POW with Manhar Garegrat

Manhar Garegat is a builder, building and working on projects at Panthera Wallet. Besides that, he was also a former board member at CoinDCX. He’s also worked previously with Zebpay, Edelweiss, and Hyatt.

 What were you doing before Web3?

I’ve been working now for over a decade and prior to web3 I was exploring web2 technologies as part of many digital marketing teams.

I worked for fintech and non-fintech companies and was instrumental in driving social media & digital transformation projects from 2011 all the way to 2019.

After flirting with many new & emerging technologies, I finally committed to one in 2019 when I was introduced to the most path breaking technology the world has ever seen – crypto.

 How did you get into Web3?

My mentor and first boss, all the way back from 2008 became the CEO of one of India’s largest exchanges.

He’s a well-known angel investor and a crypto OG in India. He was looking for someone to do the GTM for the crypto exchange overseas.

We reconnected after a decade and I became a part of the CEO’s office.

 What was your first crypto or NFT project?

My first crypto was Bitcoin. Thereafter there’ve been many other tokens, but I’ve taken major positions in very few projects.

 How would you explain what you do to someone outside of Web3?

I am building infrastructure to power the new financial system of the future.

 Which creator or thought leader do you enjoy learning from?

I enjoy learning about policy dialogues from Coinbase folks like Brian Armstrong, Paul Grewal, etc.

Joel John from Decentralised.co whips up a lot of mean, well-researched blogs; and of course enjoy learning a whole lot of tech from my co-founder Akash Mishra.

 What is the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Evangelising crypto amongst the most important regulators and policy makers in India and playing a small role in taking them from ‘Ban Crypto’ to ‘Regulate Crypto’ has been the most enriching experience.

In terms of moments, getting an opportunity to sit in front of the Indian Parliamentary Committee on Finance to demo our product and its compliance capabilities was a phenomenal experience.

 What tech or crypto trend are you watching this year?

This year is definitely the year of wallets. All the way from Account Abstraction with Smart Contract wallets to MPC based wallets.

All of it coupled with tremendous improvements in consumer facing UI and developer facing kits, makes me super bullish on wallets in 2023.

 What advice would you give someone starting out in Web3?

Keep the investment aspect aside and then try to navigate the world of Web3. You’ll see technology, history, politics, deep tech like cryptography, concepts of finance, compliance and so much more.

Once you have a slightly more wholesome view of the space, then it’s probably a good time to start investing.

Most people just dive right in. Mind you, which also works well in some cases. However, most end up losing money and interest in the space.

If you could do a TED talk on any topic, what would it be?

Cryptopia – how an ideal future world would look like with crypto finance at the centre. I always wonder about the saying, ‘Man is born free, but forever in chains’.

Why are we, for instance, citizens of the nation we are born in? Aren’t we all born into this world and therefore citizens of the world?

While we spoke about globalisation through our growing up years, we never really got to embrace the concept truly.

Not sure if we’ll ever be in the future as well – but if it ever has to happen, my firm belief is that it will be driven on the back of crypto.

 What is the one thing you would bring if you were stuck on a deserted Island?

There’s many things I’d like to get, like my Macbook (hopefully there’s internet and electricity on the island), a million piece lego kit, my motorcycle, etc but I suppose, I’ll be more practical and say, my Victorinox Swiss knife.

POW stands for “Proof of Work.” It is a new feature article series in The Mega Maxi to highlight the savviest builders in the Web3 space.