As technology advances, many individuals become aware of innovations set to disrupt our everyday lives. For instance, NFTs and cryptocurrencies are taking the world by storm, reinventing the notion of digital value. In fact, there are more than an estimated 300 million crypto users around the world, with signs of further growth.

Blockchain is the underlying foundation of these innovations. This technology not only supports NFTs and cryptocurrencies, but it is also the infrastructure that supports Web3. Also known as Semantic Web, Web3 utilises the decentralised data architecture of blockchain, creating an open, secure and transparent environment. This enables individuals to govern their data ownership, changing the way service providers and users interact with each other in the digital universe.

Web3 offers unprecedented potential that can help solve complicated challenges in many industries, specifically the financial sector. Because of this, the world is transitioning into the new Web3 paradigm. The expectation is for Web3 to create efficiencies in the traditional financial system and deliver technologically-superior experiences.

There are dozens of blockchain infrastructures powering the influx of new Web3 apps. Avalanche is a popular example that is “blazingly fast, low cost and eco-friendly”. Here are top examples of Web3 apps powered by Avalanche, to better understand what it means to embrace this global innovation.

Supporting more ideas with decentralised fundraising

In this digital age, tech startups are proliferating the industry. However, even if they offer revolutionary solutions to real world problems, these startups can not succeed without proper funding. Until now, most startups are having difficulty finding capital, with 77 per cent of startups using personal funds to grow their businesses.

Also Read: To infinity and beyond: Why 2022 will be the year of Web3

While using personal capital can work, it severely limits the chances of success for startups. Seeking capital through traditional fundraising is albeit slow, tedious, and challenging to achieve. Furthermore, many of them are exclusive, with smaller startups finding it difficult to penetrate the competitive fundraising market. To help startups with brilliant ideas, they need a fast and accessible global platform to efficiently obtain the necessary capital.

Decentralised fundraising platforms such as Avalaunch can help solve these issues with advanced Web3 frameworks. Avalaunch is the first protocol to offer promising and innovative startups a fast, secure, and efficient platform for decentralised fundraising on the Avalanche ecosystem. This inclusive and community-first platform is designed to remove the pain points of the current fundraising system. Created with investors in mind, the protocol aims to remove the cost, confusion, and volatility challenges in the outdated fundraising system.

What makes Web3 highly inclusive is the possibility for anyone to participate with minimal capital. Participants on Avalaunch can invest as little as US$5, for example, directly from their mobile devices.

Decentralised marketplaces: bridging Web3 to the real world

In addition to fundraising, one major problem in the financial sector is the lack of deeply connected marketplaces where users can easily purchase various financial services and products. In the US alone, around 14.1 million Americans do not have access to financial products and services. One reason behind this is the complicated process of accessing financial services. Decentralised marketplaces can help reduce this gap.

A decentralised marketplace is an umbrella term covering many subcategories. They ultimately connect services and products to more users by simplifying the processes that happen in between. These marketplaces manage the middle layer processing, ensuring that payments and transactions are smooth. They connect traditional financial services to decentralised finance (DeFi), allowing millions of individuals and businesses to access products that were once highly exclusive.

Verso, the first and only decentralised marketplace built on Avalanche, is bridging the gap between DeFi and regulated financial products. It allows traditional financial institutions to distribute their products at far lower costs – a feat that is not possible with Web2. For example, microinsurance is not possible today for most insurance companies due to the high distribution cost. Offering flight delay insurance at a price of US$10 is simply not worth the high cost borne by the insurance provider.

Also Read: You’re not really diversifying your investments by buying altcoins

As a decentralised marketplace, Verso is changing this through scalable and accessible distribution of microinsurance products. This unlocks the ability for Web3 to tap into US$5.03 trillion in gross premiums collected in the existing insurance industry. With Verso, consumers will be able to purchase affordable insurance for health coverage, weather protection, travel and hundreds or more categories directly from various mobile apps.

Disrupting finance at its core

DeFi is shaking the very core of finance as we know. It is one of the most popular verticals of blockchain, with more than US$99 billion worth of assets locked in DeFi. These decentralised platforms are helping to realise true financial inclusion across the world.

Compared to traditional finance, DeFi does not rely on centralised intermediaries such as banks and brokerages to offer financial services. Instead, it utilises Web3 and smart contracts to make financial transactions trustless. This allows seamless peer-to-peer finance including asset swaps, lending and borrowing, liquidity mining, and other forms of passive earnings. One DeFi platform that’s changing the face of financial services is Trader Joe.

Trader Joe is a one-stop-shop decentralised trading platform powered by Avalanche’s fast and secure smart contract infrastructure. It allows users to choose various ways to trade and grow their cryptocurrency. This includes trading, liquidity pools, lending and borrowing, staking, and more “money lego” DeFi apps. Now passive earnings via crypto are open to everyone on a 24/7 basis.

