Standard Alpha is on a mission to put Indonesia on the global Web3 map. Since 2017, this Jakarta-based Web3 venture builder has been growing crypto audiences across web, social and events through its media arm, Indonesia Crypto Network (ICN).
Standard Alpha is the company behind the annual offline event Coinfest Asia, and it also represents Coindesk in Indonesia.
e27 Co-Founder and Head of Platform and Memberships Thaddeus Jit Siong Koh met and spoke with Steven Suhadi, Founder of Standard Alpha and ICN, at Coinfest Asia 2022 in Bali.
Edited excerpts:
Tell us more about what you do and your mission at Standard Alpha and ICN.
Standard Alpha is a digital asset and Web3 venture builder and VC based in Jakarta. We started as a blockchain consultancy business back in 2016. When we started, the crypto market was really hot globally but an infant in Indonesia.
We ended up getting a lot of inquiries from people who needed help to penetrate this market. So, on the side, we started building ICN and kept growing ICN even as the crypto market subdued in 2018-2019.
We are not a VC-backed business and just run a cash flow-positive business. It was tough for the first three years as the industry was tiny, but the focus and grit have helped put us in the leading position we are in now.
ICN is the holding company for all of our media assets. So the most well-known one in Indonesia is Coinvestasi, the organiser of Coinfest Asia. Along with owning Coindesk Indonesia, we also run a variety of communities within the archipelago under different brands. This makes us the largest cross-channel crypto/web3 focused media and agency in Indonesia.
Our original blockchain consultancy business, Standard Alpha, will soon shift into a Web3 VC. We’re operators first and foremost, so beyond our media arm and funding, we can provide tangible value to projects at a product and operational level.
Leveraging our time in the market and a good grassroots understanding. We can hopefully offer our portfolio a strong feedback loop and help our founders get to product market fit as quickly as possible.
How is Indonesia’s cryptocurrency scene faring? Where do you see its potential?
Indonesia is the largest market in Southeast Asia; it’s home to 280 million people. We already have regulations about crypto in Indonesia, while some other markets in the region don’t have clear regulations yet.
So we see the cryptocurrency scene is growing rapidly. For example, before the regulation was introduced, there were only two exchanges when we started Standard Alpha and ICN. And now, we have 25 registered exchanges. So the ecosystem is growing. We’re also speaking to a lot of institutions. Not only a lot of Web2 companies are starting to say, ‘okay, how do we get into Web3’, but many institutions from traditional finance are also saying, ‘we need to participate in this’.
At Coinfest Asia, we saw attendees from various banks and traditional institutions starting to scout and research. I think there’s going to be a convergence. Web3 is not a silo, and there needs to be a transition from Web2 to probably Web2.5. And then the Web3 guys cannot be idealistic and say they’re Web3. They are gonna have to trickle down to 2.5. So I think that’s where the convergence will happen.
Do you think it will happen soon?
It is already happening. There are powerful unicorns and decacorns in attendance at Coinfest Asia. Some of their senior people are here, and they’re already starting to look and explore. So I think it will not take as long as the internet or P2P boom. It will happen quite quickly because we already have these baselines in place.
Steven Suhadi (M) with Thaddeus Koh (R) and Jubilee Capital’s Fong Jek Gan (L)
How is the Web3 space growing in the archipelago?
We, Standard Alpha, leverage experts in the space. But, this space is growing so fast that I don’t think the word ‘expert’ is accurate. I’ve been in this space, and I know this space is very transient. We have gone through many market cycles or the user experience, but no one’s an expert. The word DeFi didn’t exist three years ago, the word GameFi didn’t exist two years ago. If you say the word ICO now, you’re instantly outdated.
So we’re still in the sort of dotcom phase of Web3 where it’s quite euphoric. But that’s where a lot of the experimentation happens. That’s where the bursts of innovation could also start happening.
You also mentioned you have a regional presence in Bali. Can you share a little bit more about it? And why Bali?
It is easy to get people to Bali. If you tell people to come to Jakarta, they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna sit in traffic for two hours’.
Besides that, Bali has a community of digital nomads with a high appetite for crypto. All the founders or workers of big crypto companies live here.
By doing Coinfest Asia, we wanted to bring the stuff happening in Jakarta to this community and show this community to the region as basically getting that spectrum of learning. We have 52 different nations represented here. So sharing insights and networking are the goals that prompt people throughout Asia to come to Bali and network casually.
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Many digital nomads from overseas are here; on average, they stay here between six months to two years. We see a lot of Web2 companies. For example, the talent shortage at a senior level in Indonesia and Jakarta allows people to work remotely.
So a natural choice for them would be, ‘okay, I’m earning a decent salary in Jakarta, and I get to spend two weeks in Bali’. That kind of culture is also akin to the building culture of crypto, where it’s quite decentralised.
All the regulations happen in Jakarta, the capital city, but Bali has a thriving community. And even the Jakarta players start to have offices in Bali either to give their teams a work-life balance or they want to tap into the local community here — expert developers or different sorts of conceptual thinking, people experimenting. They want to merge that and fuse that with the knowledge and bring that relevant skills back to Jakarta.
Do you have plans to grow beyond Indonesia?
We look to grow Standard Alpha and ICN beyond the borders of Indonesia. It’s been a tough journey, and we ran out of cash several times. And in 2018-19, we almost closed a few times. It’s just because of sheer belief in the industry that we just kept going and kept beating the crap.
Now we’re fortunate enough to have networks hopefully that we can start forming synergies. I wouldn’t say if we venture outside of Indonesia, we would do it 100 per cent on our own. You need product market experts. It is the same as when most companies come to Southeast Asia or Europe. They are like, ‘Oh, it’s one size fits all’.
So it’s not just product market fit, there’s cultural fit that needs to happen. We want to work with partners who can also know that stuff in that country or the region we’d like to expand into.
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