Israel Godwin
@israelgodwin
1 year ago
In 2014, Ethereum’s Wood wrote a foundational blog post in which he sketched out his view of the new era. Web3 is a “reimagination of the sorts of things we already use the web for, but with a fundamentally different model for the interactions between parties,” he said. “Information that we assume to be public, we publish. Information that we assume to be agreed, we place on a consensus-ledger. Information that we assume to be private, we keep secret and never reveal.” In this vision, all communication is encrypted, and identities are hidden. “In short, we engineer the system to mathematically enforce our prior assumptions, since no government or organization can reasonably be trusted.”
The idea has evolved since then, and new use cases have started popping up. The Web3 streaming service Sound.xyz promises a better deal for artists. Blockchain-based games, like the Pokémon-esque Axie Infinity, let users earn money as they play. So-called “stablecoins,” whose value is pegged to the dollar, the euro, or some other external reference, have been pitched as upgrades to the global financial system. And crypto has gained traction as a solution for cross-border payments, especially for users in volatile environments.
“Blockchain is a new type of computer,” Dixon tells me. Just like it took years to understand the extent to which PCs and smartphones transformed the way we use technology, blockchain has been in a long incubation phase. Now, he says, “I think we might be in the golden period of Web3, where all the entrepreneurs are entering.” Although the eye-popping price tags, like the Beeple sale, have garnered much of the attention, there’s more to the story. “The vast majority of what I’m seeing is smaller-dollar things that are much more around communities,” he notes, like Sound.xyz. Whereas scale has been a key measure of a Web2 company, engagement is a better indicator of what might succeed in Web3.
Dixon is betting big on this future. He and a16z started putting money into the space in 2013 and invested $2.2 billion in Web3 companies last year. He is looking to double that in 2022. The number of active developers working on Web3 code nearly doubled in 2021, to roughly 18,000 — not huge, considering global numbers, but notable nonetheless. Perhaps most significantly, Web3 projects have become part of the zeitgeist, and the buzz is undeniable.
But as high-profile, self-immolating startups like Theranos and WeWork remind us, buzz isn’t everything. So what happens next? And what should you watch out for?
