Article 1 Huang Yanfang (Intern Researcher of Fangtang Think Tank Scientific Innovation China Research Center)
At present, Web3.0 is receiving unprecedented attention, and many high-tech companies are accelerating the layout of Web3.0. Twitter has started to set up various Web 3.0 applications on its products. Google will also set up a Web 3.0 team in May 2022 to make a big push into Web 3.0.
"+Web3.0" has become another outlet after the Internet. "Social+Web3.0" and "Entertainment+Web3.0" have gradually become a craze.
Moreover, Web3.0 has become the development direction that countries pay close attention to.
In this context, it is necessary and important to systematically understand WEB3.0 and related content.
When we look back at the history of the development of the Internet, it is not difficult to find that the Internet has experienced three paradigm shifts from Web1.0 to Web2.0, and then to today's Web3.0: "The Internet in the Web1.0 era is a static Internet", which was created by a few professionals. Users can only search and browse information, and cannot interact too much; "The Internet in the Web2.0 era is a platform Internet". The network has added the feature of writability on the basis of readability, that is, users are both content consumers and content producers; In the era of Web3.0, users can not only read and interact information online, but also transfer assets. Everyone can enjoy decentralized services and become the master and manager of personal data.
The book WEB3.0: Enabling a New Era of Digital Economy, written by Du Yu and Zhang Ziming, abandons the complicated technical language and stiff mathematical formulas, and presents the panorama of Web3.0 to readers with vivid cases.
In the book, the author calls the Internet in the Web3.0 era "the Internet of Value".
Although this concept is still controversial, it can be sure that Web3.0 has begun to penetrate into our lives, and the new generation of Internet has gradually approached. Through reading this book, we can understand what Web3.0 is like from the economic, cultural and social organization levels.
one
The financial system of Web3.0: DeFi
In the world of Web3.0, people's economic activities are always around token economy, which is often called "token economy". In order to promote the stability of the entire Web3.0 token economy, a sound financial system is very important, so DeFi has received widespread attention.
DeFi is the English abbreviation of distributed finance, full name is Decentralized Finance, and the definition given in the book is "financial application ecosystem built on the blockchain." Explain that, on the highly transparent blockchain network, financial systems without banks and other intermediaries are developed and operated in a decentralized manner, This financial system can provide all types of financial services.
Then why do users in the era of Web3.0 have a demand for decentralization in the financial field? Why can DeFi provide all types of financial services? We can think about these in combination with the contents of the book when reading.
In the era of Web2.0, centralized institutions have the dominant power in financial service management, while there are complex interest relationships and institutional differences among institutions. Users will have high fees and complex process procedures when handling business. This inefficient settlement method makes everyone feel distressed.
In the era of Web3.0, "the use of blockchain for cryptocurrency settlement can complete cross-border remittance within 15 minutes". Compared with the expensive and inefficient settlement method of traditional finance, DeFi does not have a central institution to draw a percentage, and users only need to pay the handling fee of the computing power required for the operation of smart contracts.
DeFi can not only achieve efficient settlement, but also "let everyone really and fairly enjoy financial services such as investment, financing, lending and insurance". This is because those micro and small customers who do not meet the traditional bank account opening conditions can enjoy any financial related services in DeFi, which will drive more and more people to participate in the construction of the digital economy.
"DeFi makes it possible for anyone to use various financial services where there is a network by eliminating centralized institutions". Although the picture described by the author in the book is very beautiful, we should pay attention to that it is related to money after all, and DeFi also has certain risks and needs supervision.
According to the Digital Currency Anti money Laundering and DeFi Industry Security Report - Report for the First Half of 2021 released by PeckShield, a blockchain security company, "1375 major security events related to virtual currency occurred in the first half of 2021, including 86 related to DeFi."
It can be seen that DeFi is not impeccable, and there are still risks.
In our opinion, although there is no clear regulatory system and laws and regulations for DeFi in various countries at present, it can be predicted that absolute decentralization is difficult to achieve from both the technical and social levels, DeFi also needs manual intervention, and decentralized finance still has a long way to go.
two
Digital collection of Web3.0: NFT
The author mentioned in the book that "cultural activities in the Web3.0 world need to solve two important problems: first, how to capitalize the creation of digital culture, and second, how to solve the problem of confirming the rights of digital cultural works?"
The first problem is one of the fundamental issues that distinguishes Web3.0 cultural activities from the Web2.0 era. This is what we have always emphasized on returning the ownership of data from the platform to users. In the Web2.0 era, this problem cannot be solved, but can be solved in the Web3.0 era.
The second problem is also one of the problems that have not been solved well in the era of Web 2.0. Copyright infringement has been rampant.
NFT can solve the above two problems well in the era of Web3.0. The author wrote in the book, "NFT is the English abbreviation of non homogenous token. Non homogenous token means that token and token are different, and one token cannot replace another."
