In many ways, 2023 felt like a palate cleanser for the $1.7 trillion cryptocurrency market. The implosions, scams, outright frauds and rug pulls of 2022 have been well-covered here at Decential as well as in the broader trade press, and the hangover from those setbacks extended well into last year. There were regulatory issues — Binance and its founder CZ got nailed by the U.S. Justice Department for facilitating money laundering, Kraken was forced to end its staking program by U.S. regulators and the trial of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried captured the attention of everyone in the space. He was rightfully convicted on all counts.

But there were some victories. Coinbase and Ripple notched wins against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission thanks to the court system. Coinbase continues to challenge the heavy hand of Gary Gensler at the helm of the SEC, with its Stand With Crypto alliance pledging to educate lawmakers in Washington about the unique possibilities afforded by digital assets. This was all of course set against a tough bear market where prices for much of 2023 languished.

Well, prices are up and it’s a new year. We wanted to take that opportunity to speak to some of our favorite people who are building web3 projects or on-chain music startups or helping ease the way for crypto with regulators around the world. There’s a mix of the optimism, pragmatism and the grit that makes web3 such a wonderful industry to cover in our conversations below. We hope you enjoy them, learn from them and take these sentiments with you into the new year. — Matthew Leising, editor in chief, Decential Media

Black Dave

Black Dave is a musician, producer, rapper, visual artist, anime and streetwear aficionado and web3 pioneer who continues to push the bounds of what artists can do in the still-nascent sandbox of where music meets blockchain.

Steph Guerrero

Steph Guerrero made the jump to web3 after spending years in various marketing positions at Universal Music Group. Across her consultancy, Goat for Mars, and leadership roles at Tellie and Legato, Guerrero has become one of on-chain music's most trusted voices.

Matthew Chaim

Matthew Chaim is a musician, songwriter, and the founder of Songcamp, a community of musicians, artists and strategists with a deep interest in learning what happens when music and the new Internet crash into each other.

Ji Kim

Ji Hun Kim is the general counsel & head of global policy at the Crypto Council for Innovation, a global alliance for advancing the promise of digital assets through research, education, policy, advocacy and litigation strategy. 

Lee Bratcher

Lee Bratcher is the founder and president of the Texas Blockchain Council – an industry association that seeks to make the state the jurisdiction of choice for Bitcoin, crypto and blockchain innovation. The Texas Blockchain Council hosts the annual North American Blockchain Summit. 

Erbil Karaman

Erbil Karaman is the co-founder of Huma Finance, an on-chain credit platform providing income-backed DeFi loans to those who need crypto capital. Before making the move over to the web3 start-up, Erbil spent a decade in Silicon Valley and held roles at tech giants Lyft and Facebook. 

Stan Kosyakov

Stan Kosyakov is a co-founder of Renora Technologies, a software-as-a-aervice platform that automates crypto market moves for investors. An engineer and chief technology officer, he spends his days scrutinizing macro and micro forces to provide the insights to clients with an emphasis on the Singapore ecosystem more broadly. He runs brunch meetups to help traditional investors understand and feel confident in investing in digital assets.

Steve Vallas

Steve Vallas is managing director of Blockchain APAC. Steve is considered one of the foremost voices in Australia on blockchain and serves as a conduit between the country's financial regulators and the crypto ecosystem. He was previously CEO the industry body Blockchain Australia. In 2023, he visited crypto jurisdictions around the world to attend conferences and meet with financial regulators.

Su Yen Chia

Su Yen Chia is founder of the Asia Crypto Alliance, an advocacy group that speaks to financial regulators across Asia on behalf of its members. Several of Asia's governments have shown foresight and pragmatism with regards to their policy stances on cryptocurrency adoption, acting as a positive influence for other jurisdictions globally. 

Clon

Cool Cats founder Clon (Colin Egan) discusses plans for Cool Cats to enter the animated television space this year—ideally via one of the larger streaming services—and evolving their website to be more of an app that helps facilitate participants in the Cool Cats ecosystem. He also shares his thoughts on the current bear market and how he believes we'll see an emergence of new blockchains popping up in 2024, which will bring new people and innovations to the web3 space.

Jim Evans

Legendary artist Jim Evans—known for his work on music and movie posters, album covers for groups like Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys and all the major Hollywood studios—shares his thoughts on the current state of NFTs and what he hopes blockchain can bring the art world in 2024. Jim also discusses his recent collaboration with SCOPE at Art Basel Miami—a huge installation that animated his works in giant IMAX resolution—and his potential plans to do similar work this year.

WARHODL

Decentralized pop-artist WARHODL (Taylor Good)—known for his web3 twist on Andy Warhol's iconic "Campbell's Soup Cans"—shares his plans to get back to basics this year and continue generating more art. He believes 2024 will lead to the actualization and execution of many partnerships—like his previous collaborations with Paris Hilton and SoHo House—and feels the current down market is allowing for increased creativity for the year to come.