Web3 has been a very fashionable term this year, mostly for the alt-finance cartoon characters and tech world’s ultrasophisticated twitter-thread authors. It was one of the two cheat code phrases that you could use in 2021 to bypass the critical thinking of LPs when raising your first ever fund, with the other being “metaverse”. Congrats, you now have one billion dollars to deploy because you learned the trendy words and you went to a good school, glhf.
I think Cobie is one of really serious minded and able persons (or might I even say narratives, cause he is sort of a narrative himself) of the crypto world. The ability to really understand the metaphors and the so called under-text is remarkable in today's world. I am truly grateful for his work and I am very happy that he shares his ideas with us. It seems that some people have this gene of a pastor:) And its very cool. My life would be very much different without Cobie's and Ledgers podcast UpOnly. Thanks guys!
It's great to read your posts. I’m new to cryptocurrency trade. Its about 2 months. When I research about crypto there are many information pollution. Your articles are very helpful in weeding out this information pollution. Many thanks.. I want to share my idea about your article.
Gattopardo (The Leopard) is a nice movie, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, about social turmoil and class conflict in Sicily in the 1860s.
The film follows the Prince of Salina who is intent on preserving the existing aristocratic class order in the face of a rising bourgeoisie. As the crisis grows, Tancredi, the prince’s Wily nephew, speculates that things must change if they are to remain the same. Originaly the sentences is; “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
And they do. After the revolution, the old aristocracy remains on top, allied via marriage with the new urban elite. The response has been gattopardo economics, which is change that keeps things the same. If we look at this perspective most of the revolutions contains “Gattopardo Economics” bias. Also the Bitcoin revolution have a big bias to remain power to the mainstream financial instute and cooparations.
As J. Baudrillard say, we live in the age of “simulation”. We are dealing with simulations of people, plants and animals, not themselves. In order to accelerate the transformation of time into money, natural maturation in human and nature depending on the production rate of capital it is kept alive in greenhouse time by being taken out of its time. On the other hand, cooperation turns into simulacrums in the capitalist universe: a state of pretending, where gift-giving turns into bribery and the act of giving out for self-interest increases.
Is there a possibility to build a more livable world of the future? Maybe there is. However, it seems to me that this possibility has to be shaped by institutional transformations to encourage mutual aid and gift giving.
I totally agree that we haven’t really seen what web3 is or will deliver yet. There are so many exciting possibilities, but it’s hard to predict today what that will look like.
The primary things I see today as a start to the development of web3 would definitely be in the integration of blockchain technology to existing technology (I.e video games, art, logistics, computing, etc). What we really haven’t seen though is user-friendly blockchain technology aimed at the masses.
On the note of value creation - that’s a really important topic too. As you said, people will start “choosing companies that will let them be rewarded for the value creation that they already participate in.” I think the example that comes to mind for me is the Brave Browser/BAT token. I’m not sure their attention token has matured enough to gain substantial advertiser support, but I really do like the way they’ve shaped their business model to reward users. I do hope more companies follow suit and potentially use the blockchain (web3?) to allow for profit-sharing or similar concepts.
Thanks for this Cobie! It's a difficult task to explore this space without either getting carried away by the hype or spiralling into pessimism - This post somehow managed to tread that line. The promise of a society with more equal opportunity is definitely hopeful, but are we building the dining hall without building the kitchen? While I see a lot of platforms and initiatives around equitable distribution, I don't see the value being created. A lot of it looks like solutions searching for problems.
Can you think of any difficult problems that have been solved by Web3/Crypto without requiring a Web3 utopia?
This piece is fantastic. I think one thing to add is a consideration of the alternative. If not web3, then what?
Considering the question this way, I don't think there's actually an alternative. The current owners of web2 are not going to sit still.
The potential for monetary incentives exists now. It's in use, now. People spend one Singapore of electricity (or whatever the latest electricity equivalent), because of digital designed monetary incentives. Bitcoin is not exactly a "smart contract," I guess because it's not flexible. But the value proposition of mining Bitcoin was, basically the ur-smart-contract.
If the so-far-incoherent web3 goldrush doesn't run with the money-incentivzed web, then the incumbents will. There is no future web WITHOUT incentives baked in.
We can have the central Chinese Citizenship Authority hand out pennies (or travel vouchers, or access to schools, or healthcare), or we can have the ZuckerVerse hand out pennies on the advertising dollar, but there is no future where nobody uses the blockchain. Companies with platforms will, without a doubt, engineer cash-equivalent incentives into their platform.
The web3 push will hopefully yield some alternatives to Chinese Central Authority or Mark Zuckerberg.
You're the man Cobie! Loving your articles on here. I know you love fucking around a lot and shitposting, but in reality you have a great understanding of all things crypto. I appreciate you taking the time to write these articles and for providing your analysis and insights.
this article is not only well written but encapsulated the future downsides of web3.0 with all the on ground relevance and possible solution cases. its an amazing piece of reading and drenched my appetite of a cryptocousein. Keep up what you are doing.
Hey Cobie, I am glad I came across your substack. I like your perspective on this topic which I would describe as optimistic about the technology but aware of the reality of it.
