In the digital financial sector, Web3 is considered a disruptive new generation of internet infrastructure. It not only breaks the limitations of traditional finance's "double-entry bookkeeping" system, but also, with its core features of full network transparency, immutability, and programmability, accelerates the reconstruction of the financial system in the AI era. At the "2025 Luohan Hall - Peking University National School of Development Digital Economy Annual Conference," Hash Global founder Shen Kang shared in depth the profound impact of the integration of Web3 and AI technologies on the financial industry. He pointed out that the implementation of stablecoin regulation will push on-chain finance into the mainstream, ushering in Web3's "iPhone moment." Just as smartphones ushered in a new era of human-computer interaction, Web3 and AI will revolutionize the underlying interactions of the financial system, driving the internetization, digitization, and intelligence of finance. Speaker: Shen Kang: He graduated from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Fudan University and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also a CFA charter holder. He has held senior positions at numerous financial institutions, including PIMCO, Salomon Smith Barney, and Bosera Asset Management. In 2019, he founded Hash Global, focusing on investment and practical applications in digital assets and Web3, and promoting the development of a more prosperous Web3 ecosystem. The following is the full text of Shen Kang's speech: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm delighted to be here today to speak with you at the Luohan Hall Annual Meeting. My topic is "Web3 and AI Resonance: Promoting the Internetization and Digitalization of Finance." This title may sound a bit awkward and non-intuitive, but the core of my message is simple: I want to clarify one thing: Why is finance powered by Web3 truly internet-based and digital? Once this point is made clear, I believe everyone will have a deeper understanding of the significance of Web3 for finance and AI. From Electronic Ledgers to Digital Ledgers: The Financial Revolution of Web3 I believe everyone has paid considerable attention to and is relatively familiar with the development of AI, but Web3 may still be relatively unfamiliar. Before introducing and reviewing the development of Web3, I would like to first discuss the existing traditional banking and financial system. The traditional financial system is built on an electronic double-entry bookkeeping system. Double-entry bookkeeping means that each institution maintains its own ledger. This requires extensive data verification between banks, between banks and securities firms, and between bank branches, often requiring long hours of work to justify a single number. This means that the capital market built on top of it is also fragmented. Our existing banking and financial system is essentially electronic, not truly digital. Recall that when we buy things online, we're actually using two networks. When I place an order on Taobao, the information is transmitted to the seller online; however, the underlying funds are cleared between my bank, such as China Construction Bank, and the seller's bank, such as the Bank of China. When we complete an online purchase, the information flows through the internet, while the funds flow through the interbank financial settlement network. Web3 finance, however, is completely different. Take Bitcoin, for example. In addition to solving the problem of value storage, it also provides a digital blockchain ledger. This ledger is fully visible and immutable. To shop with a Web3 wallet, one simply downloads a browser extension and pays with USD stablecoins, HKD stablecoins, or digital RMB. The entire purchase process requires no banking infrastructure. The speed of peer-to-peer transactions is so fast you can't even feel it. It truly merges commerce and finance, completing them on the same network, enabling the internetization of finance and the assetization of everything. Understanding this will help you better understand why Web3 is the inevitable choice for the future of finance. Web3: The Next Generation of Internet Infrastructure I believe the development of Web3 has two key characteristics. On the one hand, cryptofinance, a precursor to Web3, has already accumulated approximately 600 million users, roughly equivalent to the number of internet users in 1999. So, we've already seen financial applications like stablecoins and DeFi, which are payment-focused applications. However, Web3 itself, as the infrastructure for the next-generation internet, is likely only at the level of 1994-1995. I personally believe that mainstream Web3 adoption will take about two years, as not enough users are willing or comfortable using Web3 wallets to interact with the internet. However, I believe Web3 technology will undoubtedly become the foundational infrastructure for the next generation of the internet. It will deliver a better user experience, as a unified network-wide ID will free data from silos and enable easy sharing. It is the only large-scale, underlying coordination network truly adapted to the growth of AI productivity. Web3's significance to business is similar to what Bitcoin is to finance—changes in underlying data ledger technology will inevitably lead to changes in higher-level business models. "Deplatformed" Finance: The True Face of the Web3 Ecosystem Based on a universal public ledger, what exactly does the Web3 financial ecosystem look like? Unlike traditional finance, in Web3, whether you're a brokerage, bank, or exchange, all transaction records are stored on the central blockchain. Users interact with these financial institutions through a "wallet," not a bank account. Think of this wallet as a unified entry point, untethered from any platform. This makes Web3 essentially "deplatformed" finance. You may often hear