David  (00:08)
Welcome to a new episode of NeCXt. Today, we’re diving into the world of Web3 and asking the crucial question: is Web3 finally ready for enterprise?

My name is David, and for more than 15 years, I’ve been guiding Fortune 500 companies through their digital transformation. I’ve seen the promises, the failures, and the quiet successes that truly move the needle.

Do you remember the ICO madness of 2017? Some projects promised to revolutionize desert energy, others to transform IoT. While many collapsed or failed to deliver, smart entrepreneurs were quietly building tools that today are used by companies like LVMH, MoonPay, or The Sandbox.

David (00:52)
My guest today, Samir Addamine, is one of them. After selling his previous mobile CRM company, he founded Absolute Labs in San Francisco and pioneered the concept of wallet relationship management, now becoming part of CMOs’ vocabulary.

So the question is no longer will Web3 work? but how are your competitors already using it to create value? Let’s find out.

Samir, welcome to NeCXt. It’s a real pleasure to have you here today. To start, could you share a bit about your journey from Paris to Silicon Valley?

Samir (01:28)
Thank you, David, and thank you for inviting me.

I’ve been in San Francisco for about 11 years. Absolute Labs, the company we’ll talk about today, is my third startup. I launched it at the end of 2021, beginning of 2022. But my U.S. journey really began in 2014.

At that time, with my co-founder, we were building a mobile CRM. As you mentioned, raising money in France was very hard. So we entered a startup competition in San Francisco — and we won.

Back in Paris, doors were still closed with French investors. But American VCs started calling. Then Marc Benioff, the founder and CEO of Salesforce, reached out. We met, and he decided to invest. Marc became my first U.S. investor, which opened many doors.

We literally entered Silicon Valley through a very large door. Eventually, I moved with my family to San Francisco. My co-founder Anthony moved to Montreal, and another co-founder stayed in Paris. So already in 2014, we were a startup across two continents.

The first two or three years in the U.S. were tough. We had to learn how to go to market here. But with the help of mentors and investors, we managed. Two years later, we raised a Series A, accelerated the business, and became one of the leaders in our category according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

Today, I’m still based in San Francisco, now with Absolute Labs.

David  (03:40)
Great story. Well done — very inspiring! You also mentioned adapting to the U.S. mindset. We’ll come back to that.

You started with mobile CRM at FollowAnalytics and now founded Absolute Labs. What connects those two journeys? And what made you think the future lies in customer relationships and wallets?

Samir (04:16)
With my co-founders, we’ve always been focused on how the interaction between brands and consumers evolves. Technology keeps changing, but two things remain critical: privacy and user control over data.

On mobile, regulations like GDPR and California’s law addressed that. When we discovered crypto in late 2020 and began investing personally, we realized that wallets are public on the blockchain, anonymized, but users control whether they connect them.

That’s the future of marketing: I control my data and decide what to share. Yet I can still transact. So why not integrate wallet data into a CRM?

That’s how wallet relationship management was born. It’s not “wallet-centric” but “wallet-first.” Today there are 1.3 billion wallets, about 400 million active. The number keeps growing.

In 2021, we reinvested our crypto gains, hired developers, and started bootstrapping. We built CRM, marketing automation, analytics, and indexed a dozen key blockchains. We created segmentation tools and enabled engagement through wallet messaging, email, SMS, push notifications, Twitter, etc.

David  (07:01)
So you’re bringing your CRM expertise into a new dimension, powered by wallets and blockchain data. We’ll deep dive into the solution shortly.

But first, you mentioned the early days of crypto hype. There was 2017, then the wave of 2021. Where do we stand today? And under what conditions does Web3 create measurable business value — and for whom?

Samir (07:40)
At Absolute, our mission is to bridge Web2 companies into Web3. We believe Web3 will become mainstream once big brands adopt it — because they already have millions of consumers.

Back in 2021–2022, I call it the “first generation” of Web3. Many projects failed due to hype, lack of regulation, scams. Still, brands invested heavily in crypto and NFTs, and we supported them with our product because they needed professional tools integrated with Salesforce, etc.

But regulation didn’t come in 2022–2023. Then came the bear market, the crypto winter. Most first-gen projects failed.

Now we’re in a “second generation.” What’s new is the growth in wallets and crypto users. We call them crypto-savvy shoppers. Many of our clients are in luxury, retail, consumer goods. Investors like LVMH and Samsung Next helped us connect.

We placed our SDK on websites and apps to detect wallet users. The results: 1–10% of visitors on major enterprise sites have a wallet. And these shoppers convert 3–5x more, with average order values 15–25% higher. Crypto payments, when done intelligently, can add 3–11% in revenue.

So value comes not just from transactions, but from intelligent crypto payments: knowing users’ habits, holdings, liquidity, and engaging before and after the transaction.

Another key area is stablecoins. They cut international money transfer costs. We’re seeing projects from Walmart and Amazon soon, and many companies are evaluating them with our support.

David (12:07)
So for you, the biggest value is in the data: better understanding audiences, revealing the invisible, and engaging before and after purchase. You also mentioned stablecoins. But what about traceability, which has been a big topic in recent years?

Samir (12:49)
Yes, that use case is still alive.

We see projects around digital product passports. For example, Aura Blockchain, a consortium with brands like LVMH, Prada, Mercedes, is creating standards for product traceability and sustainability. Tokenizing products is also emerging.

