Yawn Rong Discusses Token Incentives And AI Challenges At FarCon Asia

According to BlockBeats, on September 17, STEPN co-founder Yawn Rong spoke at FarCon Asia, the first large-scale Farcaster ecosystem offline event in Asia. During the roundtable discussion on 'Strategies and Inspirations for Online Social Interaction,' Rong emphasized the pitfalls of projects that gain popularity solely due to token incentives. He argued that such projects often end up worthless. Rong suggested that it is crucial to understand why users would want to own something on-chain beyond token incentives. He noted that if users are not willing to spend money on a product, it indicates that the product has not met their standards. Based on his analysis over the past three years, Rong believes that achieving strong growth is essential. Sustaining operations over time will lead to acquiring key users, whose spending will subsequently increase. Rong also addressed the challenges faced by most artificial intelligence companies in figuring out how to handle their products and achieve profitability. He expressed skepticism about the ability of blockchain or cryptocurrency to solve these issues. While he is not pessimistic about AI, Rong pointed out that it is still in its early stages, and companies are primarily burning through investors' money. He believes that in the next 10 to 20 years, AI could become dominant, but it is crucial to understand how the technology will develop, particularly in terms of monetization and growth. FarCon Asia, the first large-scale Farcaster ecosystem offline event in Asia, was co-hosted by Tako Protocol, BlockBeats, and Jam. The conference aimed to explore and showcase the innovative achievements of the Farcaster ecosystem and the future prospects of Web3 social interaction. It sought to break the stereotype of traditional financial crypto conferences being one-way outputs. The event was expected to attract over 500 attendees, including Farcaster ecosystem builders, active users in the Asian Farcaster ecosystem, venture capitalists, renowned investors, and senior researchers.