(The author's WeChat public account Yuan Sky City is released simultaneously)
What is Web3? Having said so much, it seems that the definition itself becomes a problem.
Fortunately, this is not a subjective philosophical questioning. We can clearly and clearly point out that the so-called Web3 world refers to the distributed network constructed based on blockchain technology and the entire application ecology above it .
This definition even includes metaverses based on blockchain technology (this is another big topic), such as Decentraland. But conversely, whether all virtual interactive worlds that claim to be metaverses belong to Web3, the answer is not necessarily. For example, the well-known Roblox, although Roblox is a veritable virtual world of user-generated content (UGC), it is essentially a centralized product. "Centralization" means that the underlying foundation of Roblox is still the traditional server-client architecture, not built on blockchain distributed technology .
There have been many articles explaining blockchain technology. Compared with the height of imagination achieved by blockchain technology, the underlying logic to realize this architecture is quite simple. This is similar to the real world. The mathematical and physical formulas that truly describe the important laws of the real world have a particularly concise beauty.
General readers only need to know one thing: the most important feature of a distributed network based on blockchain technology is that its data and codes cannot be tampered with.
In a Web3 ecosystem, all data updates (or, to be more pedantic, "state updates" of the blockchain network) are driven by user activity, or "transactions". Different from the well-known Web2 Internet (let us call it the current mainstream Internet ecology), the data update of Web3 needs to consume significant computing resources, which is the so-called gas fee. The cost of this computing resource is paid by users themselves in real money. It is precisely because of this that we say that the data ownership of Web3 undoubtedly belongs to the producer—the user himself.
At the same time, Web3 data is 100% visible to everyone (note that this refers to the data on the chain, that is, the data on the blockchain. For reasons of efficiency and cost, most Web3 applications still store large-scale For data such as video images, realizing complete Web3 distributed storage is currently a hot topic). These data that are visible to all, have clear ownership, and can never be tampered with constitute the "representation" of the Web3 world, or in other words, constitute the objective existence of the Web3 world.
This data organization model is fundamentally different from the current Internet world. At present, the user data of Internet applications is in the hands of large companies and is not disclosed to the public, which is why there is a saying of "user data moat". In such an Internet model, data is also the cornerstone, but firstly, it does not guarantee stability, and secondly, many invisible "user data islands" cannot continue to integrate and develop into a "data continent". This is the business model of the current Internet model determined by nature.
Another important point is that in addition to data, user accounts are also in the hands of large companies. Technically, the owner of an Internet product can delete or ban any account in its product at any time, compared to Trump's Twitter account being blocked. This kind of thing will not happen in the Web3 world. The underlying blockchain technology that Web3 relies on determines that each user's account entry in this Web3 world is unified, and only the user has control.
This is a wonderful design. A unified Web3 account means that there are no more isolated data islands . All historical data of a user in the Web3 ecosystem are publicly associated under the same account. Behavior is publicly visible. A new application on Web3 is no different from an application that has been running for many years. There is no difference in the understanding of its user portrait (based on past historical data). User data no longer has a so-called moat. This is unimaginable in the current Internet ecology. Just imagine that you can view all activity records of any Weibo account on the Internet? It's a bit unbelievable, but under the Web3 architecture, this is a very normal thing.
The Web3 Internet has a will. The so-called "will" is not some kind of mysticism, nor is it some kind of artificial intelligence, but refers to the various rules that cannot be changed in this ecology. Will is the rule.
The operating rules of the Web3 world are defined by and only by the blockchain mechanism and the application code on it, the so-called " smart contract ". The "will" of Web3 - code rules, and its "appearance" - ecological data, are written in the distributed network in a non-tamperable way. The Web3 world uses unchangeable objective data and codes to construct the appearance and will of the Web3 world. All data and applications grow naturally on this foundational setting that is irreversible.
The transparent nature of Web3's will embodies a certain sense of security. There is no black box invisible code logic in the Web3 world, and capable users can directly read the smart contract code to understand the truth about the operation of the Web3 world.
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is an external manifestation of the will of Web3 code. When the governance logic of a virtual organization is written on the Web3 blockchain in the form of smart contract code, it represents a will to dominate the DAO. The participating users of DAO influence the direction of smart contract governance through their voting weight, but the governance logic itself will not be modified.
Concepts like DAO seem a little far away from ordinary human fireworks, but the Web3 world is not a castle in the air, and the value it embodies is directly linked to the real world. The most obvious is the recently popular NFT concept. Although anyone can generate NFT and post it to the OpenSea auction, in fact, the NFT released by celebrities or celebrities has a natural attention premium, which is migrated from the intangible value in the real world. In addition, some NFTs do not seem to be directly related to the real world, but they have also gained direct attention in related communities and added value. You can open a whole post to talk about the value of NFT. It can be clearly perceived and pointed out that NFT has been more and more widely recognized, especially among young people. This trend is almost irreversible. The most important role of NFT is to define the virtual items in the Web3 world, just as the Metaverse defines the virtual space in the Web3 world. It's a big deal out of nowhere.
Web3 isn't necessarily for everyone, at least at this stage.
But the fascinating thing about the Web3 world is that it is built on a simple and solid foundation from which everything grows. And, unless actual civilization dies, there is reason to believe that not much will make the global distributed network of blockchains on which Web3 relies disappear.
Relatively speaking, no matter how delicate the design and perfect experience of the virtual world operated by the centralized server, as long as the central server is shut down and the data is deleted, all the beauty in the virtual world will disappear—this kind of thing has happened repeatedly; Previously, all products that claimed to be virtual worlds were built on a foundation that could collapse; the more exquisite the superstructure, the more expensive it would be when it collapsed.
On the trusted infrastructure of Web3, all trust (trust) is replaced by truth (truth), the truth of data, the truth of code. Everyone can enter Web3 fairly through a standard account, there is no threshold, and all beings are equal. It is true that big Vs can bring real tangible assets and intangible value realization into the Web3 world, but this is exactly where Web3 attracts everyone: there is a real two-way value connection between the Web3 world and the real world, which extends The value of the real world, but also create a new value to feed back the real world.
Another fascinating aspect of the Web3 world is "user-built".
In modern games, "user construction" is a very common concept, and UGC (User Generated Content) expresses the simple idea of national construction in game design. In the Web3 world, all behaviors are constructions, all user transactions, all items (NFT) circulation, and all activity traces are recorded as Web3 public data and become part of world history. Every Web3 participant is also a Web3 builder.
Further, capable users can add will-smart contracts to the Web3 world. An important difference from the current mainstream Internet is that the account issuing the smart contract does not need to bear the cost of the subsequent operation of the contract. If you recall, the cost of resources to run a smart contract is borne by the user. What a beautiful design, which means that any individual is free to contribute to the will of the Web3 world without worrying about future operating costs.
Web3 is not an utopia, even though it has the most beautiful infrastructure setting and scalability ever. At the end of the day, Web3 users are real-world people too. The goal of Web3 is not to build a world dominated by code and machines like Matrix, but to expand a new conceptual space for the real world, which is still a projection of our imperfect world. Human flaws in the real world will also be reflected in the Web3 world. It cannot change human greed and short-sightedness, nor can it make human morality better. But the emergence and development of Web3 has given those who are looking forward to the new world a real hope, which is full of freedom and possibility of creation, and has a solid underlying foundation to ensure that value creation will not be easily obliterated.
The last sentence of "The Count of Monte Cristo" says: Before God reveals the ultimate meaning of mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: "wait" and "hope". Although the full picture of its influence still requires us to wait a little patiently, Web3 may become a synonym for "hope" in this new era.