Amy Wu of FTX: ‘It’s Good for People to Remain Paranoid’ About Web3

In the latest episode of Decrypt’s gm podcast, Amy Wu, head of FTX’s $2 billion Web3 fund, weighed in on Jack Dorsey’s beef with the concept and VC firm Andreesen Horowitz’s outsized role in the space.

Overall, she said healthy skeptics like herself will help keep the Web3 ecosystem, well, healthy.

“There’s this constant narrative and paranoia that Web3 will become centralized, just like the previous rise of industries and the Internet, etc.,” she said. “I think it’s good for people to remain paranoid about it, and to call out bad actors.”

In December, Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk derided Web3 as merely a buzzword, something that ultimately will be centralized and controlled by VCs—especially Andreesen Horowitz (a16z). This was shortly after Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter, which has since moved to adopt more non-Bitcoin-related projects, including an Ether tip jar.

Wu told Decrypt that she doesn’t believe a16z is among any alleged “bad actors,” and that most of the industry is “swimming in the same direction” at the moment, largely due to its youth. She also acknowledged what a giant competitor a16z is among crypto funds.

Web2 them vs. Web3 them

Wu said Web3 will attract many Web2 developers to its ecosystem, particularly after numerous cross-chain protocols go live later this year. These bridges could make developers more confident in working on new products on one particular chain.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said he believes the future of crypto to be “multi-chain,” not “cross-chain,” citing potential security vulnerabilities in bridge protocols as the primary reason—a concern proven true in a $320 million hack only a month later.

Wu said she believes better security will come with time. Regarding the frequency of rug pulls in the crypto world, she sees the potential of both automated and decentralized auditing of smart contracts.

Listen to the full episode at the Spotify link above or wherever you get your podcasts.