What's Trending In 2023: Web3 A report by CoinTelegraph suggests that India is home to over 450 Web3 startups of which four are unicorn companies. The Indian Web3.0 ecosystem has clocked $1.3 billion in funding in April of 2022

Web3 has become a buzz word in India with a lot of people keen on the 'decentralized web'. There has been immense development in the space with more companies setting up base in India while tech giants like Apple and Microsoft are listing vacancies in their respective ARVR division. According to reports, Web3 is one of the fastest growing sectors globally. According to NASSCOM, India holds approximately 11 per cent of the global Web3 talent making India one of the world's largest Web3 workforce contributor, employing approximately 75,000 blockchain professionals. India is looking to lead the Web3 space globally as PM Narendra Modi greenlit the 5G project which will lead to higher data speeds and lower latency which is needed for Web3 use cases.

Another report by CoinTelegraph suggests that India is home to over 450 Web3 startups of which four are unicorn companies. The Indian Web3.0 ecosystem has clocked $1.3 billion in funding in April of 2022. The Indian landscape of Web3 has been shifting at a rapid pace despite the Covid pause. Finishing the year on a high, here are three trends that the sector might witness in the coming year:

The Rise of Metaverse

Metaverse has been on constant rise throughout the year. Organisationsike Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Huawei, Qualcomm have all come together to form Metaverse Standards Forum. Apple and Google are working on their own metaverse as well as the technology to enable it i.e. the ARVR headsets.

According to a report by Deloitte, the potential impact of metaverse in India by 2035 will be in the range of $79 billion to $148 billion per year contributing approximately 1.3 to 2.4 per cent of overall gross domestic product (GDP).

Metaverse has found different use cases in different sectors such as entertainment (concerts, live shows), education (immersive learning), health (simulation-based operations), etc.

Gaming: A Sunrise sector

India has been one of the new and prominent markets for gaming. Indian gaming sector has grown by leaps and bounds. The gaming sector in India is worth $2.6 billion in FY22 with a potential to grow to $8.6 billion by 2027 growing at a compound annual growth rate of 27 per cent.

According to a report by Lumikai, there are approximately 507 million gamers in the country. The number is expected to touch $700 milllion by FY 2025 growing at a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent. Nearly 48 per cent of gamers spent money on mid-core games, while 65 per cent of paying gamers said they made in-app purchases at least once.

Indian gaming companies are on track to raise $513 million for the calendar year 2022. The gaming sector funding is up 380 per cent from 2019 and up 23 per cent from 2020.

"We are planning to cater Web3.0 gaming projects and rollout solutions in that particular area. We are getting in Metaverse solutions as well. It is still early stages but we are looking forward to catering solutions that involve metaverse, blockchain, NFTs and Web3.0," said Bharat Patel, chairman and director, Yudiz Solutions.

Regulation of Web3 and Crypto on the Cards

Regulation of Web3 companies as well as crypto has been a thorn in the side of the government. However, the formation of Bharat Web3 Association as well as India's neutral stance on Web3 has amped up the chances of regulation.

"No one single country can succeed in individually, being in a silo, trying to regulate the crypto assets," said finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her speech at an annual ecent hosted by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.

There have been taxes imposed on crypto transactions. However, the stance of the government is to regulate the crypto asssets as well as Web3.

"The centralized side of Web3 might witness more trouble. However, it might also get more regulated," said Swapnil Pawar, founder, Newrl.

India assumed G-20 presidency in December and has been in strong favour of regulating crypto assets as well as the Web3 sector with the help of its fellow G20 members.

"We truly believe 2023 will be the year when Web3 will witness increased penetration, connecting Web3 with the real world and augmenting traditional backend systems with blockchain technology. As the underlying tech is strong, the secular trend will continue to be upward; eventually, more customers will demand transactions and services on blockchain as use cases built in a decentralized manner has the potential to give a 10 times better experience. With the next bull run, more users will onboard Web3 Apps and products; hence it's extremely crucial to get the core infrastructure right to ensure systems are built and ready for scale," said Rohit Jain, MD, CoinDCX Ventures.