Web3
Kurt Seifried
CBO / Director Special Projects
PRESENTED BY
The sequel nobody wanted but the studio had to make
What is Web3?
It’s what comes after Web1 and Web2.
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Web1
Read only
I wrote the LASG (Linux Administrator's Security Guide) and published it in 1998-2001. You could read it. You could email me about it.
That’s it.
It’s now served from an S3 bucket and is the same level of interaction as it was in 2000 (none).
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Web2
Read and write
Myspace, forums, etc. Normal people could easily create a page and create content. Normal people could reply to other people's content. The current ecosystem of this is sites like Facebook and LinkedIN and so on.
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Web3
I’m not sure exactly what this is
“Web3 refers to the next version of the internet, which will focus on decentralization and user ownership”
- Seekingalpha
“Web3 (also known as Web 3.0 and sometimes stylized as web3) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web based on blockchain technology, which incorporates concepts including decentralization and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as "Big Tech". The term was coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and the idea gained interest in 2021 from cryptocurrency enthusiasts, large technology companies, and venture capital firms.”
- Wikipedia
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The promise of Web3
Decentralized! Censorship resistant! We’ll bring wealth to the masses of everyday content creators!
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Decentralized
Something something blockchain
Theory:
Anyone can be a blockchain node
Anyone can participate in consensus
Anyone can participate in transactions and find someone willing to process their stuff
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The truth - decentralized
Something something blockchain
Centralized APIs and data storage,
your wallet can only show what it’s
told to show by a central authority
https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1454863786783875075?lang=en
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Monetizing content / services
Something something NFTs
Theory:
NFTs will democratize content creation and ownership and lower barriers to entry and selling this stuff
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The truth – capturing value
We’re talking about markets worth tens to hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of dollars in shareholder value. And that’s just Apple. Social media, online sales, Cloud providers, and it’s clear some version of blockchain/NFT is the next major technology market maker (this is a major reason why I switched from pure cloud to cloud/blockchain, embrace the future).
If you don’t do it, that’s ok, a competitor will.
And size begets more size. You can build your own data centers at scale, buy your own fleet of planes to delivery stuff, build your own silicon. You get efficiencies of scale and capabilities that cost billions. But that’s ok, because you have tens of billions.
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The truth – wallets and keys
We’re reinventing traditional banking, badly
Custodial services vs self hosted
Regulations and compliance
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The truth – Proof of …
You can beat the odds if you’re the house
Gaming Proof of …
Buy custom ASICs and win
Buy all the video cards and win
Buy lots of Ethereum and setup multiple PoS mining pools
Size and efficiency matters and always wins
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Opensea / Coinbase wallet example
What did I just sign?
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Opensea / Coinbase wallet example
What did I just sign?
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Opensea / Coinbase wallet example
What did I just sign?
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The truth – informed decision making
What did I just sign?
So I clicked it. On a desktop I could check the email headers/url, on mobile not so much. But I intentionally use a self hosted wallet with 0 actual content worth anything because of exactly this.
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The truth – content creation
Something something blockchain
Pareto distribution / the long tail – content discovery and curation
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The truth of monetizing content / services
So you offer something of value. Why is nobody willing to pay?
seifried.org got 100,000+ monthly visits back in 1998-1999. I never managed to monetize it beyond $1-200 a month tops in Google ad revenue. I tried sponsorships. I had one. But that’s ok, it was a hobby (I like writing).
opensourcesecuritypodcast.com has 300+ episodes spanning over half a decade with a reasonably sized following. We’re not planning to monetize it (although you can buy an NFT’s of the first episode, but this is more an experiment than a real effort to monetize it)
The number of OpenSource projects the underpin the modern world and make $0? 99.999% of them.
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The scams
There’s a lot of scams.
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Don’t call it an investment
If it’s not an investment the SEC (probably) won’t care (this is not legal advice)
Like kickstarters, if you label an NFT as an art project or experience and not an investment you can take the money and run.
For example the CryptoSis NFT token by “Rhoades” at https://opensea.io/collection/officialcryptosis just got “rugpulled” (she took the money and ran), rather than sticking around to do the work and promote the token she decided to take the $1.5 Million USD in funds and leave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjtPe1h4Ca0
Most NFT investments will go to 0. Most NFT art projects/kickstarters/etc. will also go to 0 and probably won’t deliver much.
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Wash trading (aka scams)
The last person paid a million dollars for this! The market has spoken!
Money That Won Melania Trump NFT Came From Melania Trump Wallet
Almost all NFTs are owned by just 32,000 people
https://stealthoptional.com/news/nfts-owned-32000-people/
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Web3 - Dealing with loss
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