Can Web3 maintain its role in the future digital economy amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence? In this interview, Mykhailo Adzhoiev, CEO of Cowchain and a serial Web3 entrepreneur, shares his perspective on the future of the blockchain industry, decentralized technologies, and digital assets.
We discuss the impact of AI on Web3, the key trends shaping the crypto market, and the challenges facing blockchain startups today. This conversation is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of cryptocurrency, blockchain innovation, and the evolution of the decentralized internet.
Defining the Web3 Revolution: From Centralized Servers to Global Nodes
Danylo: Web3 is a term often used but rarely understood. From a technical perspective, how do you define it?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: The simplest way to understand the shift is to look at where data lives. In Web2, platforms like Facebook or Amazon operate on centralized servers. When you click a button, you are sending a request to a database owned and controlled by a single corporation.
Web3 is built on the concept of decentralization. Instead of one central server, we have a distributed ledger or blockchain. Data and interactions are processed across thousands of independent servers called nodes, owned by different people and companies globally. This fundamental change means that no single entity has total control, making the system more resilient and transparent.
The Cowchain Story: Milka Chocolate and Lightning Decisions
Danylo: Cowchain is a unique name for a tech company. How did it all begin?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: My journey started in 2015 in Web2 software development, but I fell in love with blockchain while working on car insurance tech for Allianz in 2019. The name Cowchain was actually a random, "lightning-fast" decision. I was drinking tea with Milka chocolate, saw the purple cow, and thought "Purple Cow Chain?" I googled it, saw 37 other companies with similar names, and shortened it to Cowchain.
Starting the company wasn't easy. I tried to build the team three different times with friends, but we were always too scared to leave our stable jobs. Finally, I met a partner at a party who was a salesman but lacked a technical co-founder. We grew that team from five to 30 people in three months. Eventually, I took the four best engineers from that group to launch Cowchain as a solo founder with just $20,000 in initial capital.
The AI Integration Strategy: Tool, Not Core Value
Danylo: Many founders are now pivoting entirely to AI. Is Web3 still a viable path?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: I believe the most successful approach is building a Web3 product that integrates AI to accelerate growth, rather than making AI the core value itself. If your only value is a specific AI feature — like video or audio production — a better-funded competitor can overtake you overnight by simply adding that feature to a larger platform.
In our company, we use AI across every department:
- HR and Sales: For building pipelines and researching markets.
- Development: To plan work and build simple components like front-end markups.
- The Limit: We do not use AI for code that handles money, private keys, or custodial management. The security risk of AI-generated code being hacked is currently too high for production-level finance.
Combatting the "North Korean" Scammers
Danylo: You’ve mentioned that 20-30% of development proposals are scams. How do you protect your team?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: We see two types of scams: people wanting us to build "drainers" (which we always decline) and people trying to hack us via malicious GitHub links.
Because many scammers in the crypto space originate from North Korea, we use a unique "test." We send a specific sentence in North Korean that is highly insulting to their leader. If they are indeed scammers from that region, they usually delete their Telegram account or leave the chat instantly. It’s a practical, if unconventional, way to filter out bad actors.
The Economics of Web3: From $10k MVPs to $30M Liquidity
Danylo: What is the real cost of launching a project in today's market?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: It varies depending on your stage of development:
- Proof of Concept (MVP): You can start with $10,000 and use AI to build a testable solution in just one week. This is the best way to verify market demand before burning your life savings.
- Production-Ready Product: A secure, optimized, and professionally designed platform usually costs between $50,000 and $70,000.
- The Forking Myth: You can "fork" (copy) the code for a giant like Uniswap for under 10k. However, without 30 million in liquidity , that platform is essentially useless.
The Anatoly Yakovenko "Billion-Dollar Rule"
Danylo: Where do market trends and "narratives" come from?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: The industry is entirely narrative-driven. One of our clients paid $40,000 for a 30-minute call with Anatoly Yakovenko (founder of Solana). Anatoly’s advice was blunt: "Do you have a billion dollars? If no, your product will fail".
His point was that if you don't have a billion dollars, you cannot create a trend. You must either join an existing narrative created by the "big guys" (like Andreessen Horowitz or major VCs) or build something specifically to raise the capital needed to join that narrative later.
The Future: Institutional Adoption vs. On-Chain Gambling
Danylo: What does Web3 look like five years from now?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: We are seeing two distinct paths. One is institutional adoption: companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are integrating crypto for real-world payments and tokenization. This brings genuine value to the global economy.
The other path is what Web3 is becoming internally: a space for incentive-driven gambling. Much of what was previously called "technology" is now being unmasked as pure speculation.
Danylo: And what about decentralization?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: In many cases, decentralization is a myth. While the nodes are spread out, half of them are often held by centralized companies, and many Layer 2 blockchains rely on centralized "sequencers". However, Web3 will become much easier to use—user experiences will finally match Web2 standards thanks to AI.
Final Advice: Psychology and Self-Leadership
Danylo: To wrap up, what do you recommend for those leading these projects?
Mykhailo Adzhoiev: Don't just read business books. I focus on psychology and philosophy. I highly recommend the works of Karen Horney on how past traumas affect current leadership patterns. If you want to be a leader, you must understand yourself and your team first. Knowledge is now equalized by AI, but real experience and human networks remain the only things AI cannot replace.
