The Philippine Web 3 Festival Is Over: Here’s What You Missed 

The Philippine Web 3 Festival, which is the country’s largest Web 3 event, has concluded. It took place from November 13 to 19 at the Marquis Event Place in BGC, Taguig. Here are the highlights of the event that you might have missed.

To kick off the festival, some side events were hosted as early as the weekend before the official event. The Hackathon, an event allowing Web 3 builders to pitch their startup ideas and bring them to life, started on November 12. It’s like SharkTank, but a Web 3 version!

Nuseir Yassin, most commonly known as Nas Daily, and festival organizers YGG and Blockchain Space hosted a dinner for local Web 3 builders the following day.

The festival officially kicked off with multiple networking events and parties hosted near and around the event site. The opening party for the festival, Panimula, was one of three side events that took place simultaneously for conference attendees to choose from.

Conference Proper, Day 1

Assistant Secretary Jeff Dy from the Philippine government’s DICT gave the opening address at the conference proper of the festival. Colin Goltra, COO of YGG, then provided a little history lesson, explaining how the industry began in the Philippines.

The most anticipated speech that morning, however, was that of Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff Zirlin, also known as Jihoz.

It is no secret that Axie Infinity has done well in the Philippines. Therefore, Jihoz revealed some of the game’s alphas live on stage as a token of gratitude. Following his speech, Jihoz was interviewed by Ralf Rivas of Rappler, who asked him about the future of Axie and P2E games.

Following that, panels of other Web 3 builders were held to discuss the future of Web 3 gaming and the role of Filipinos in it. Some other panels were hosted to talk about the potential of NFTs and Filipino artists in the Web 3 space.

Filipino NFT artists Sheila Ledesma, Jopet Arias, Sevi Loves Art and Bjorn Calleja were some of the people included in one of those panels. They discussed their journey in transforming their art into NFTs and how NFTs have helped them in their artistic endeavors.

On the other hand, George Royeca, the founder of Angkas, inspired the audience as he shared his journey as an innovator in the Philippines. Angkas have stood tall despite all of the challenges that have been thrown at them up until now, after years of constant struggle with regulations and policies.

The controversial panel of the day was then hosted as different crypto exchanges in the Philippines talked about the elephant in the room—FTX’s downfall. Nichel Gaba from PDAX, Wei Zhou from Coins.ph, Farrah Rodriguez from Amber Group, and Kenneth Stern from Binance Philippines were all on this panel.

Conference Proper, Day 2

Neil Trinidad, the VP of Gcash, led Day 2 of the festival as the first keynote speaker of the day. He talked about defining the Web 3 ecosystem, followed by another keynote speaker from Farcana Labs, Dr. Dimitry Mihaylov.

After that, panels about Web 3 safety and lifestyle solutions as well as the topic of simplifying the pathway to the metaverse were also hosted. The rest of the day was filled with other panels and speakers talking about Web 3 solutions and how to onboard people to them through games.

You can watch the full Day 2 and other days of the conference on the festival’s live stream replays on the YGG YouTube Channel.

Conference Proper, Day 3

One of the most anticipated speakers at the Philippine Web 3 Festival Day 3 was APL.DE.AP from the Black Eyed Peas, a popular Filipino-American singer and songwriter. He was one of the people who made Day 3 of the festival exciting by sharing his journey into NFTs and Web 3.

Besides that, the APL.DE.AP also hyped the crowd up as he performed one of his popular songs, “Bebot,” live on stage. He also performs one of his songs from his new album, which is set to be released in a few days.

Not long after that, Blacklist International, OhMyV33nus, and Wise Gaming, together with Tricia Potato and Tryke Gutierrez of Tier One, held a panel about the driving force of content creators.

They shared their journeys as gamers and content creators and how they think Web 3 can help them. After that, long lines of audience members lined up at the side of the stage to take photos with OhMyV33nus and Wise Gaming.

More panels were held after that, but what stood out was the panel about the trends to watch out for in 2023. Myrtle Sarrosa led this panel as she interviewed representatives from different big companies like AO Labs, Facana, and Big Time Studios.

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Axie Esports Tournament, Day 4

The fourth and last day of the Philippine Web 3 Festival was dedicated to an all-day Axie Esports Tournament. 256 players have joined and battled with each other on-site in Makati.

The tournament was intense, but @spamandrice stood tall and won the first-ever Axie Open Manila Tournament.

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@spamandrice went home with a cash prize of 1.5 million pesos

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Conclusion

Just as we thought the festival was coming to an end, the organizers announced a Thank You Afterparty in La Union, one of the most famous surfing spots in the Philippines.

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That pretty much wraps up the whole festival last week. If you haven’t had the chance to join us this year, the organizers did confirm that we’ll see each other again next year, so make sure not to miss it!