Original title: ideal, reality and future of web3

[Introduction]

If the second and third industrial revolutions, as well as Web1.0 and Web2.0, are all productivity improvements, the blockchain revolution will bring about changes in production relations caused by the ownership of the means of production, just as the first industrial revolution gave birth to capitalism and ended the feudal system. What this article wants to discuss is the cultural trend of thought and the spirit of the times behind this change. Just like the first industrial revolution, the principle of steam engine actually came into being in the first century A.D., but only when the conditions of politics, capital, labor, business scene, market and other conditions are mature can the paradigm of social operation be truly changed. However, people are the ones who use technology after all. If there were no bourgeois ideological liberation enlightenment movement and the spirit of the rational era advocated by the spirit of freedom, equality, democracy and the rule of law, these changes would be difficult to achieve. What kind of zeitgeist does the world of web3 need?

[Ideal of web3]

The followers of Web3 are a group of idealists who want to break the existing system and jointly create a more equal Internet. This is why I am attracted by this vision. In this new Internet, employees are not PUA by capitalists, user data is not abused by large companies, and assets are not concentrated in the hands of a few people.

Bitcoin is a "grassroots" social movement

Bitcoin is not so much a digital product as a social movement. This campaign is initiated by anonymous grassroots and promoted by the enthusiasm of global grassroots. It stems from the distrust of the American people in managers, the grassroots challenge to the organizational system, and the fact that 99% of the people want to regain some power from 1% of the people.

Bitcoin is more a social movement than a digital product

To briefly review the history of Bitcoin, the white paper of Bitcoin was released on November 1, 2008. At that time, when the global financial crisis broke out, the US Central Bank began to issue money without restraint. But the enterprises that the government and the central bank are trying to save are the banks and insurance companies that caused the financial crisis. The top 1% of Wall Street bosses in the society sing and dance according to their songs, and the year-end bonus is a lot of money. A large number of property owners are homeless, grass-roots employees lose their jobs, and ordinary people lose their savings.

Bitcoin was pushed to the front in this big era. I cannot judge whether this time point is carefully selected or coincidental, but it is almost certain that the global financial crisis has provided a huge impetus for the initial narrative of Bitcoin. After all, anchor free currency can be printed as many as you want, but Bitcoin cannot. The computer program defines the rule that only 21 million pieces can be sent. No single individual or organization can change the rules. This is the rule that grass roots like.

Three years later, the Occupy Wall Street movement in September 2011 further stimulated the trend of thought against greed, injustice and anti social inequality of big companies. In that year, the price of Bitcoin experienced its first sharp rise, increasing 100 times.

Bitcoin is a symbol of the rebalancing of "industrial relations"

Believers in Bitcoin represent 99% of the general public's "labor force" and oppose the "capital" represented by the central bank, financial giants and technology giants. In 2014, Ethereum further expanded the outer edge of the affirmative movement through "decentralized finance" and "decentralized organizations (DAO)". It is even necessary to redefine production relations through "decentralized organization".

Blockchain will change the ownership of data, which is the most important means of production in the future economy

[The reality of web3]

With the sharp rise of the currency price, tens of millions of people have rushed into the encryption circle. With more newcomers, the ideal "grassroots" class began to become complex. Some people want to continue to build the vision of Web3. More people are aiming at the story of getting rich. After all, tokens that can be freely issued and traded are a natural soil to attract speculators and fraudsters.

PPT financing has become an ICO money ring, hyping NFT pictures

The financing of ICO/IEO/IDO in Web3 is to directly face retail investors without any professional ability. Cheating retail investors is much worse in nature. Most retail investors have to live on these hard-earned money. At the same time, retail investors are emotional. The project party will use some ideas to fool, and then find a celebrity platform, and retail investors will be fooled. Most retail investors have no ability to judge projects at all. Web3 circles are full of garbage. We played the zero sum game of beating drums and passing flowers, or compared whose trick was better. Sadly, most people will never be able to protect themselves. Ordinary people have neither technical ability nor commercial judgment. Whether it is the previous LUNA coin crash or the recent FTX exchange, a boss with a strong personality and a talent will be touted as a god by retail investors.

From last year to today, there are several general figures in Web3 worth noting:

The total market value of cryptocurrency fell from $3 trillion to<$1 trillion

The trading volume of NFT market dropped by more than 95% from the peak

Active wallet addresses dropped from tens of millions to millions

This shows that the current macro-economy and Web3 ecology are frustrating!

[The future of web3]

The circle of Web3 in China has gathered both political liberals and communists. A large number of people seem to be very keen to talk about ideology or other topics of modesty rather than specific products. This gives me the illusion that Web3 only stays at the concept level. In my opinion, if you have an ideal, you should be down-to-earth in making products. The devil is in the details.

Utopia of future web3

"Decentralization" is not only the core thinking of blockchain and Web3, but also reflects the spiritual belief of this era. People are eager to reform our society and return power, dignity and responsibility to individuals. Decentralized technology provides this possibility, giving people tools to resist consumer culture (omnipresent commercial advertisements that manipulate our emotions, wanton materialism, hypocritical "plastic" fashion, empty entertainment products on the assembly line), and destroying the oligopoly control of large companies over employment, life and creativity. Is this utopia? Most of the future we often see in science fiction films and TV programs is dystopian, but we need to imagine what it will look like Historical inevitability of Web3 development under the guidance of the spirit of the times , have an ideal, but also have a down-to-earth spirit! Because to realize the ideal of open network, we need not only new technologies, but also real products to solve problems. At the same time, we need to actively cooperate with the regulators, so that we can win the trust of the public, so that we can move towards a more positive future. Go back to Sohu to see more

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