During the first week of November 2022, the Web Summit, hosted in Lisbon, Portugal, brought together over 70,000 attendees from across the globe. Perspectives on the opportunities and challenges facing business, innovation, and government were discussed.

Beyond speaking engagements, the Web Summit featured pitch competitions and afterparties, including onewith DJsDavid Guetta and Armin Van Buren.

Benzinga attended and spoke with Tegan Kline, the co-founder and head of business at Edge & Node, the initial team behind The Graph protocol. Heres the conversation that transpired.

The following text was edited for clarity and concision.

Q: Hi Tegan, nice to meet you. Care to start off with an introduction?

Kline: I grew up in a really small town in Ohio and I hated it. From the age of eight, I desired to move to New York City. However, everyone thought I was crazy.

No one leaves this town, I was told.

Eventually, I accepted a full scholarship to Baruch College in New York City, and I worked really hard. From middle school to high school I dedicated myself to leaving Ohio.

What did you pursue immediately after school? Banking, right?

I was torn between fashion and finance. I ended up choosing Wall Street, and I was one of the first people from Baruch to accept an offer from Bank of America, to work in their Financial Institutions Group (FIG), the nerdiest of them all.

Eventually, I left for San Francisco. Barclayspromoted me, and I moved to sales and trading. Then, during my first week in San Francisco, I learned about Ethereum ETH/USD . This was the very early days.

I was the crazy girl on the trading floor telling everyone they need to get into crypto. Ultimately, I left for crypto full-time. I thought it was riskier to stay in banking. The space was likely to shrink.

After leaving traditional finance, what was the first thing you jumped into?

I joined a project for a few months. Soon after, I left to build a private Layer 1 blockchain with a decentralized VPN on top. Given that it was backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia, I thought it was a safe move.

What was your role, there?

I focused on business development and investor relations. I wanted everyone to have equal access to the internet, which is very segmented. In China, for example, you cant access the same internet as you can in the US.

Then, that project pivoted into building a decentralized VPN on Ethereum.

What did you do after that?

I still really wanted to help people get equal access. I moved over to the infrastructure layer. I realized the application layer on blockchains was not ready because the infrastructure wasnt ready, and I joined The Graph ecosystem where there are over 65,000 Subgraphs, a proxy for applications on top, and thats exponentially growing every month.

Were providing the infrastructure for applications to build.

In light of all the volatility, where do you see this space heading?

With any new technological advancement, you're going to see booms and busts.

That's because there's so much opportunity for the future in it. And, with that, youll see a lot of people take advantage of that. They come to scam people out of money.

Before people put their money in crypto, they need to make sure there's something to actually use. Focus, too, on the number of users and developers. Is the usage there, and is it growing?

The Graph ecosystem is growing, right?

Yes. The number of GRT query fees on the network is going up by over 20% month over month. The number of developers is going up over 10% to 15% month over month.

You're still seeing a lot of usage and building within The Graph ecosystem. I think that's really what you want to focus on and kind of ignore anything speculative, or the market.

At the end of the day, tokens are supposed to be for utility, meaning there needs to be something behind them, for you to use them.

What are your thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)?

Ever since the U.S. central bank was created, the dollar has declined by 98%. That's stealing from the people holding dollars. I think that's why Bitcoin BTC/USD was created. Its a hedge against that. Additionally, CBDCs may be used as a mass surveillance tool.

On the topic of Web3, what are you doing there?

Theres so much opportunity and room for value creation. Blockchains enable meritocracy. Its about the value you create. You get compensated for that.

That said, we're in the early days of Web3. The infrastructure is still being built, and we see use cases within DeFi, NFTs and DAOs. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

When the Web3 stack comes together, that's fully decentralized, you will see more innovation and use cases unlocked.

Within these ecosystems, what are you focused on?

I'm focused on The Graph, at the open data layer.

What Google does for the traditional web, The Graph does for Web3 and organizing the data.

So, you have data on top of blockchains. It's really hard to get that data out. Usually, you have to put a centralized server in the middle to be able to access that data. The Graph decentralizes it, and there's no central authority that can de-platform you.

When youre looking out a year from now or so, where do you see things moving?

We'll see Web3 start to come together, and social media will be a big use case. Social media and Web2 are very siloed. You have to grow your followers and, if you move platforms, those followers do not come with you.

Also, you can have moderation protocols. So, let's say I don't want to see Donald Trump's stuff, I should be the one choosing that. It shouldn't be the platform choosing that. You can, also, opt into different moderation protocols, and get paid to moderate.

Whats the best way for someone to become better versed in these spaces?

Going to events is the best way. You also want to listen to podcasts and educate yourself.

Theres Devcon, which just happened. It's the biggest event. Then, theres Graph Day, within the graph ecosystem. Each ecosystem has its own event. We're here at Web Summit, and there are a lot of talks about Web3 and crypto.

Have we reached a rate of adoption that you cannot stop?

I think network effects are a really big thing in crypto. It's a bottoms-up movement. Frankly, the banks and the larger institutions ignored crypto for so long, and, now, they're starting to realize the potential. Some are fighting it. Some are getting involved.

That said, I think it's great that the banking industry ignored crypto for so long because that's why we are where we are today. When I got into crypto, I thought it could go to zero. Today, I don't think that's true. There's so much adoption.

What happens to the banks and traditional financial institutions, given the disruptions?

It's tricky because the banks have their own niche, and many are feeling crypto threatens their power. I think they're still kind of at that point of biting it.

Maybe some of them will acquire things, but it's unlikely that they acquire them to expand it. It'll be more likely that they acquire it to squash it.

I think banks are ripe for innovation. For instance, the tech stacks at banks are clunky. There are middle and back offices focused on fixing those tech stacks.

Whats a direction banks may shift toward?

DeFi. Decentralized finance it's just so much more efficient. It's only a matter of time.

Youll still want someone to call you, though, and let you know about liquidations and having to add money to your account. In DeFi you dont need that. So, I think the banks will still play that role within the decentralized finance space.