Web3, does it have anything to do with us?

Web3 has become very popular these days.

First, Huxiu published an industry observation titled "Web3 Revolution: Escape, Faith, and Great Migration". Then the Quantum School responded with a long commentary titled "Web3.0 has nothing to do with China!" (the original article has been deleted).

One stone can cause a thousand ripples.

Why did the concept of web3 explode? After all, the concept of digital currency is too simple, and the metaverse is too fancy. It would be easier for Internet practitioners to think along the linear thinking of web1.0, web2.0, and web3.

What is web3?

In fact, this is not an easy question to answer.

Just like when you try to answer the question "What is the Internet?", you will suddenly find that although the Internet has been developed for more than 30 years and has become an indispensable part of life, the answer to this question still has no clear boundaries. Is Apple an Internet company? Is Microsoft an Internet company? Is Xiaomi an Internet company? Is China Mobile an Internet company? Is Tencent a gaming company, a communications company, or an Internet company?

Some people say that web1 is a read-only Internet, just like the portal websites of the past. Editors produce content, and users read the content.

As for web2, users can both write and read. For content, it is the so-called UGC (user-generated content). In a broader sense, PGC (professional content generation) should also be included. For example, some short video platforms are actually operated by some professional MCN organizations behind the scenes.

According to this definition, is Baidu web1 or web2? What about Didi? What about Meituan?

Well, the next thing is the so-called web3. Web3 adds the ability of "ownership" to users based on web2.

What do you own? Virtual assets? All data? Or some other rights?

Metamask , the world's largest cryptocurrency wallet, is completely based on the Internet architecture and uses the https protocol to connect to the RPC service operated by a single entity. This is why frequent downtime of the RPC service provider Infura will cause a large number of web3 applications to be inaccessible.

However, the digital currency in the wallet will not be lost, because they are all under the control of the user's own private key. Even Infura's channel is not the only one (although it may be the largest). If you master the relevant technical operations and manually change an RPC service provider, you can still connect to the Ethereum network and continue to use it.

Is this web3?

Uniswap , the world's largest decentralized trading platform, completes all transactions automatically through smart contracts on the blockchain. However, Uniswap's domain name and webpage are controlled by Uniswap Labs. It can "block" certain tokens that are not allowed by the regulator on the front-end page, or add an entry for donations to Ukraine, etc., according to regulatory needs or its own preferences.

Uniswap Labs is registered in the United States, and naturally complies with the requirements of the U.S. regulatory authorities and upholds American values.

Is this web3?

Stepn, a running and coin-earning app that has been very popular in China recently, or Axie Infinity , a game-earning coin-earning app that was popular in Southeast Asia last year, are themselves completely centralized apps (of course, a decentralized wallet can be embedded in them, but it does not affect the centralized nature of the main function). The scoring rules, reward rules, and various gameplay methods are all controlled by the project party and can be modified at any time.

It reminds me of the popular Wanke Cloud, where you can buy a home router box and contribute bandwidth, which is mining. In fact, in today's fashionable terms, you can earn coins by surfing the Internet. In comparison, although both of them are used to stimulate users with virtual coins, at least Wanke Cloud solves a real problem, which is that users share idle bandwidth resources for CDN acceleration and improve content distribution efficiency.

That’s really selling hardware. The more the coin goes up, the more crazy the hardware will be sold. But the scoring rules and reward rules are controlled by a centralized company. After all, compared with Bitcoin ’s reward mechanism that is not controlled by anyone, it is really a far cry from the truth. When the rules of the game are controlled by a centralized company, it is difficult to ensure that there will be no insider manipulation.

Today, a few years later, when mining has evolved to the point where you can earn coins by playing games, we have abandoned the physical hardware requirements and completely sublimated into a virtual digital world. Do you want to run? You don’t have to buy real running shoes. But you have to buy virtual digital running shoes! And they are much more expensive than real running shoes!

Speculating on shoes, speculating on shoes, finally we can remove the "shoes" in a clever way, get rid of the constraints of physical form, and focus more freely on the word "speculation".

Is this web3?

Don't complain about our strict supervision. That's because you haven't seen the iron fist of American supervision. Our supervision is relatively gentle. Look at several regulatory agencies in the United States, SEC, CFTC, IRS-CI, which one is not deadly?

All the projects of issuing coins by Chinese people have Chinese investors. If it were in the United States, they would have been severely punished and sentenced to prison. Is there any case here? None (except those suspected of other problems such as pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes).

Chinese people speculate NFTs , but is there anyone who makes money and pays taxes? I'm afraid not many. If you are an American, go to opensea to buy or sell a monkey, and you don't report and pay taxes to the IRS, you will be arrested and sentenced to a heavy fine and jailed.

Regulatory compatibility is an issue that no industry can avoid.

When supervision is not in place, in places where supervision is insufficient, can we have a yardstick of self-discipline in our hearts, rather than a mentality of seizing the opportunity to make a fortune before supervision is implemented?

This question is probably much more important than whether web3 can work here.

Supervision is always lagging and is always gray during the observation stage. Whether practitioners maintain a long-term perspective, think and plan their behavior from the perspective of the long-term development of the industry, or plan and act from the perspective of short-term speculation, draining the pond to catch fish, and damaging the long-term development of the industry, is a test for all practitioners and a key dividing line between whether an industry's group of innovators can truly lead the industry into a future or kill an industry.

If the money of all users is a big pool, then this is a typical tragedy of the commons problem. Everyone wants to make money from this pool, but no one wants to contribute to this pool. In the long run, this pool will soon be emptied and the leeks will soon be cut off.

To solve the tragedy of the commons, either all rules and mechanisms must be completely and fully decentralized like Bitcoin, and those who do not follow the rules must be punished and those who follow the rules must be rewarded, or external, independent regulatory forces must be introduced to oversee the formulation and implementation of rules and mechanisms and to implement rewards and punishments.

Bitcoin’s solution can actually be considered as the automation of regulation, rather than the absence of regulation.

Today's web3 is full of areas that are not decentralized enough. For all those places that still have centralization and insider control, they need to rely on external supervision to ensure that corruption and fraud do not occur in this link.

Kant said that self-discipline is freedom. Only when you have the ruler of self-discipline in your heart can you have the freedom of innovation in your hands.

Web3 has great potential in regulating where regulation is needed and innovating where innovation is needed.