Do you remember the first time you stumbled upon the word “Bitcoin”?
Along with Web3, blockchain, NFT, metaverse… these buzzwords are starting to appear more and more often, from casual small talks to the front page of Bloomberg, from various subreddits to Stephen Curry’s tweets, from Facebook to Meta.
Why does it matter? Because we live in a world where cars are driving themselves, VR glasses just had a breakthrough, not to mention the recent explosion of AI tools.
In 5 years, are we still scrolling through Instagram (or Threads) feeds on a 13-inch mobile phone screen? We don’t think so.
Welcome to Mission Web3, presented by Galxe! The leading platform for building Web3 community, Galxe has onboarded over 11 million unique users to date and we invite you to explore Web3 with us.
This is where you will not only get to know what Web3 is all about, but also be part of it and experience it for yourself.
Before Web3
Where we are today is the so-called Web2, where we can gain information from the web and also express our own thoughts with words, images, videos, etc.
This revolution was enabled by technological breakthroughs such 4G network, mobile device, smaller chips, cloud storage, and much more. Before this, there was Web1, the read-only web that was brought to life because computers were invented.
In a nutshell, we evolved from Web1 (dot com) to Web2 (Meta, Shopify, Amazon) because of tech innovations and advancements.
And now with all the recent developments in AI, VR, 5G, the future is near.
So, Why Web3?
What are the existing problems that Web3 is trying to solve?
First, think about this: who really owns the intelligent 280 characters you post on Twitter (or X, if you prefer)? And the funny or educational videos on YouTube?
Your carefully curated, impressive collection of weapons in Call of Duty? Not to mention the money generated with your data footprint, which you never received.
One could argue that Web2 companies could still decide to share back the revenue with their users. While YouTubers and Instagram influencers do make profit from the platforms, they also become dependent: followers, Reels, ad revenue, and more.
These assets belong to the platforms, not the individuals.
More importantly, influencers have to trust the centralized platforms to be fair and not exploitative.
Just like us, the everyday users, we trust the platform to protect our privacy and data when we check the box for “I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy” which no one ever reads.
If you’re not a big fan of social media and video games, think about your bank account, your stock account, and all these other assets you own but are kept by other centralized entities - they are just numbers stored in a centralized database and displayed on your screen.
Why you’ve never worried about them disappearing? The answer is trust. Trust in the individual company, the system, trust in the banks, the government, the law, etc.
❓ What if, all of this can be solved in a trust-less manner?
Revenues can be split and shared back with the content creators in a trust-less manner, our data and assets are protected in a trust-less manner, and laws are enforced in a trust-less manner.
You don’t need to trust any party anymore, because instead of trust, you get to own your data, verify for yourself, and know for sure.
❗️ Why trust-less? Because things don’t always work out well.
There are countries where the government arbitrates the law, where politics and currencies are extremely turbulent, and there are times when financial crises hit and banks fail, when companies’ databases get hacked and information leaks…
All these existing problems are what Web3 is trying to solve, to provide better security, privacy, accountability, and return data and content ownership back to users.
And this is where blockchain technology and cryptocurrency come in.