Web 2.5 is new Web 3.0, says co-founder of blockchain VC firm Kenetic Capital

A hybrid middle ground between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is necessary before full Web 3.0 integration, argued Jehan Chu, co-founder and managing partner of blockchain venture capital firm Kenetic Capital, adding that “it’s not the fully decentralized future we were promised, but it’s the one we’re going to get first.”

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Fast facts

• “Hybrid is the new watchword, Web 2.5 is the new Web 3.0, we’re going forward by going backwards. Institutions employing blockchain technology in the context of Web 2.0 are the path to mass adoption,” said Chu at the 2022 Hong Kong Fintech Week.

• “Blockchain serves as a permeable membrane between tech and everything else,” he said.

• “In the future there won’t be a FinTech, there won’t be a MarTech, there won’t be a GovTech, it will just be tech, with blockchain at the basis,” Chu argued, because combining these technologies with “common resources, common databases, and extra leverage” will create “enormous exponential value.”

• He cited recently-announced plans by Hong Kong’s flagship bank HSBC to build a gallery in the metaverse as an example of such hybrid Web 2.5 endeavors, with the joint project between the TradFi consumer bank and emerging Web 3.0 technology.

• Chu’s fellow panelists at the 2022 Hong Kong Fintech Week echoed his view, with Jenny Lee, managing partner at GGV Capital, citing Amazon Web Services’ use of online collaborative tools and cloud technology as a forbearer of this Web 2.5 hybrid model.

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