Lisk is just getting started in Asia! They have teamed up with The Binary Holdings (TBH) to incorporate their dApps into telco apps across Indonesia and the Philippines. On the surface, it sounds fantastic: 169 million potential users, seamless onboarding, and a chance to bring Web3 to the masses. TBH aspires to be “The Web3 Distribution Infrastructure.” Lisk has been democratizing blockchain since 2016. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the U.S. Are we truly democratizing Web3, or are we merely creating a soul-sucking, digital gilded cage?
Is This Web3 Or Web2.5?
The fundamental, original intent of Web3’s value proposition has always been about decentralization, user ownership, and liberation from centralized, corporate imperium. When you make Web3 work using the existing infrastructure of telecom monopolies, are you even removing barriers? Or are you simply making more complex replacements for the old ones? Think of it like this: building a community garden inside a gated community. In reality, everyone behind the gate is supposed to have access. But the gatekeeper controls the access, and who gets in controls what crops they are permitted to grow.
TBH’s “OneWave” platform, ostensibly a dApp playstore within telco’s apps, sounds suspiciously like a walled garden and curated experience. Who decides which dApps make the cut? What will happen to these decentralized, permissionless applications that do not fit with the telco’s business model? What about censorship?
Then there's the $BNRY token. Users acquire it by deploying their value within Lisk’s dApps and can redeem it back for telco services. Sounds convenient, right? As brilliant as it is, it’s a closed-loop system. You're essentially incentivized to stay within the telco's ecosystem. It’s just like company scrip – you can only use it at the company store. Where's the freedom in that?
Data Privacy: The Elephant In The Room
First off, telcos are already sitting on mountains of user data. However, adding Web3 applications on top of their current infrastructure generates a treasure trove of even more sensitive information. Every purchase, every payment, every swap, every protocol interacted with – all of this is now potentially trackable and analyzable.
Second, are users really getting meaningful notice about how their data is being used. Second, are they given real agency over their privacy. And are they truly reading the hundreds of pages of fine print? Or are they simply clicking “I agree” to use these alleged, “seamless” Web3 experiences?
This entire situation feels like a repeat of Facebook’s Free Basics program from years past. The free internet access was limited to the services that Facebook had previously chosen. It had looked like quite a generous offer. What it did was give Facebook almost complete control over the information ecosystem by deciding what websites and services their users could access. Could Lisk’s partnership with TBH be going in the same direction?
Both Indonesia and the Philippines have developing regulatory environments for both telecommunications and blockchain technology. What happens when regulations inevitably tighten? Will governments demand access to user data? Will they stop allowing certain dApps or tokens?
Regulation: The Unpredictable Wildcard
Crypto skeptics might take a “libertarian-leaning” doom-and-gloom attitude. When they do, it’s usually to raise perfectly warranted alarms about the risks of government overreach. We've seen it happen before. This is part of what Web3 hopes to deliver—to build future systems that can’t be easily censored and controlled. And it wants to make sure those keys aren’t in the hands of governments or corporations.
Think about it: If the Indonesian government decides that a particular dApp is "harmful" or "illegal," what's stopping them from ordering the telcos to block access? Nothing. And since access to that information is funneled through telco apps, there’s no way for users to get any recourse. They’d be stuck inside a very dumb centralized system, at the mercy of regulators’ whims.
Lisk’s expansion into Asia is certainly a bold step and may well open the gate of Web3 to an audience of billions. We should be sober about what this means, particularly the positives and negatives. We should be asking hard questions about the dangers of centralization, data privacy, and regulatory and reputational risk. If we don’t pay attention, we can end up building a Web3 that’s not really decentralized. Instead, it might only become a better weapon for corporations and governments to wield against our increasingly digital lives.
It’s tempting to let ourselves be dazzled by the glitz of new technology and shiny partnerships. The crypto community should be increasingly vigilant, and quicker to act in holding projects accountable. They must advocate that genuine decentralization always be the end goal. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. That seems to be true in the online world as well as the outside world.
- How will Lisk and TBH ensure user data privacy in compliance with local regulations?
- What mechanisms are in place to prevent censorship and ensure access to a diverse range of dApps?
- How will the partnership navigate potential conflicts between decentralized ideals and centralized control?
We can only hope that Lisk’s Asia pivot really does democratize Web3. Let’s go ahead and acknowledge that maybe it doesn’t move it forward, it just centralizes it. The long-term success of Web3 hinges on us asking the right questions today.
It's easy to get caught up in the hype of new technology and big partnerships. But the crypto community needs to stay vigilant, to hold projects accountable, and to demand that true decentralization remains the ultimate goal. The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance, and that's true in the digital world as much as it is in the physical one.
Let's hope that Lisk's Asia move truly democratizes Web3. But let's also be prepared for the possibility that it just centralizes it. The future of Web3 depends on us asking the right questions now.
