Philippine Web3 Festival Donates PHP 1 Million to Apl.de.Ap Foundation

At the conclusion of the Philippine Web3 Festival, held November 14-18, 2022, in Bonifacio Global City, Metro Manila, festival co-hosts Yield Guild Games (YGG) and BlockchainSpace donated PHP 1,000,000 to the Apl.de.Ap Foundation to support Filipinos in uncovering earning opportunities in web3 while advancing education, art and technology in the Philippines. The funds will be used for training programs that will allow individuals to find work in the creative industry, whether in music, audio engineering, podcasts, design or illustration.

Filipino artist Allan Pineda, popularly known as Apl.de.Ap of the multi-Grammy Award-winning music group Black Eyed Peas (BEP), founded the Apl.de.Ap Foundation in 2012 to empower Filipino youth and communities. Pineda accepted the donation on November 17 following a fireside chat with Director of Emfarsis, Leah Callon-Butler, titled “How Filipino Creators Will Take on the World.” During the talk, Pineda talked about the importance of pursuing creativity and how he sees the Philippines now being primed to support such passion economically. 

“I heard horrible stories about Filipinos creating logos for companies but they only get paid US$20 to US$30 because they're not known as artists,” said Pineda, who traveled across the Philippines in 2018 to meet with local creators and launched a scholarship program to teach them about entrepreneurship and business. “I realized that Filipinos weren’t being judged by their creative talent, they were judged by where they're from,” said Pineda.

“Web3 protects creators’ work from being copied or stolen, and gives them access to the global economy, so they can explore much more,” said Pineda. “The possibilities are endless with technology and we have to grow this industry in the Philippines because it is a new era for us.” 

At the Philippine Web3 Festival, Pineda performed two songs live: Bebot, a song from the BEP 2005 album, Monkey Business, which was written by Pineda and rapped entirely in Filipino, and Filipina Queen, from the BEP’s latest album, ELEVATION, released on 11 November 2022.

As an advocate for Filipino creativity, Pineda has consistently used his global personal brand to showcase Filipino culture to the world. In 2021, he collaborated with Filipino artist AJ Dimarucot to launch an NFT collection, donating a portion of the proceeds to the First Mint Fund, which provides finance and education to Southeast Asian creators to help them mint their first NFT. 

“Apl’s efforts in charity and empowering artists resonates with what web3 is doing for creators here in the Philippines and all over the world. Our donation to the Apl.de.ap Foundation is just one step to enable more talent to discover web3 and benefit from the possibilities of this digital economy,” said Gabby Dizon, co-founder of YGG.

“This week has been a celebration of talent and creativity for web3. We are glad that Apl.de.Ap understands and supports the vision that we have for web3, especially on how it can empower creatives,” said Peter Ing, founder of BlockchainSpace.

The festival was the first and biggest week-long event showcasing the future of web3 in the country. Co-hosted by Yield Guild Games and BlockchainSpace with support from Infinity Ventures Crypto and Emfarsis, a variety of crypto projects, web3 games, guilds and VCs from all over the world convened to the epicenter of web3 adoption, the Philippines. 

The event was co-presented by GCash, Globe and MetaverseGo, as well as supported by Binance, Polygon, Huawei, Angkas, XPLA, MetaCene, MixMarvel, Rangers Protocol, BNB Chain and XY Finance. 

BlockchainSpace launches Guild Hub to legitimize guilds, web3 communities

[L-R] Jen Bilango, Guild Hub General Manager, LLGMobius Founder Lucas Low, MVP CEO Gerb Inajada, and BlockchainSpace (BSPC) CEO and Founder Peter Ing discussed the role of guilds in the metaverse, opportunities and challenges of guilds and BSPC’s commitment to guild empowerment during the launch of Guild Hub.

The emergence of online communities in Web3 such as gaming guilds have been instrumental in driving Web3 adoption among Filipinos, creating opportunities for entrepreneurship and financial stability. However, guild owners have yet to formally legitimize their businesses, which BlockchainSpace (BSPC), the leading data aggregator and infrastructure provider for guilds and Web3 projects, seeks to achieve through the launch of its new project, Guild Hub.

BlockchainSpace (BSPC) CEO and Founder Peter Ing shared that the company is dedicated to fostering guild growth by addressing the issue of business legitimacy.

“Cryptocurrency adoption wouldn’t have reached the level it has today if not for the guild owners and managers who took the initiative to help aspiring Web3 users to enter and thrive in the space,” said BSPC CEO and Founder Peter Ing, whose company strongly advocates guild growth through tooling, financing, networking, and now, with Guild Hub.

[L-R] LLGMobius Founder Lucas Low and MVP CEO Gerb Inajada talked about the potential of guilds as well as the issues they face and opportunities to take advantage of for guilds such as theirs.

Despite the crucial role of guilds in cryptocurrency adoption, representatives from Metaverse Ventures Platform, Inc. (MVP) and LimitLess Guild (LLG) Mobius still experience various challenges in recognition as legitimate businesses outside the space, hindering them from more opportunities and further growth.

“Web3 gaming being recognized and accepted as a profession by other institutions has been a major challenge for us in unlocking more opportunities for our members. As long as guilds have this problem, we won’t be able to reach our fullest potential and ensure long-term sustainability for our businesses,” shared MVP CEO Gerb Inajada.

“We believe that the GameFi community is one of the key drivers of web3 development. As part of the ecosystem, we work together to become good actors and foster growth together. We assist each other to unlock our full potential, improve our overall perception, and augment our impact in the community,” LLGMobius Founder Lucas Low added.

Guild Hub General Manager Jen Bilango shared that identity will be the key to effective and efficient product & services discovery and scalable community engagement, which Guild Hub will capitalize on.

Guild Hub General Manager Jen Bilango shared that identity will be the key to effective and efficient product & services discovery and scalable community engagement, which Guild Hub will capitalize on.

BSPC’s Guild Hub aims to solve the issue of business legitimacy, guaranteeing a more effective way of policing the community and ensuring that all guilds are accounted for and safe to partner with. With Guild Hub, guilds are provided a ‘Guild Profile’, a BSPC-issued identity that allows them to access several projects and platforms and view services, platforms, products, crypto on-ramps and off-ramps, news, and analytics. 

Games will also be able to determine which guilds to partner with through Guild Hub, while players can find out which communities to connect with, resulting in effective and efficient product & services discovery and scalable community engagement.

“The launch of Guild Hub marks the beginning of a new era for guilds. As we at BSPC work to help Web3 businesses gain legitimacy, they’ll be able to enjoy business opportunities to impact not only their members but also communities outside the metaverse,” said Guild Hub General manager Jen Bilango.

Top Business Leaders: Broader adoption of Web3 to create fresh jobs, livelihood for Filipinos

Photo by Pan Yunbo on Unsplash

The Future is Web3, and the future is now. Even if you have  little to zero knowledge about Web3, chances you might have taken part to it already. And the Philippines has ranked 2nd in digital asset adoption, which was accelerated and somewhat gone mainstream due to the pandemic. 

Top names in the field, early innovators and businesses, shared their insights on how Web3 will shape the future and how it will bring opportunities and create more jobs for Filipinos.