Enter the Web3: How Web2 companies try their hand in blockchain (and why they fail)

Should every company switch to Web3? Probably not. But each one can at least try: after all, “all businesses can benefit from blockchain, though in different ways,” says Sophia Shluger, Managing Director for Europe at Amber Group. So, they try.

We have already written about luxury brands joining Web3 — and it is mainly about NFTs. Now let’s see why NFTs are a popular choice for Web2 companies and what other ways they can use to enter blockchain.

NFTs and gaming rule Web3

“The easiest and most natural fit for Web2 companies looking to enter the Web3 arena is luxury (true ownership, providence) and gaming (ability to release capital from the in-game economy)”, claims Robin Janaway, NFT Drop Lead at Outlier Ventures. That’s why he highly assesses Roblox and Fortnite collaborations with Gucci and Balenciaga.

“Brands can market digital goods to a market which is used to paying for skins and gaming assets,” explains Robin. That is exactly what Gucci made for Roblox and Balenciaga — for Fortnite.

Recently, Dior decided to do this too — and now we have news about Dior and the racing game Gran Turismo 7 collaboration. This is the first time when Dior will present designs for the virtual world.

The other side of this approach is to bring virtual NFTs to reality — as Tiffany did in their collaboration with CryptoPunks. And actually, there is a lot of news like that now about luxury brands.

So, is Web3 for luxury brands NFTs only?

Definitely not.

The next example also includes NFTs but in ultimately another sense. The NFT marketplace TravelX and low-cost Argentinian airline Flybondi now offer tokenized tickets, which the buyer “can auction, sell, transfer, gift or exchange through a peer-to-peer system on TravelX,” reports CoinDesk.

Olivier Moingeon, a founder of the NFT platform Exclusible, says this is the next step to the future where “we will all buy NFTs without knowing or caring that they are NFTs.” Olivier thinks that this will happen in five years.

But maybe sometimes we will know it is NFTs and appreciate this fact. Because, of course, hype made NFTs trendy and has spawned many projects with no added value. But it is worth remembering that NFTs are, first and foremost, an opportunity to secure copyright. And they can be used for noble purposes.

For example, that’s what the food delivery platform ele.me did. They launched an NFT series to preserve the legacy of traditional Chinese cuisine. The project includes photos of dishes and was created in collaboration with Hangzhou Cuisine Museum.

Apparently, NFTs are also good because they are relatively easy to create and quickly enter Web3 — or at least try the industry with your fingertips.

At the same time, giants like Facebook are being transformed completely

I mean, how else can we interpret the fact that it is now not Facebook but Meta? Microsoft hasn’t renamed itself yet, but the metaverse is already on its mind, too. So it is for Amazon. Even Walmart is in the mix!

By the way, as Decrypt writes, citing Walmart’s partners and investors, they are much more inspired by the experience of entering the Web3 of luxury brands than Facebook. They don’t like that Facebook wants to make a metaverse to control everything even more. At the same time, Walmart wants an open metaverse and public blockchain.

Meanwhile, the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter is moving to blockchain. And Spotify does not know what it will introduce soon yet, but has opened Web3 vacancies since March 2022. Something is coming…

Lastly, why don’t all Web2 companies manage to move to Web3?

According to Thomas de Lambertye, founder of the Web3 marketing agency Eterstain, there are not enough consultants in the market who are equally familiar with both Web2 and Web3. It’s not enough to just create your NFTs, Thomas writes in his LinkedIn. You need to look much deeper into how the industry can be helpful to your business and vice versa.