GWDC 2026 Korea was held on Sept. 29-30, 2026, at aT Center in Seoul, South Korea. The event was hosted by Web3Labs and co-hosted by Techub News, HypaiLabs, and TokenPost.
Speaking during a panel discussion, Roy Kek, co-founder and CEO of EMERGE Group, said the narratives that gained traction in past market cycles shared a common feature: ordinary consumers could understand them. He said Web3 has always been an attention economy.
Consumer-facing narratives matter
Kek said institutional themes and real-world assets, or RWA, may sound attractive, but mainstream users do not necessarily understand them. He added that he is personally optimistic about a direction that combines AI short dramas with on-chain distribution platforms.
In the AI era, distribution matters more than technical barriers
Kek said technical barriers have largely disappeared in the AI era and that a product can go live in two days. In that environment, he said, distribution is what matters.
He broke distribution into three layers:
- capturing attention
- reaching the right target users
- converting users into paying customers
He also criticized many projects for focusing only on inflating user numbers for investors while spending marketing budgets irresponsibly.
Liquidity is still the key catalyst
Comparing the current cycle with the previous one, Kek said almost everything has changed and liquidity is thin. He added that founders with distribution channels and early user networks will continue to widen their advantage.
On the next catalyst for the market, Kek said the key issue is still liquidity. He said the industry should not rely only on institutional capital and needs a narrative that everyone can understand and that is large enough in market size to bring retail participants back in.