Nitin Kumar, the co-founder of zbyte, a platform for decentralized apps, is known as the \”master of the pivot\” — a nickname bestowed on him by CEO Today in 2020. He\’s also a longstanding advisor to technology companies.
During a July 14th interview on Fireside, Kumar shared his views about the recent chaos in the crypto world. He also has some ideas about what web3 needs to do to take off.
Kumar’s top 5 takeaways (edited for clarity):
The crypto meltdown is not necessarily a bad thing. “Crypto is a pack of cards, but you can\’t take all crypto and paint them in the same brush. (Right now) it\’s cleansing time, which is healthy for the market. There is never a ‘get rich quick’ in crypto.\” His advice going forward: \”Focus on the real assets that produce real value and ignore the rest.”
High leverage is the driver of the crypto collapses. “I think there has been one word that’s responsible for the economic condition we are in, and that’s leverage. Leverage has percolated into firms like Celsius and Voyager. It’s very clear they took the assets and leveraged them into very different places.”
Some companies that claim to be web3…really aren\’t. “There are a lot of web2 companies, including every single centralized exchange — like Coinbase and OpenSea — that bear the signature of web3, but they\’re not web3. They operate in a very old-economy style.\” Kumar\’s definition of web3: \”There needs to be adequate decentralization. It is community driven. Creators are rewarded. Infrastructure and security have to be very robust.”
That said, web3 needs web2 to thrive. “Web3\’s biggest issue today is that it\’s building for web3. Web 3 is not building for web2. That has got to change. Web3 needs adoption from everywhere. You need to find a real problem to solve.”
Innovation is slow and steady – not hot and fast. “You should be building in the crypto summer as well as winter. If you have not executed well in the bull market, what makes you think you will execute well in a bear market? The real innovators are slow and steady and have withstood the test of time.”
Find a replay of the interview here.