Crypto enthusiasts have a brand new crush and also the buzzword for it's Web3. Defined because the ‘next iteration of the internet’ by the hopeful, it's attracted investment and skepticism in equal measure. But what does it really mean? And is there enough reason to be keen to determine it play out? That’s what we’re staring at in today’s edition. But before we jump in, a short programming note: i'm away next week. So while Tokenised will land in your inboxes at 4 PM as was common, it'll be authored by my colleague Jon Russell. Jon has been a good guide for the work we’ve done on the newsletter to this point, and that i am certain you’ll enjoy reading his take.
With that out of the way, let's get right into it. In its broadest sense, Web3 refers to a version of the net where we’ve gotten eliminate the middlemen and replaced them with applications governed by users. The middlemen here are usually characterised as Big Tech (à la Meta, Twitter, Google). and also the applications replacing them as being governed by users via the ownership of specific crypto tokens, operated using blockchains.
If you think that that feels like a moonshot, I agree. It is one.
One problem springs to mind right away, as an example. what percentage people really understand how blockchains work? and can people adopt such systems if they don’t understand how it works? Well, Olga Mack, entrepreneur and blockchain lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, has this to say: “To the typical person, it does sound like voodoo. But once you press a button to modify on lights, does one understand how the electricity is made? you do not must understand how electricity works to know the advantages. Same is true of the blockchain."
Now, the large surge in crypto prices over the last two years has undoubtedly contributed to the excitement around decentralised internet applications. and a few of the joy may evaporate once prices relax. But near 8,500 such apps are operational currently, in line with data provider DappRadar