“You might have always had a question: after all these years of Web3 efforts, apart from speculating on cryptocurrencies, what has actually been achieved?”

Before this year, the answer was indeed hard to present. But this year, several signals made me feel that I can answer this question again.”

In May this year, I—ChainNeXT founder Trev Ng—was busy preparing for the Web2+3 Summit at BEYOND Expo 2026. In my mind, I listed a long guest list: Yat Siu, chairman of Animoca Brands; Michael Heinrich, CEO of 0G; Art Abal, co-founder of Vana; and Jack Kong, founder of Nano Labs and director of Hong Kong Cyberport.

This list is quite interesting. If you look closely, you will find that they represent not the “getting rich quickly myth” of the previous round, but a brand new wave: the deep integration of Web2 and Web3. My team, ChainNeXT Group, has also officially become the chief partner of the Web3 sector at BEYOND Expo 2026, jointly promoting the deep integration of Web3 technology and industrial innovation.

As I was overwhelmed with preparations for the summit, the encounters I had convinced me even more: we are standing at a historic turning point.

1. Jack Kong: That half hour back then changed the trajectory of my life

My acquaintance with Jack Kong dates back many years. Back then, I hadn't graduated from university yet, and I attended Consensus in Austin, USA for the first time. At a small dinner party on the sidelines of the conference, I recognized him at a glance—he had just become a director of Hong Kong Cyberport.

At that time, I was holding a broken PPT that had been modified over a dozen pages, searching for investors everywhere. Coincidentally, the person sitting next to me was the CEO of an old internet giant. But Jack didn’t rush to chat with that big shot; instead, he turned his head and listened earnestly to me, a young guy, talking about my entrepreneurial ideas for a whole half hour. Those suggestions and encouragements were an extremely precious enlightenment for me, who was still naive at the time.

Later, when OpenClaw exploded, Jack organized a tour in China. Without a second thought, I helped him arrange the Macau event. Because in my heart, Jack has always been someone who is willing to support young people and actively embraces the integration of Web2 and Web3. He is not someone who just pays attention to cryptocurrency prices; he looks at the future of every "super individual" in the digital age.

2. Art Abal: The moment when I was the only one applauding

The first time I met Art was at a peripheral event of Consensus in Hong Kong last year. It was a roundtable discussion, and several Web3 bigwigs were fervently discussing obscure terms like ZK and decentralized AI infrastructure, while the audience looked bewildered, filling the air with a sense of awkwardness of “I don’t understand, but I dare not ask.”

At this moment, Art took the microphone. He didn’t continue throwing around technical jargon but instead asked two extremely simple questions.

He asked, “How many of you have used AI?” The whole audience raised their hands.

He then asked, “How many of you truly own your own data?” The room fell silent, and not a single hand was raised.

He smiled and said, “What we do at Vana will allow you to really own your own data in the future.”

At that moment, I was the first in the room to burst into applause. He used the simplest language to tear away the exquisite veils of Web3, directly addressing the biggest pain point of the Web2 era—data exploitation. Later, we learned that Vana is the first DeAI project that CZ (Zhao Changpeng) invested in after his release and has received support from top VCs like Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, and Polychain. When he came to BEYOND Expo last year, he told me, “This is the first time I have spoken about Web3 in front of an Nvidia booth!” This kind of foresight is exactly the voice that BEYOND Expo has been seeking.

3. Yat Siu: I asked him, why does AI still need Crypto when fiat currencies can order takeout?

The first time I met Yat Siu was during this year's Consensus conference. Fortunately, I was invited to an internal investor gathering usually attended only by shareholders.

I was very excited to see him because he is the one who has hit on all the metaverse trends and has deep investments in the DeAI field. There are jokes in the industry that he is the “Jesus of Web3” because he is always preaching visions of the future.

That day he spoke a lot about the future integration of Web3 and AI, mentioning a term—“Crypto is the native currency of AI.” I couldn’t help but raise my hand to ask a very provocative question:

“Yat, why does AI still need Crypto when fiat currencies can order takeout?”

His answer was interesting; he didn’t delve into technical details but instead described a scenario that the Web2 world could not solve. At that moment, I was convinced that Yat was not simply shouting slogans; he was using profound philosophical logic to construct the underlying economic rules after the fusion of Web2 and Web3.

4. Michael Heinrich: In this deep bear market, Silicon Valley elites actually came to Shenzhen to visit factories

Michael Heinrich is the co-founder and CEO of 0G. The first time I saw him was at a dinner in Shenzhen, hosted by JT, the head of 0G’s Asia Pacific region—who was also our guest last year.

Honestly, in this bottomless bear market, I rarely see foreign founders willing to specifically run to mainland China to explore the market. Michael usually stays in the U.S., and his appearance at the dinner table in Shenzhen amazed and moved me.

During the dinner, he didn’t talk about cryptocurrency prices or exchanges, but rather about what he was doing in China. He mentioned that he had visited many major companies, even some automotive manufacturing organizations. He was thinking about how to integrate the DeAI infrastructure of 0G into the production lines of these physical enterprises.

In this speculative Web3 market, foreign founders like Michael, who are so grounded and attach great importance to practical applications in the Chinese market, are truly rare. He doesn’t see China merely as a retail investor market; instead, he views it as a real world with a massive manufacturing industry and AI application scenarios.

5. What kind of stage will the upcoming BEYOND Expo be?

BEYOND Expo is hosted by the Macau Science and Technology Association and has been held for five consecutive years since its founding in 2021, making it the largest international technology innovation and ecosystem exhibition in Asia.