Generally speaking, it is like buying a book. Two identical new books are placed in front of us. At this time, the two books can be replaced or exchanged. But if one of the books has the signature of someone important to you, or the book is sent by someone important to you, it has a special significance. No book can replace the book, At this time, this book is heterogeneous and unique in the world.
Similarly, for NFT, each is unique and different from the other, which solves the problem that digital collections can be copied indefinitely. Users can "chain" all kinds of digital content, combined with the characteristics of blockchain that is difficult to tamper with, to form a unique NFT on the chain, just like everyone has a unique ID number. Correspondingly, each NFT project also has a unique contract address. After locking with a work, the unique owner is directly identified. In this way, the problem of "difficult to determine rights" is solved.
In addition, on the issue of "how to capitalize the creation of digital culture", the author proposed that "NFT gives people the way to deal with native digital assets and digital physical assets in the Internet world".
Specifically, it can be understood as two points: one is that the ownership of the original digital assets such as pictures and words in the traditional Internet can be confirmed in the world of Web3.0, which was also mentioned earlier; On the other hand, real physical assets can be more easily and safely digitized. For example, real estate certificates or real commodities can be "mapped one by one" in the Internet world. In this way, online and offline assets can be digitized, and the efficiency of asset trading will be greatly improved.
We may not be able to predict the specific applications of NFT in the whole Web3.0 cultural activities, but through the introduction of the author, we can understand that the future development of NFT must be centered on "right confirmation" and "asset digitalization", and NFT will become the most important part of the future digital economy.
three
Web 3.0 Organization: Distributed Autonomous Organization
Through reading and querying relevant literature, we can see that the development of the organization has gone through two forms of pyramid organization and platform organization. These two types of organization management are still in essence the centralized mode, which is the management of people. With the expansion of the organization scale, the entire management system will become more and more complex. Under the effect of human factors, There are some drawbacks such as subjective variability, which are prone to mistakes in management and implementation.
The emergence of distributed autonomous organizations can easily solve these problems. In the book, the author introduces the new organizational paradigm of DAO and its value in the Web3.0 era.
The definition of distributed autonomous organization (DAO) in the book is: "DAO is an organization run by computer code. Based on common beliefs and values, organization members write the organization operation management rules into the smart contract of the blockchain, and the organization initiator, token holder and other members are responsible for controlling and supervising the organization's operation, so as to achieve distributed autonomy."
From the definition given by the author, we can roughly understand the relevant characteristics of distributed autonomous organizations: first, "trust without trust". The organizational paradigm of DAO does not need to rely on trust between individuals, and people only need to trust code, so as to achieve the "de trust" of the whole system; Secondly, the organizational structure is flexible. As the author pointed out, "under the distributed autonomous organizational structure, it is also easy to increase or decrease the number of employees in the company. There is no need to sign complex agreements, just buy or sell tokens."
Another widely recognized translation of "token" mentioned by the author is "token", which means "negotiable encrypted digital proof of rights".
After decentralizing the organization of the company in the form of DAO, "users will become creators from original participants, and all activities on the Internet are for themselves, not for digital labor". Users have great autonomy, for example, they can put forward work suggestions or apply for subsidies to the DAO, and this process does not need to worry about being unkind to others, Don't worry about the complicated signing process. All rules depend on smart contracts and group voting decisions.
In this way, user participation is mobilized, and due to the innovation of organizational form, most of the basic operations are completed by smart contracts, and the requirements of the job market on people's working ability will also change. In fact, it is also a test of people's comprehensive quality in essence, and people will face more choices and challenges, which also gives us enlightenment: we need to keep learning to adapt to the requirements of the labor system in the Web3.0 era for ability.
In a word, through this book, we can clearly understand the emerging concepts of distributed finance (DeFi), non homogenous tokens (NFT) and distributed autonomous organizations (DAO) that support the operation of the underlying system of Web3.0 from the economic, cultural, social organization activities and other levels, thus giving us a more accurate and pragmatic understanding of the coming Web3.0 era and its future, And form their own relatively independent thinking. After all, while yearning for the beautiful Web3.0 era, we should also maintain rational thinking, as the author said: "Thinking about science and technology is as important as science and technology itself. The development of Web3.0 requires everyone to maintain this kind of thinking."
Recommended Books
Title: Web3.0: Enabling a New Era of Digital Economy
Author: Du Yu and Zhang Ziming
Press: China Translation Press
Publication time: June 2022
Content introduction:
In 2022, a new era dominated by Web 3.0 will come, and the content about Web 3.0 is exploding. How to filter out the "noise", this book gives us an answer in time. This book presents the panorama and context of Web3.0 in a concise and comprehensive way. It systematically introduces such emerging concepts as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non Homogeneous Token (NFT), Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) that support the operation of the system, and presents all aspects of Web3.0 to the readers.
Editor: Zhang Mengxin | Editor: Xu Fengchao | Designer: Sun Yueyuan