Payments are another big topic. But crypto payments aren’t just about transactions. Unlike credit cards, wallets share profiles — data that enriches the relationship. That’s why we call it intelligent payments: creating deeper engagement before and after the purchase.

David (14:10)
Thank you. I also like that you shared some impressive KPIs. It clearly shows the value of engaging with wallet data: higher spend, higher frequency, and an untapped audience.

So let’s deep dive into Absolute Labs. You already explained wallet relationship management. If I’m a CMO listening, what can Absolute Labs unlock that classic CRMs cannot?

Samir (14:59)
It’s simple. Our CRM comes with 400 million profiles. Among them, 1–10% of your audience are crypto-savvy shoppers.

With just five lines of SDK code on your website or app, you can activate them instantly. We then help you engage, transact, and unlock Web3 commerce.

That’s not all. Companies already have customers with wallets but ignore their buying power. For example, they may know a visitor bought a product — but not that this same person holds significant Bitcoin or connects to Formula 1 dApps. That data enriches customer profiles.

We also help drive-to-store. For instance, we worked with a luxury brand to invite 30 high-net-worth crypto shoppers (over $500,000 in wallets). They came to the boutique, had a curated experience, and purchased. It proved these personas exist, match the brand, and are ready to pay with crypto cards.

David (18:08)
Interesting. You’ve mentioned several times how simple the SDK is. From a corporate perspective, integration is key. Does it require big investments or IT headaches?

Samir (18:40)
Not at all. Our SDK runs client-side via Google Tag Manager or similar. Then server-side webhooks stream into Salesforce, Data Cloud, Sales Cloud, or custom CDPs. No tokens, no PII.

A wallet is simply another data point in the marketing stack. That’s it. We’ve made it simple to unlock Web3 commerce revenue across CRM enrichment, e-commerce, drive-to-store, and crypto payments. Even payments, while requiring more integration, are becoming easier with our progress.

David (19:33)
Great, seamless integration. What about regulation? Between blockchain transparency, GDPR, and now MiCA, how do you balance wallet data with privacy?

Samir (19:51)
We mainly work with enterprise companies, so compliance is critical. Wallets are anonymized public data. We don’t store personal information, hold funds, or fall under MiCA exposure.

Our clients remain compliant by asking user consent directly on web or mobile before any data use. From there, wallet signals enrich their CRM or CDP.

David (20:37)
Got it. But the very term “Web3” still scares many executives. Some brands invested heavily in the past bull runs and failed. How do you overcome resistance when pitching Web3 or crypto payments to the C-Suite?

Samir (21:15)
Great question. This resistance is similar to what AI faced — until ChatGPT made it mainstream. We’re now seeing a “ChatGPT moment” for crypto, driven by stablecoins and regulation.

Crypto used to be toxic in some boardrooms. Some had bad experiences. But things are changing fast with the U.S. Stablecoin Act, MiCA in Europe, and progress in Asia and the Middle East.

When execs tell me, “our customers don’t have crypto,” I offer proof. Install our SDK, and within days you’ll know. A luxury jewelry brand once said their customers were too old. But after adding our SDK, they discovered 2% of their audience had wallets with high buying power — and these clients converted more, even paying with credit cards. That changed their perception entirely.

As always, early adopters reap the most benefits, while others follow later.

David (24:04)
I like your point. It reminds me of 2010: brands said, “our customers are too old for the internet, too old for Facebook”… but eventually, everyone was online. You also mentioned ChatGPT — I like your “ChatGPT moment” analogy.

Looking ahead, what convergence scenarios — AI, wallets, IoT, smart contracts — could deliver board-level ROI and justify massive Web3 investments?

Samir (24:51)
There’s definitely AI + crypto convergence.

AI today is highly centralized, controlled by large players. Blockchain can decentralize it, lower costs, and make it safer. We’re seeing blockchain projects for decentralized AI data centers.

At Absolute, we’re also working on agents: scoring, persona AI, shopper agents. Imagine a crypto shopper agent that connects your wallet, learns your crypto interests, matches them with Web2 persona data, and supports your buying journey. It enriches sales funnels.

AI is everywhere already, but combined with Web3, it creates even more powerful layers.

David (26:29)
Fascinating. We’ll need another episode just on that — decentralizing AI through blockchain.

Before we wrap up, one last question: if our listeners could walk into their boardroom tomorrow and ask just one strategic question to unlock their Web3 opportunity, what should it be?

Samir (27:00)
I’d ask: How many crypto-savvy consumers have visited our e-commerce site or finance app this past quarter? And what revenue are we missing?

A second would be: How much money could we save on global transactions using stablecoins?

Those are the KPIs I’d present to the board.

David (27:41)
Thank you. And if anyone listening tries those questions, we’d love to hear the outcomes.

Samir, thank you for this insightful discussion. Let me summarize a few takeaways:

1. The Web3 revolution is happening in boardrooms today. Smart companies understand that customer ownership is changing.
2. ROI comes from data, not tokens. Wallet analysis with consent unlocks new personalization and CRM power.
3. Winners don’t talk about “Web3 transformation” but about progressive integration and measurable proof of concepts.

I believe Web3 is moving from hype to practice. It’s not about promises — it’s about competitive advantage for companies that use it strategically.

Thanks again, Samir, and thank you to all our listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, share, leave a review, and stay tuned for more conversations.

Until next time: stay curious, stay ahead, and see you soon on NeCXt to discover what’s next in tech and leadership.

Samir (29:23)
Thank you, David. Thank you.