turns out there’s a difference
Web3 is a term that that refers to crypto and started becoming more popular after July of 2021. It was Silicon Valley’s rebranding of crypto so that it doesn’t seem as crazy as the word ‘crypto’ which is associated with dog coins, scams and Bitcoin.
The main idea was that it was a continuation of web1 and web2. Web 1.0 is the earliest form of the internet and was made up of static webpages connected to a system via hyperlinks. Web 2.0 is the current version of the internet that we are using. It contains more dynamic content and was the rise of social networks and mobile internet access. Web 3.0 is the potential next version of the internet (once it reaches more popularity) which is basically crypto + AI.
In this tweet, Matt Huang of Paradigm (one of the cooler crypto investment firms), says that crypto is a way better term than web3.
I would disagree. Web3 was a rebranding of crypto that made it more appealing to business and people. Like it or not, crypto has a lot of negative associations. It reminds people of bitcoin, money laundering, place for criminals to store money, private transactions to hide money, scams, frauds, pyramid schemes, dogecoin pumps by Elon Musk, NFTs burning down trees, shitty metaverse scammy games that require you to pay $50,000 for NFTs, ponzi schemes, Ethereum killing penguins, crypto mining increasing energy bills and causing homelessness in NYC (yes that was a real headline).
You get the idea, it’s not a very popular term to use mainly because of it’s associated with the ‘currencies’ part of cryptocurrencies and a decade of it being associated with scams and frauds. I am not saying that it is full of scams and frauds but it definitely contains more scams than other industries and 2022 and 2023 continue to show us that leaders in this space are complete clowns which doesn’t help.
The reason is that every four years people are mad that crypto people are making money with the least amount of effort required in human history. Imagine studying for 16 years in school and college and then working hard to get into a media company as a journalist. Then you get paid a starting salary of $35,500 per year and work your way up to a more senior position to make $50,282 per year. You need to pay off your massive student loans, NYC apartment rent by your evil millionaire landlord, pay bills and are constantly stressed about losing your job by writing articles that don’t get clicks. Now you see all these dumb 13 year old kids buying this dog cryptocurrency because of Elon Musk tweets and making $1,242,859 off a $200 purchase. Yeah these kids all lose their money as the coin goes down 99.9% but that doesn’t matter, you rage fuels you as write the next article about how Dogecoin uses the blockchain for criminal transactions and helps money laundering for Russian oligarchs who are buddies with Putin. That would get clicks.
Web3 offered a new palatable word that wasn’t corrupted by the negative associations of crypto. Web3 has better branding as it is meant to be a new version of the internet which happens to use crypto, AI and bunch of other new technologies. I think that Web3 probably saved the space. Once you spend one minute researching you find out its pretty much the same as crypto but the term is friendlier and more positive relative to the word crypto.
Personally, I don’t like Web3 because Silicon Valley VC’s like to shout that term and raise money for centralised applications and their own scams that they market as ‘decentralised’ and ‘inclusive finance’.
I also don’t like the term cryptocurrencies as it limits crypto to the currencies part which excludes things like DeFi, NFTs, DAOs etc. The currencies part also shares the negative connotation that is associated with crypto.
At the end of the day, I think crypto is the better word because of its focus on decentralisation and value capture to the regular user but it is associated negatively by people who read headlines every four years. Web3 was the VC rebranding that was more friendly and added value to people who otherwise wouldn’t be interested and repulsed but it promotes more centralised applications and value capture to Silicon Valley VCs. Also my contribution to this debate is that we should rebrand to the cyber economy. This term was constantly mentioned in the book “The Sovereign Individual” (which was funnily enough heavily shilled by Su Zhu before his fund blew up) and I like the term. It makes crypto sound more cool and futuristic.
