Dry Powder: The Private Equity Podcast
If you haven’t dipped your toe into the web3 universe, there are plenty of reasons to proceed with caution—and plenty of reasons to dive right in.
You can listen to this episode of Dry Powder and catch future episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you may listen.
“We’ve had a chance to look at hundreds, maybe thousands, of web3 assets,” says Thomas Olsen, the global coleader of Bain’s web3 and metaverse work. “I’d say probably more than half of those are unsustainable models, but there are actually very interesting assets there that have real structural value.”
I invited Thomas on Dry Powder to explain why investors have poured more than $90 billion into the web3 space, primarily over the past three years. At the heart of this massive build-out is a question: How will these technologies enable users to interact in novel and more efficient ways?
Ask yourself: Why is it that if I wire money to a bank in London, it takes three days to turn up?
Why do we have 19th- and 20th-century technologies in our financial services system?
Why can I only buy a stock from 9:30 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday, but I can buy Bitcoin instantaneously, around the clock, 365 days a year?
When you consider the inefficiencies that are allowed to persist in vast swaths of our economy, you’ll realize the potential of web3 to remove middlemen, address these huge inefficiencies, and make people’s lives more convenient and transactions less costly.
Forget Bored Ape NFTs and the price of Bitcoin. Today on Dry Powder, Thomas will explain where to begin with web3.
The Private Equity Podcast
In our podcast series, Bain's Hugh MacArthur interviews leading experts on the trends and opportunities that will redefine the private equity industry.