I think Cobie is one of really serious minded and able persons (or might I even say narratives, cause he is sort of a narrative himself) of the crypto world. The ability to really understand the metaphors and the so called under-text is remarkable in today's world. I am truly grateful for his work and I am very happy that he shares his ideas with us. It seems that some people have this gene of a pastor:) And its very cool. My life would be very much different without Cobie's and Ledgers podcast UpOnly. Thanks guys!
Dear Cobie,
It's great to read your posts. I’m new to cryptocurrency trade. Its about 2 months. When I research about crypto there are many information pollution. Your articles are very helpful in weeding out this information pollution. Many thanks.. I want to share my idea about your article.
Gattopardo (The Leopard) is a nice movie, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, about social turmoil and class conflict in Sicily in the 1860s.
The film follows the Prince of Salina who is intent on preserving the existing aristocratic class order in the face of a rising bourgeoisie. As the crisis grows, Tancredi, the prince’s Wily nephew, speculates that things must change if they are to remain the same. Originaly the sentences is; “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
And they do. After the revolution, the old aristocracy remains on top, allied via marriage with the new urban elite. The response has been gattopardo economics, which is change that keeps things the same. If we look at this perspective most of the revolutions contains “Gattopardo Economics” bias. Also the Bitcoin revolution have a big bias to remain power to the mainstream financial instute and cooparations.
As J. Baudrillard say, we live in the age of “simulation”. We are dealing with simulations of people, plants and animals, not themselves. In order to accelerate the transformation of time into money, natural maturation in human and nature depending on the production rate of capital it is kept alive in greenhouse time by being taken out of its time. On the other hand, cooperation turns into simulacrums in the capitalist universe: a state of pretending, where gift-giving turns into bribery and the act of giving out for self-interest increases.
Is there a possibility to build a more livable world of the future? Maybe there is. However, it seems to me that this possibility has to be shaped by institutional transformations to encourage mutual aid and gift giving.
> Web3 doesn’t really exist yet.
... this is because you're waiting for an obvious "sign" via something obvious / tangible. but, web3 isn't a technology, it's a choice.
I totally agree that we haven’t really seen what web3 is or will deliver yet. There are so many exciting possibilities, but it’s hard to predict today what that will look like.
The primary things I see today as a start to the development of web3 would definitely be in the integration of blockchain technology to existing technology (I.e video games, art, logistics, computing, etc). What we really haven’t seen though is user-friendly blockchain technology aimed at the masses.
On the note of value creation - that’s a really important topic too. As you said, people will start “choosing companies that will let them be rewarded for the value creation that they already participate in.” I think the example that comes to mind for me is the Brave Browser/BAT token. I’m not sure their attention token has matured enough to gain substantial advertiser support, but I really do like the way they’ve shaped their business model to reward users. I do hope more companies follow suit and potentially use the blockchain (web3?) to allow for profit-sharing or similar concepts.
Thanks for this Cobie! It's a difficult task to explore this space without either getting carried away by the hype or spiralling into pessimism - This post somehow managed to tread that line. The promise of a society with more equal opportunity is definitely hopeful, but are we building the dining hall without building the kitchen? While I see a lot of platforms and initiatives around equitable distribution, I don't see the value being created. A lot of it looks like solutions searching for problems.
Can you think of any difficult problems that have been solved by Web3/Crypto without requiring a Web3 utopia?
This piece is fantastic. I think one thing to add is a consideration of the alternative. If not web3, then what?
Considering the question this way, I don't think there's actually an alternative. The current owners of web2 are not going to sit still.
The potential for monetary incentives exists now. It's in use, now. People spend one Singapore of electricity (or whatever the latest electricity equivalent), because of digital designed monetary incentives. Bitcoin is not exactly a "smart contract," I guess because it's not flexible. But the value proposition of mining Bitcoin was, basically the ur-smart-contract.
If the so-far-incoherent web3 goldrush doesn't run with the money-incentivzed web, then the incumbents will. There is no future web WITHOUT incentives baked in.
We can have the central Chinese Citizenship Authority hand out pennies (or travel vouchers, or access to schools, or healthcare), or we can have the ZuckerVerse hand out pennies on the advertising dollar, but there is no future where nobody uses the blockchain. Companies with platforms will, without a doubt, engineer cash-equivalent incentives into their platform.
The web3 push will hopefully yield some alternatives to Chinese Central Authority or Mark Zuckerberg.
I feel there could be a pt 2 to this. Really well done Cobie, seems you have lots to say about this area of the market.
I enjoyed this one.
$CTK security for Web 3.0
Founded by Yale and Columbia Professors
You're the man Cobie! Loving your articles on here. I know you love fucking around a lot and shitposting, but in reality you have a great understanding of all things crypto. I appreciate you taking the time to write these articles and for providing your analysis and insights.
Damn makes me so bullish on $CTK with their web 3.0 Arbitrum, Optimism, OCEAN, MATIC and Binance Partnerships
I aint reading all that im happy for you tho or sorry that happened
this article is not only well written but encapsulated the future downsides of web3.0 with all the on ground relevance and possible solution cases. its an amazing piece of reading and drenched my appetite of a cryptocousein. Keep up what you are doing.
Hey hey . Web3 related . Can you (puppy eyes) please inbox me on https://twitter.com/infiniteRoots_?t=xipMAYfJeEo33hmSEsRW6w&s=09
Hey Cobie, I am glad I came across your substack. I like your perspective on this topic which I would describe as optimistic about the technology but aware of the reality of it.
Excellent read