Eric Ma, Deeper Network: 'Web 2 Is on Its Way Out, and Web 3 Is the Answer'

A crucial ingredient for the success of Web 3 is the security with which people can safely access the internet, according to one chief marketing officer who has been building in the crypto space since 2016.

Eric Ma, CMO of Deeper Network, said there’s a massive void for cybersecurity networks at home and on the road. Companies already invest millions of dollars in security for their offices. However, as soon as people return home or travel on the road, vulnerabilities in people’s technologies persist and make it possible for sensitive information to get leaked.

This article is part of Road to Consensus.

Deeper Network is one of eight finalists in the inaugural Web 3 Pitch Fest, which is being hosted by Extreme Tech Challenge and CoinDesk and is part of the Consensus festival, which is being held June 9-12 in Austin, Texas. With the startup’s plug-and-play working product that links to other nodes globally, people have a decentralized virtual private network (VPN) that offers enterprise-grade cybersecurity through seven layers of firewall protection.

This was especially helpful when Ma was in Hong Kong during the Umbrella Movement.

Even though the Chinese government was cracking down on people’s access to the internet, Ma was able to use Deeper Network’s device to connect to the web, giving him the freedom and security to browse as he pleased.

“It’s great to be one of the few in the [Web 3] space with an actual working product,” Ma said in an interview with CoinDesk.

The advantages of Deeper Network’s decentralized private network with currently 70,000 nodes include peer-to-peer bandwidth sharing to protect one’s privacy and users becoming their own VPN clients and servers.

“Web 2 is on its way out, and Web 3 is the answer,” Ma said. “Right now, [with] Web 2, all the conglomerates own everything, and with Web 3, we’re going to be our own services, get paid for it and everything will be safer, more secure and more private.”