The proliferation of cryptocurrencies world wide has been pushed by totally different use-cases, with key variations turning into obvious between developed and rising market environments.
Lou Yu, who heads up KuCoin Labs, tackled the topic after a keynote tackle in the course of the second day of Blockchain Economic system Istanbul in Turkey. In an unique interview with Cointelegraph, Yu unpacked her expertise working with a wide range of initiatives and corporations world wide and the important thing variations between major and secondary markets.

Cointelegraph editor Erhan Karahman interviews KuCoin Labs head Lou Yu at Blockchain Economic system Istanbul.
Kucoin operates in over 200 international locations globally and is properly positioned to offer insights into the buying and selling habits and tendencies in addition to the improvements within the house, on condition that it lists, invests and helps numerous cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused initiatives.
Yu famous that buying and selling communities are notably lively in rising markets, extra so than their developed counterparts, that are much less lively regardless of superior quantities of capital. Whereas these rising markets use cryptocurrencies ceaselessly, initiatives from these areas may do higher to intention their companies at native markets:
“We’re seeing all the info right here from secondary markets and we predict it’s extra related for native initiatives to profit the native economic system, and never simply take merchandise to america to profit merchants there for instance.”
The potential for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to deal with distinctive challenges in rising markets has been a theme at Blockchain Economic system Istanbul and Yu additionally believes that industry-shaping initiatives may properly emerge from growing international locations.
Associated: 75% of buyers in rising markets need extra crypto: Survey
The KuCoin Labs head highlighted the propensity for developed markets like Europe and america to make use of blockchain primarily for cryptocurrencies. In the meantime, rising markets are utilizing the know-how not solely to make use of and commerce cryptocurrencies however to construct instruments and merchandise to resolve vexing issues:
“For developed markets it is a interest, for rising markets it is a necessity. In rising international locations, individuals are missing numerous instruments and infrastructure and are most likely restricted by language boundaries, political, geographical, technological and financial boundaries.”
Yu stated that rising international locations are extra in want of the basic infrastructure in Web3 to resolve issues that Web2 hasn’t y. She additionally famous that a lot of the KuCoin Labs portfolio is made up of initiatives from developed international locations. The initiatives that do hail from rising international locations don’t give attention to providing their product or companies to their native market, as a substitute specializing in addressing and serving the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Yu burdened that the incubator has been targeted on connecting the ecosystem by working with different exchanges, launchpads in addition to layer-1 and layer2 protocols. Monetary funding in initiatives from rising markets is a focus, alongside networking and constructing potential enterprise partnerships.