Web3 is just a fresh portion of the same old crypto uninstity

You are probably trained in the wonders of Web3, if you didn't have a lot of luck. Let me explain for the remaining few happy ones. Web3 is the unstoppable fate of the Internet-the magical tissue, made of blockchain-based decentralized dreams and dystopian big-tech alb dreams are destroyed. The future is rosy; The future is "Append-Only" databases.

The central thesis of Web3 is that we need a more distributed, egalitarian, open system because the Internet was so centralized - with a concentrated power in the hands of some less and powerless users about their own data. So far, so reasonable.

But as soon as you look under the surface, gaping holes appear in the web3 vision. His techno-utopian supporters say that they want to use the alleged power of blockchains-the unchangeable databases on which Bitcoin and other tokens are based-to create a democratized Internet in which they control their own data and no longer rely on the large technologies. Web3, according to the argument, enables you to "own a piece of internet". Of course, the "decentralized" apps and organizations that operate in this beautiful new world are powered by crypto tokens: everything you have to do is buy.

In truth, web3 has only become the latest marketing term that is used to try to support the overlapping ideas of crypto, non -fungible tokens and "decentralized finance" and to pack them, which seemed to be all brilliant innovations until the entire market began to weaken. Regardless of the fact that the blockchain-once advertised as a solution for everything, from corrupt elections to supply chain fraud-could not do justice to the hype and has only proven its usefulness as the pioneer of the crypto casino. This time it will be different.

It is difficult to discuss Web3 at all, as it is a very nebulous term, like many similar over -typed concepts. Last weekend I had a rather heated change of words with someone who claimed that web3 was dealing with banks, processing the data to predict their divorce and downgraded their creditworthiness before realizing that their spouse has an affair. It was possible, I argued about big data and artificial intelligence that has nothing to do with blockchains or distributed ledgers. But just like the meta verse and the "fourth industrial revolution" before that, Web3 often seems to be used in such a way that it means something like "technical stuff that could do something in the future".

The term itself comes from the idea that we had two iterations of the web: The first to be introduced in the early 1990s took a little more than a decade and consisted mainly from static websites that were not interactive. The second, which came onto the market in the early 2000s and continues to this day, made it possible to upload their own content on the Internet, but the user unknowingly became the product.

The most insincere and harmful aspect of Web3 is the lie that it is really about decentralization. His biggest supporters are Andreessen Horowitz-or A16Z-a risk capital company with a multi-billion dollar co-founder and an managed assets of more than $ 28 billion, which had a $ 4.5 billion web3 fund at the beginning of this year. Apart from the fact that the laying of a multi-billion dollar fund appears such as a concentration of assets, this company happened to be an important web2 investor: For example, it is still known as Facebook, Board of Directors A16Z co-founder Marc Andreessen is still sitting.

"performance. "I think there are ways to achieve decentralization on the Internet," she tells me. "But I necessarily see these solutions more on social and political changes than in purely technological changes."

companies like a Coinbase crypto exchange supported by 16Z-which until recently made profits worth hundreds of million dollars-position themselves as "the standard gate to the Web3 ecosystem". Quite strange that an internet that is all about openness and decentralization needs a company giant to receive access.

With Web3, it is not about making the Internet more fair or less susceptible to exploitation by greedy bonuses, it is exactly the opposite: it is about introducing another level of financialization into the web. The reality is therefore much easier than the jargon you have to get through when someone explains to you. Web3 is only the latest way of serving the same old crypto bullshit, and it stinks as badly as ever.

jemima.kelly@ft.com