The fifth BEYOND Expo in 2025 attracted over 25,000 attendees, more than 800 exhibitors, 300 media outlets, and over 800 professional investors from more than 120 countries and regions globally, with overseas attendees accounting for 40%, and an average of 55% at director level and above. This year, from May 27 to 30, 2026, BEYOND Expo will host its sixth grand event at the Venetian Macao Convention and Exhibition Centre, with an expected number of exhibitors exceeding 1,200 and attendees surpassing 30,000.

The names that have stood on this stage in the past few sessions are enough to represent an industry: Alibaba Group chairman Joe Tsai, founder and chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. Robin Zeng, founding partner of Sequoia Capital China Neil Shen, and chairman of Fosun International Guo Guangchang. Global top tech companies like Nvidia, Huawei, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent, Douyin, and Foxconn have also been deeply involved.

Why establish the Web2+3 Summit this year? Because the turning point has truly arrived.

6. Four major signals heralding the sounds of integration

Signal one: Hong Kong dollar stablecoins officially debut. Just recently, on April 10, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority officially granted the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Dock Financial (a joint venture of Standard Chartered Hong Kong, Hong Kong Telecom, and Animoca Brands) based on the Stablecoin Ordinance. Compliant stablecoins are entering mainstream payment scenarios, marking a significant event in the true integration of Web2 and Web3 financial infrastructures.

Signal two: Mature regulations for Hong Kong crypto exchanges. As of the first quarter of 2026, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has officially issued licenses to 12 virtual asset trading platforms. The virtual asset ecosystem in Hong Kong has completely bid farewell to the “transitional cleanup” phase and has entered a new development stage of “normal expansion.”

Signal three: The US passes the GENIUS Act. On July 18, 2025, former President Trump signed the “Guidance and Establishment of a National Stablecoin Innovation Act” (GENIUS Act), marking the official establishment of a federal stablecoin regulatory framework in the United States. The world’s largest economy has given the green light to compliant stablecoins, providing an unprecedented institutional foundation for the integration of Web2 and Web3.

Signal four: Under geopolitical conditions, real application scenarios for cryptocurrency have emerged. In April 2026, the Union of Iranian Oil Exporters announced that during the temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran, tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz must pay tolls in Bitcoin. In January of the same year, Iran officially clarified that overseas military contracts could accept “digital currency” as a payment method.

In addition to these four major signals, the scale of tokenized assets in the financial sector's RWA (real-world assets) continues to grow, cross-border payment's PayFi (stablecoin finance) begins to bridge crypto payments with traditional supply chains, and decentralized AI (DeAI) is breaking the monopoly of centralized AI's data, computing power, and algorithms—these three tracks are also the core themes of this Web2+3 Summit.

7. Web2+3: A bull market narrative in a bear market

What has Web3 been for the past few years?

It has been a carnival of air tokens, a feast of meme coins, and a gambling table of “getting rich overnight, bankrupt overnight.” That was a speculation-driven Web3, a zero-sum game where a few reap profits at the expense of the many.

In the past few years, I have attended many Web3 conferences and witnessed too many industry consensuses that seemed “very lively.” But if you observe closely, you will find that most people in those occasions were already part of the industry. Everyone discussed the future in the same context, but very few genuinely faced users and demands outside the industry. This is why many narratives sound grand, yet always remain confined within the circle.

The significance of BEYOND Expo lies precisely in its ability to change this.

The Web2+3 Summit is not just about Web3; it is a gathering of over 30,000 builders in the technology industry—a top technology ecosystem in Asia. Here, we bring together Web2 companies, traditional financial institutions, cross-industry decision-makers, and real purchasers—these individuals have been the most difficult yet crucial batch of users for Web3 to reach in the past. When Web3 is placed in such a context, it is no longer just a conversation for insiders but for the first time enters a larger business system, being tested by real demands.

This is also why this Web2+3 Summit is worth attending. Here, you won’t just see what the industry is saying but also what is starting to be used in practice and what directions are beginning to have the potential for scalability. The past Web3 relied on emotion-driven consensus, while the future of Web2+3 depends on whether people genuinely use it. BEYOND is precisely the place where this ‘use’ will occur on a large scale for the first time.

The current Web3 market is indeed in a bear market, with trading volumes floundering and many projects hitting zero. But at the same time, the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin entering PayMe, the sustained growth of RWA tokenized assets, and SpaceX’s Pre-IPO stock entering the DeFi ecosystem through tokenization… these converging Web2+3 stories happening now represent the true future. The bull market of Web3 relied on FOMO (fear of missing out), while the future of Web2+3 relies on adoption (real usage).

This is why the Web2+3 Summit at BEYOND Expo 2026 focuses on the core principles of “practical, commercializable, and compliant.” We are not aiming to hold a self-indulgent party for Web3 practitioners but to build a bridge for rational connections between Web2 and Web3.

From May 27 to 30, at the Venetian Macao Convention and Exhibition Centre, over 30,000 attendees will gather. This summit may not bring about a hundredfold increase in cryptocurrency prices, but it will announce the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.

At that time, let us witness Jack’s selfless promotion of the younger generation, Art’s hope for data sovereignty to return, Yat’s philosophical logic of AI and Crypto coexisting, and Michael’s awe and respect from Silicon Valley elites towards China’s real industries. They will all be there. Their foresight and execution will make Web3 no longer just a concept on a PPT but a tangible Web2+3 commercial reality.

We are currently in a bear market for Web3, but it is also the starting point for the Web2+3 story. And I am honored to witness the beginning of this integration with you. I am Trev, and share this article to become part of this Web3 "Yellow Turban Rebellion."

BEYOND Expo 2026 Official Site: www.beyondexpo.com

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Conference Link: https://portal.BEYONDexpo.com/reg/BEYOND26/web/#/en/ticket/mall?track=tk19