Amid the hype about Web3, do you actually know what it is?
Alan Vey, founder of Aventus, says this third iteration of the internet will become crucial for many businesses – but understands that the starting point is to explain what is meant by Web3.
“Web1 was ‘READ’ – accessing data that was hosted on the network. The second phase, Web2, added ‘WRITE’ – which enabled user-generated content to be shared via apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter,” he tells BusinessCloud.
“The third iteration, Web3, added ‘OWN’ – offering users the ability to truly own in a digital context and not just have a digital representation of physical ownership.”
Although not exclusive to them, blockchain networks are the most prominent tools for Web3 enablement. “One of their applications is to give consumers the power to own digital content which defines Web3,” explains Vey.
“The distributed ledger technology, which is the core component of a blockchain, enables items that live in the ledger to be truly immutable. This can solve a multitude of pain points.
“Anything from improving audit traits for things like cargo tracking for the aviation industry to securing ticketing in the events industry, blockchain enables organisations to become decentralised.
“While not every business will be suited to a decentralised model, for those that can implement it, it will allow them to share the functionality of the business across multiple points.”
Pivot
Vey, now chairman, founded Aventus in 2016 as an open-source, decentralised Ethereum-based protocol designed to alleviate fraud and touting in the event ticketing industry and raised more than $20 million in an Initial Coin Offering in 2017.
“We made good traction, securing deals with LiveNation and other major players, but then COVID hit, and live events halted to a complete stop. Rather than giving up, I realised that our tech could be applied to a number of other sectors, and we branched out,” he says.
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Now billed as an enterprise-grade proof-of-stake blockchain, it now operates in NFTs, loyalty, gaming and supply chain as well as ticketing.
With a parachain on Polkadot and layer 2 network on Ethereum, it claims to be able to scale to 2,000+ transactions per second per parachain, and process a token transfer within 0.13 seconds at an average cost of $0.01 per transaction – 100x the speed and at 1% of the cost of Ethereum.
The AvN onboarded over 30m transactions with 2m active wallets for business clients in its first year of operation.
“We have continued to grow through COVID and three crypto winters, and we doubled our 2021 revenue in 2022,” says Vey.
NFTs
He adds: “NFTs are a really interesting space: if blockchain meant nothing to the average person before, it can be argued that it was NFTs that finally propelled the technology into the mainstream. NFTs enable brands to create value through scarcity and reward loyal customers. While the hype around them has since lessened, they’re most certainly here to stay.
“The ability to tackle fraud and ticket touting is also a hugely exciting area. The ultimate goal is to create widespread adoption of blockchain technology.”
One recently announced partnership sees Beatport – a global leader in electronic music for DJs, producers and fans – join forces with Polkadot to launch a digital collectible marketplace, launched on Aventus.
Aventus has also partnered with Nexos Technologies, a digital payments and banking platform providing open banking and payment solutions, in order to bring blockchain-enabled solutions to the digital banking and payments sector.
Currently employing around 30 people, Aventus’s headquarters are in the UK but its team is fully decentralised and spread around the UK, Europe and Middle East.
“We have been focusing on R&D to date and are now at a stage where we have fully built out our offering, having invested around $30m into our product suite,” says Vey.
“We are now at a stage where we would like to scale our client and partnership base to be the go-to blockchain provider for large enterprises, and are currently expanding our executive leadership team to meet this goal.”