Much of the borrowed conviction I have with regards to web3 is primarily from industry thought leaders like Yat Siu and Chris Dixon whom I've extensively consumed their content across social media, and has become some of the key pillars on how I perceive the potential – and the current reality – of this evolving digital landscape.
Yat Siu is big on gaming and digital property rights, the former mostly as a great onboarding mechanism for the masses.
This man's passionate advocacy for digital property rights resonates deeply with me, particularly his vision of gaming as the gateway that will bring the next billion users into web3.
His perspective that in-game assets should truly belong to players rather than platforms updates the status quo of traditional gaming ecosystems and frames NFTs as crucial building blocks for a new form of social capital.
The picture is of imagining a world where your digital achievements and creations truly belong to you, portable and recognizable across different online spaces and you can monetize it through various channels without relying on centralized platforms that take excessive cuts and dictate the terms.
I think this picture/concept in itself becomes even more potent when viewed through the lens of decentralized identity and reputation, especially as we anticipate the rise of sophisticated AI agents populating the metaverse and beyond.
Who owns the data these agents generate? How do we verify their authenticity and the reputation of the entities they represent without centralized control?
"Original Internet"
In my view, Chris Dixon is one of the best individuals who has articulated the philosophical underpinnings of web3 in a way that transcends the hype and speculation.
It's amazing to me how he explains the potential of web3 to fundamentally reshape the internet, moving away from the platform-centric models of today towards more open and user-owned networks.
He has this conviction in the power of blockchain to enable new forms of digital ownership and incentivize participation is very infectious and has me reconsidering how value is created and distributed online.
Of course, on my part, most of this reconsideration comes from reading his book "Read Write Own", where he brilliantly maps out how the internet evolved from its open beginnings to the current platform monopolies, and how web3 represents a return to the original vision of the internet as a permissionless innovation platform.
However, as much as the underlying blockchain infrastructure provides the rails for secure and transparent transactions, the transformative power of web3 hinges on an obvious crucial element: user adoption.
Without real people finding tangible value and integrating these technologies into their lives, the promise of a truly decentralized ecosystem risks remaining just that – a promise.
Less Better, More New
This brings me to my own nascent convictions within the crypto space, viewed through both short-term and long-term lenses.
In the relatively short term, the volatility and speculative nature can be very overwhelming.
So much noise, in terms of price fluctuations, scams, get-rich-quick-schemes and projects that are solutions in search of problems.
Beneath the noise, it does seem like practical applications are slowly emerging.
We continue to see glimpses of genuine utility emerging, mostly in decentralized finance (DeFi) offering alternative financial services to global users.
For example, I've seen firsthand how DeFi lending protocols are providing loans to individuals who would never qualify through traditional banking systems, financial inclusion in real time.
Now, there's the trend of DeFAI, decentralized finance and AI coming together for more intelligent financial systems that can operate autonomously.
I would definitely want to see super advanced trading algorithms that anyone can access without needing Wall Street connections.
Looking at the long term, the potential for web3 to birth entirely new business models, rather than simply making existing ones marginally better with crypto, is what mostly excites me.
I think this is where true innovation will really flourish. Builders stop trying to retrofit blockchain onto existing business models and instead design natively for this new paradigm.
Perhaps, more newer generation folks need to enter the space for that to happen?
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