An Introduction to Web 3.0

    

    With an instagram post saying that Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Marshmello, and Odell Beckham Jr. bought CryptoPunk NFTs for $120,000 to upwards of $2M, I was intrigued. Now, about three weeks later, I am deeply infatuated with Web 3.0.                                                         

   With studying data science and network engineering it's ambitious for me to try to jump into web 3.0 right now, but regardless of what is convenient at the moment, I feel like this is the right time to jump on the bandwagon.

What is Web 3.0?              

    The main idea of web 3.0 is decentralization. The blockchain is the basis for this decentralization (and there are many blockchains). Transactions written into this blockchain cannot be repudiated (no one can say they didn't happen) because the data is spread across a network of computers and the transactions are written into the blockchain by way of a miner (a GPU that is part of the network of computers) solving a difficult puzzle.            

    This allows for private ownership of property as well as person-to-person transactions such as the sale of property like a house directly without the need for middlemen (as is the case traditionally in closing on a house).

    Property, like the CryptoPunks that Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg bought, can now be captured in this digital world in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Much like classic works of art like a Picasso or a Manet, these NFTs hold value even though they are not directly comparable in the way that US dollars and euros are (or even in the way that Bitcoin and Ethereum are) 

    These NFTs come in the form of 2D art, but they can represent a host of other things beyond the art itself, such as: concerts, in-person events, characters in a game in the metaverse,  real world items, ownership of royalties for a musical artist's work or of one of their albums, and so much more. 

The Metaverse 

    The metaverse is a collection of virtual worlds that link cryptocurrencies, with games, tokenized properties, and virtual experiences. Mark Zuckerberg recently unveiled the rebranding of Facebook as Meta, as a show of confidence in the future of this virtual platform. It appears that their rendering of it involves augmented reality and virtual reality to be a part of the virtual worlds, like in the movie Ready Player One, but on the whole it appears that the intention of the metaverse is not going to be mainly in the direction of virtual reality. That will likely only be part of it. At least for now.

  

Voices in the Space

    Gary Vee has been very vocal on his platforms about the metaverse and how he is very bullish on the concept of decentralization and how it will impact humanity. Here is a good interview that he conducted with Mark Zuckerberg that actually lends a lot of insight into where all of this is headed.

 

 

    Also, I felt very inspired by the discourse in this Tim Ferris podcast.  Tim and his guests stressed how close we are to the beginning of this and crypto. The message seems to be that now is a good time to get in, not give up. 

    Also, perspective is key. You can either look at the idea of web 3.0 like, "oh no if some people get rich it will inflate the dollar and my farm job will be less valuable", or you can say "I see this coming down the pipeline, let me please ask some smart people the right questions and 3x my current value to society/amount of money I make". Also, this kind of allows you to be into your own thing and make money off of it, whether making and selling art, or playing games, or online game communities like NBA TopShots, or culture…you can likely focus on what you like more and monetize it. 

     The winners of this next web will likely be those that were not too absorbed by their current profession/project that they ignored the counter-culture things like JPEGs, or DAOs, or in-game purchases in RPGs. 

 

 Lessons Learned & New Goals

    I personally learned to not ignore alternative media forms (Reddit, Twitch, Discord, Hacker News, Twitter). Sometimes the best tips are said in hush tones in the backrooms of the interwebs. Who am I to ignore VALUABLE insight in ignorance to its true worth.

    After having studied a bit into the movement around web 3.0, and having bought in at least in some small way, I see the need to be cautious, as well, about how I buy in. I realize that many of these early NFTs will fail, so I should not invest heavily in most of these early offerings, but what I do want is to benefit from the movement. My goal is not to get rich off of buying the right NFT that explodes in value. Rather, I want to be on a DAO of creators that will make these NFTs and virtual experiences. I want to become the supplier

    Part of what goes along with becoming adept with web 3.0 is learning to write code for web 3.0. How to write smart contracts efficiently so that they don't cost a lot to transact on the back end and how to integrate web 3.0 elements into the projects that I will work on, even if they are not directly meant to be web 3.0 decentralized apps (dApps).

    Even after some of the initial struggles to get my money converted to ETH, spending long hours researching NFTs, debating with friends about the value (or lack thereof) of digital assets; I am ecstatic about the prospect of working in this time of boom for web 3.0!