Charles Wayn: From Fashion to Web3 Innovator
In 2015, on a college campus in California, a student named Charles Wayn was busy connecting clothing designers with retail stores through a small, self-made platform. At that time, he had no idea that he would become one of the important figures in the Web3 world. But life often doesn’t follow the map, right?
After completing his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Charles had a career in the fashion industry. He even helped found a fashion incubator community in China. However, it was after that that his life direction changed completely. He switched to the world of streaming and blockchain, a leap that, if you think about it, might sound pretty crazy to the layman.
On the other hand, this decision led him to found DLive — a blockchain-based streaming platform that was later acquired by BitTorrent in 2019. DLive was once the largest live streaming platform running on blockchain technology.
After the acquisition, Charles served as Vice President of Interactive Entertainment at BitTorrent, managing a number of streaming-based entertainment business units.
Charles Wayn: Turning Digital Identity Into Web3 Loyalty
Despite being in a strategic position, Charles didn’t stop there. He felt that there was still a large untapped space in the blockchain ecosystem, especially regarding digital identity. So in 2021, together with his team, he launched Galxe — formerly known as Project Galaxy.
What is Galxe? Think of it as a blockchain version of a loyalty and membership system. The project allows Web3 developers and communities to design campaigns based on identity and credentials on-chain.
Instead of just giving random rewards, Galxe encourages a more structured and relevant system, a kind of “digital badge” that records the history of user contributions. To date, Galxe has served over 25 million users and collaborated with over 4,000 major Web3 projects, including Polygon and Arbitrum.
Gravity: Bridging the Gaps Between Chains
After successfully building a loyalty ecosystem, Charles and the Galxe team began to explore a deeper area: blockchain infrastructure itself. In 2024, they launched Gravity — a Layer-1 blockchain focused on cross-chain interoperability.
The concept is simple, but the impact is big: it makes it easier for users to interact between blockchains without having to worry about different gas fees or confusing wallet technicalities.
Gravity is designed to be more accessible to ordinary users, who have long felt that blockchain technology is “too technical.” In the middle of many blockchains that are like separate islands, Gravity tries to be a bridge — without making the bridge difficult to cross.
Merging AI With Web3 for a Smarter Future
However, Charles’ focus doesn’t stop there. In 2025, he began actively talking about the integration of artificial intelligence into Web3.
According to him, in the future there will be many “intelligent agents”—a kind of AI personal assistant—that can manage our crypto wallets, make trading decisions, and even manage participation in DAOs automatically. This concept sounds like a cross between a financial advisor robot and a personal investment manager — only working 24/7, never sleeping, and drinking coffee.
The question now is, is everyone ready to hand over control to such an AI? Charles himself is quite optimistic. For him, the data analyzed by AI is much broader and faster than human intuition. He imagines a future where users don’t have to bother reading hundreds of pages of whitepapers just to know which projects are worth supporting.
Why Charles Wayn’s Story Still Resonates Today
Charles Wayn’s journey is not just about project after project. It’s about how someone who was initially busy connecting designers with boutiques, now connects millions of users to a decentralized digital ecosystem. He proves that background does not always determine the future and that an interest in small things can lead someone to big changes.
He doesn’t always talk about complicated technology, but more about user experience, simplicity, and clarity of function. Maybe that’s what makes him relevant — and makes his story worth following.