the term "decentralized finance" (DeFi), but I prefer to call it "de-platformization." It's not decentralized or regulated; rather, it's subject to regulation. Because all on-chain user IDs are unified across the network and all transaction records are traceable, it's actually more easily regulated. Therefore, compliance and embracing regulation are the main trends in DeFi's future. Currently, the scale of DeFi is approximately $115 billion. The application ecosystems on mainstream chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance Chain are rapidly developing, with increasing activity and capital. Web3's "iPhone Moment": Stablecoins Ignite Growth I'm sure everyone has recently noticed the news that the United States and Hong Kong have passed stablecoin-related legislation. This is a crucial turning point for the Web3 financial industry, and many are calling it Web3's "iPhone Moment." I believe the passage of stablecoin regulations at this juncture must be driven by profound strategic considerations. While there are various interpretations of this matter, I believe the most insightful one comes from Dr. Xiao Feng of Hong Kong's HashKey Group. He believes that the breakthrough of stablecoins is a triumph of technological innovation. It's not a random decision by any country or government to adopt a technology, but rather the inherent advantages of the technology dictate that the system must adapt to its development. In my opinion, the development of on-chain finance requires a "flywheel" to keep turning: a continuous increase in on-chain funds, users, and high-quality assets. This flywheel originally rotated very slowly, but with the advent of regulated stablecoins, off-chain funds can more easily enter the chain, significantly accelerating its speed. I believe that stablecoins will greatly accelerate and propel Web3 finance into the mainstream. Furthermore, I would like to illustrate the "internetization of finance" with two examples. The first example is Trump's recent cryptocurrency launch. Putting aside the ethical issues surrounding his team's launch, this incident clearly demonstrates the advantages of Web3 technology. In the traditional stock market, market manipulation often involves multiple related parties and is limited by time and location—for example, market makers in Hong Kong can generally only influence Hong Kong investors. TrumpCoin is issued on a blockchain. Regardless of your location, users worldwide can trade the same capital good 24/7. Market prices are determined on a universal, global ledger, making this a truly internet-based asset. A second example is the more familiar Real World Asset (RWA). This involves tokenizing off-chain assets onto a blockchain. This transforms the on-chain assets into digital tokens, freeing them from the constraints of a single brokerage firm's ledger or a specific stock exchange, providing global liquidity. Whether it's a money fund or a stock, tokenization allows users to trade and transfer assets anytime, anywhere, significantly improving efficiency. The 'Nvidia' of Web3 Finance: Binance and BNB Next, I would like to briefly introduce Binance and its platform token, BNB. BNB is unique in that it serves as both an equity asset and an economic token. Binance is currently the world's largest digital asset exchange, a leading position. Its trading volume is twice that of the New York Stock Exchange, thanks to its global platform, 24/7 operations, and 270 million users. Frankly, no traditional exchange can match this. Binance's business has transcended simple trading to become a super-ecosystem built by an internet giant, encompassing diverse functions such as spot trading, lending, wealth management, payments, and even social networking. Within this ecosystem, BNB not only offers fee discounts, but also has share buybacks as a value support, and possesses monetary properties similar to QQ game tokens. Many people tend to evaluate BNB using traditional value investing frameworks, but I believe that Web3 products cannot simply be evaluated using stock valuation logic. Therefore, since 2019, we have been experimenting with valuing BNB using the "Money Equation" (MV=PQ), as its essence is closer to that of a currency. We first conducted this evaluation in April 2019 and have completed six rounds to date. My assessment is that BNB's current situation is similar to that of Moutai, which I saw when I first returned to China. Back then, there were almost no institutional investors optimistic about it, and it was primarily purchased by retail investors. Now, however, institutional investors are gradually beginning to recognize and understand BNB's true value. It's almost time, and I'd like to finally discuss the integration of Web3 and AI in finance. I believe that finance driven by Web3 is truly digital finance, and only truly digital finance can seamlessly integrate with AI technology to achieve the greatest multiplier synergy. Web3 finance is digital and programmable. Its addresses consist of complex strings of characters. This "language" is clearly not suitable for direct human reading or memorization, but it naturally aligns with AI processing. In the future, AI's financial needs and services may only be fulfilled through Web3. This is because it's impossible to open a traditional bank account for an AI agent, process microtransactions of even a ten-thousandth of a dollar, and even more difficult to respond to tens of thousands of service requests per minute. Finally, I want to emphasize that AI is empowering Web3's applications in finance, and Web3 is also providing decentralized data and computing power solutions for AI. The integrated development of these two cutting-edge technologies is accelerating the construction of a new generation of Internet infrastructure and promoting profound changes in the global financial system and business models. Thank you!
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