However, this practice often led to data misuse, with data continuously duplicated, and consumers losing control over data destinations.
Faced with this dilemma, Waev, through technological innovation, enables enterprises to securely access and utilize consumer data with a key. When enterprises need to share data, they can issue a key to obtain the corresponding access, rather than duplicating the original data. This access process is verified through smart contracts, ensuring all agreed-upon permissions.
Furthermore, due to the well-established infrastructure of public chains, enterprises can deploy more rapidly compared to using Web2 technology. Some clients collaborating with Waev have reported saving up to 75% of the time in implementing this technology, highlighting the significant advantages brought about by decentralized technology over centralized Web2 technology.
Most importantly, this approach implements encrypted control over data. By recording consent permissions on the blockchain and using keys to control data access, the fundamental principles of Web3 are applied to the field of data, achieving a fundamental transformation in data ownership.
4. Data3 Empowers Consumers to Take Center Stage
In the realms of marketing and advertising, discussions inevitably turn to the excessive reliance on third-party cookies in the Web2 era. Google's gradual phasing out of third-party cookies has sparked extensive industry discussions on how to better handle data, underscoring the crucial importance of trust-building in the advertising and marketing industry.
During the Web2 era, data processing often remained an opaque black box, lacking transparency, with trust built on blind faith in parties adhering to regulations. However, the Web3 era, propelled by blockchain technology and smart contracts, has created a trustless environment for data exchange. This enables all parties involved to be well aware of the rules they must adhere to. Ultimately, through encrypted data processing, Web3 introduces a new paradigm of data handling for enterprises. This paradigm eliminates the need for trust dependency, as transparency is naturally achieved through decentralized technology, essentially reassigning value to the concept of Data3.
With the proliferation of global data privacy regulations, consumers' rights in controlling their data have gained significant attention. They have the right to access the data held by companies concerning them. Waev addresses this by issuing keys, and granting consumers the permission to view data held by companies related to them, providing a novel solution for data transparency.
5. The Data Union Initiates a New Era of Data
Phil introduces Waev's Data Union technology, which enables multiple parties to collaborate, collectively own data, and establish automated economic models. This forward-looking trend is not limited to inter-enterprise applications; it also offers opportunities for consumer participation.
For instance, when you purchase a bottle of Coca-Cola at a supermarket, your relationship with both Coca-Cola and the supermarket is recorded, creating a precise association between you, the location, and the brand. In the Web2 era, extensive efforts were required to protect privacy when two companies sought to understand a user's relationship with one of them. However, Data Union technology swiftly facilitates data connections while safeguarding privacy. This enables companies to better understand consumer preferences, leading to more precise product recommendations.
Moreover, identity data is an area of significant interest. Blockchain technology ensures data transparency while allowing consumer identities to remain anonymous. This presents new challenges and opportunities for businesses in advertising and marketing. Data Union technology enables seamless integration of on-chain and traditional data for more intelligent advertising and recommendations.
Phil also emphasizes Waev's commitment to simplifying technology usage for businesses, eliminating the need for developing smart contracts or Web3 engineering teams. Data Union technology allows businesses to combine on-chain data with existing data, leveraging its advantages in marketing.
Advertising and brand marketing currently constitute the primary areas of Waev's application. With the gradual phase-out of third-party cookies, the advertising industry is undergoing a major transformation. Beyond advertising, Waev also targets retail media networks and the healthcare sector, presenting the industry with additional opportunities and challenges.
6. Waev's Competitive Edge and Integration with DePIN
Waev's main competitor is Web2 technology, and its advantage lies in leveraging Web3 and decentralized technology. In comparison to existing Web2 technology, Waev achieves data connections through Data Union, eliminating the need to trust third-party administrators and ensuring consumer data privacy. The security provided by Waev's technology, which allows businesses to connect data while protecting data privacy, is unparalleled by traditional Web2 technology.
Phil notes that Waev currently primarily supports EVM chains and is actively developing Rust-based smart contract technology. To make technology more user-friendly, Waev offers a solution called the "Web2.5 middleware layer," allowing developers who are not yet ready to locally build on the blockchain to use it with ease. Additionally, Waev adopts a modular infrastructure model, collaborating with companies like Eclipse to transition from a single-chain to a modular infrastructure, avoiding the pitfalls of a single-chain approach.
Phil expresses great excitement about the development trends of DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure), believing it naturally aligns with the development of Data3.
Taking the example of a retail media network, precise interaction between brands and consumers is crucial under decentralized physical infrastructure. Within the framework of DePIN, Data3 effortlessly addresses the data integration challenges present in traditional Web2 environments, providing users with more valuable information.
For instance, in a traditional Web2 scenario, an event such as a person purchasing a cola in a supermarket involves numerous different entities, including the supermarket, the Billboard outside the supermarket, and the brand being purchased. In a traditional scenario, each entity would need to individually integrate and process the data, which is highly cumbersome. However, in a Data3 scenario, all the data can be collected and integrated efficiently, enabling precise ad targeting.
Phil uses a scene from the movie "Minority Report" as an example to showcase the immense potential of combining DePIN with Data3. He believes that by precisely targeting ad content, users can experience more personalized and valuable ad experiences, ultimately reducing the inefficiency of fragmented advertising information.
7. Conclusion
In the future, Waev's upcoming data marketplace will provide a convenient platform for enterprises and consumers to share data, further enhancing the possibilities for collaboration and innovation. Additionally, Waev plans to continuously develop its Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) Data Union functionality to offer a faster, more scalable data computing environment.
Waev will introduce a new feature allowing consumers to view how companies use their data. This will provide businesses with an opportunity to rethink the value of data and interactions with consumers, offering a higher degree of transparency and trust in data sharing.
Looking ahead, Phil states that Waev will expand into more industries, including retail and healthcare, further supporting the development of decentralized physical infrastructure. They are dedicated to changing the paradigm of data handling and sharing in a manner that respects consumer consent and making a positive contribution.