The trend towards super-apps, which started with WeChat, has become a major trend; now that AI is in the spotlight, super-apps are the dark horse; mass adoption of Web 3.0 may lie beyond sophisticated super-apps.
Even apps that have not yet announced themselves as super-apps
Many have potential.
For some time, the question of how to achieve ‘mass adoption’ in the NFTs, metaverse and crypto assets encompassed within the Web 3.0 domain has been an issue.
As we enter the year 2023, this is becoming more and more likely.
According to research by Dapprader, between 2021 and 2022, global NFT turnover fell from USD 25.1 billion to USD 24.7 billion. At first glance, NFTs may appear to be an orphan flower that bloomed as a result of the flood of investment money from the global monetary easing following the Corona disaster, but the study also shows that trading volumes have increased significantly.
From 58.6 million transactions in 2021, the volume of NFTs has increased to 101 million transactions in 2022. These figures imply that NFTs are moving from being purchased from a speculative perspective to actually being utilised, and that they are entering a phase in which they are being sought out based on their utility as a value criterion.
In relation to regulations, a large gap is being observed between Japan and other countries. A typical example is the issue of securities for NBA Top Shot in the US.
The SEC considered the NFT to be securities, but no such case has emerged in Japan.
This is evidence that Japan has led the world in tightening crypto-asset regulations. In other words, in Japan, the use of NFTs in compliance with the guidelines is not grey, but permitted.
Wallets are an inseparable part of the process of these next-generation technologies taking root in real life. Whether custodial or not, it is said that the winners of the next era will be those who control the wallet market, and by linking wallets to applications that have already completed basic KYC at the start of use, a structure is created whereby the number of users of a social network or application ≈ the number of holders of their own wallet. This creates a composition of the number of users of SNSs or applications ≈ the number of holders of proprietary wallets.
In the Web 2.0 era, the strong players who have expanded their businesses through SNSs are now making their moves, as they see the next business opportunity here. In other words, 2023 is a year in which there is an extremely high possibility of the emergence of a multi-functional NEXT SNS (super-application).
In this special feature, the reasons why existing SNSs are aiming to become super-apps will be unravelled from the history and future predictions of the birth of super-apps, and the future development and beneficial use of applications will be presented based on this.