The future of Web3

Forward-thinking financial institutions can future-proof their services by embracing the transition to Web3. More individuals now have practical means to benefit from these innovative platforms. The globally inclusive ecosystem is quickly redefining what financial inclusion stands for. Better yet, anyone can now quickly launch and develop their disruptive ideas by leveraging these innovative Web3 platforms.

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The content was first published on The Human & Machine.

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We all know Singapore is the heart of all the startup action in Southeast Asia. But 2021 has given local ecosystems in emerging economies of SEA a much-needed boost. From all the unicorn action Indonesia to Malaysia’s competitive edge to Vietnam’s youth entrepreneurship; the emerging markets are calling out.

The e27 community contributors have encapsulated some of the trends from emerging markets in their contributions this year. This is the time to soak up on their experiences and inform your market expansion strategy.

A big thank you to all our amazing contributors. You too can join the bandwagon by sharing your opinion via an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

Look beyond Singapore: Why Kuala Lumpur is an emerging tech hub alternative

While Singapore is well known for a range of startups, Malaysia has more long-term potential and does more to encourage tech companies that can help it fulfil its ambitious plans to make its workforce one of the most highly skilled and gainfully employed in Asia. It does more to encourage tech companies that can help it fulfil its ambitious plans to make its workforce one of the most highly skilled and gainfully employed in Asia.

How the gig economy is empowering women in Vietnam

The prolonged pandemic would further delay the return of women with children to the job market. All of the above explains why more and more women opt for food delivery as an alternate career option to make up for lost income. More and more women in Vietnam are opting for food delivery as an alternate career option to make up for lost income during COVID-19.

Where is Taiwan’s AI ecosystem headed?

As Taiwan’s future cloud infrastructure realises, developers will no longer need to build services through overseas data centres, which will accelerate AI innovations and applications by local teams, especially in areas that are more sensitive to data sovereignty, such as finance. Every six months, AppWorks releases an updated Taiwan AI Ecosystem Map, distilling the latest trends and developments while highlighting various companies leading the charge.

Will Indonesia’s startup economy lose its ‘emerging’ title in 2021?

While Indonesia’s domestic market is strong, the startup economy cannot hit full maturity until it begins to see a more regular pipeline of Indonesian startups expanding beyond national borders and attracting more outside investment from the rest of the world.

With the scale of the domestic market, it is unsurprisingly that the vast majority of new startups in Indonesia are not born with global ambitions. While this works for the short-term – considering the scale and untapped potential internally – to realize their full potential, Indonesian startups must eventually look outwards.

It’s raining unicorns in India. Here is why

The Indian tech industry has reached a new peak. For years, Indian has been the world’s outsourcing capital, but finally, the time for Indian startups has come. 2021 has been remarkable for some of India’s tech startups so far, despite the pandemic. In fact, when most businesses were shutting down because of the virus, lockdowns accelerated economic digitisation worldwide and more so in India, which had already been on the path towards digitisation prior to the pandemic.

Underrated, untapped, and unknown: Malaysia’s startup ecosystem is coming of age

Within ASEAN, Malaysia was one of the first countries to invest in the digital economy with the establishment of multiple government agencies, seeding policies, industry blueprints and development acceleration programs. Coupled with its multicultural society, ease of adoption in digital economy services and a well-exposed middle class, the nation has always been a prime destination for Asian and MNC organisations to expand their business footprints.

Lessons on launching into new markets with Shopback co-founder Henry Chan

Henry Chan of ShopBack led his team, expanding throughout most of Asia Pacific and is definitely one of the most impressive entrepreneurs in the region, having led the company to expand to nine countries in years. In a conversation and sharing during the roundtable at Makan for Hope, he shared how Shopback thinks about market expansion. This article has some of the learnings for you.

Thailand’s startup ecosystem has a Seattle Problem. And that’s not such a bad thing

An overarching issue that Thailand’s entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, government officials, academics and other stakeholders have struggled with over much of the past decade is how to boost Thailand startup formation, activity, growth, and exit.

How do we meet the aspiration of making Thailand a startup hub of Southeast Asia? How do we attract and build a community of global entrepreneurs and tech talent, and how do we attract an outpouring of venture capital to fund them?

5 emerging opportunities within Malaysia’s gig economy

Malaysia’s job landscape is expanding the pool of gig workers in the country. While this shift reflects the changes in today’s multi-faceted workforce, its expansion has also drawn attention to the various challenges emerging from the gig economy. Mic Tham delves deeper into these challenges and explored how new opportunities and innovative solutions could emerge as businesses tackle these issues.

Tech for good: How Ula aims to facilitate the needs of small businesses in emerging market

In developed markets, technology is built for hyper-connected users who own multiple (and mostly high-end) devices. Contrary to that, technology in most emerging markets fundamentally skipped the era of home desktops and laptops, and dove straight into a mobile-first world, leading to a very different understanding and expectation of technology.

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