The absolute state of web3
web3 trenches diaries #1
Despite dizzying amount of capital flooding in, astronomical valuations, dozens of new projects created daily. Yet web3 has largely failed to live up to its ideals. All @moxie's criticism are spot on. Infant the reality is even worse. What we've got here is the decentralization and censorship resistance theatre. Built by and funded by same people who built censorious, privacy destroying web2. Oh but gets even worse anon. Despite all the talk of permission-less and openness. Only well connected VCs get in on the seed rounds. What do you think they do once retail buys in.
Censorship resistance wise. As of right now. Everyone is accessing smart contracts via centralized web2 servers. They can, and routinely do censor and block users. OpenSea have blocked both NFTs and users. Really open sea is web2 service, that just so happens do deal with NFTs. While we're at it, don't get me started on NFTs. NFTs do make tulips look like sound investment. We are trading MS Paint jpgs for upwards of $5mil. I am sure they'll all retain their value long term and be actually useful. Hand on your heart, can you really argue it makes sense.
Surely despite all that DeFi is sound, right. Let's see we've got hundreds of L1s & L2s. Each of them has dozens of AMMs, farms and some lending protocols, derivatives and bridges and so on. They all have hundreds of millions of TLV. With extremely complicated tokenomics and interdepencies. In their complexity they are only rivaled by speculative financial products that brought about 2008 recession. What do you honestly think happens to those protocol once yield dries up and true bear market hits.
Oh Anon but you haven't heard the worst yet ! Even the wallets that we use access web3 are freaking centralized themselves. Metamask casually turned off Venezuela by mistake. One bad centralized config file, is all it took. Of course they turned off Russia intentionally. This is vast, vast majority of wallets, not just Metamask. Now, one can say: "On you got it all wrong dummy. You can its easy to switch to different RPC, also font end are hosted on IPFS". What percentage of actual users know what RPC is or how to access IPFS ?
This shit show goes on at $2 trillion dollar market cap. If we can't build it, so that it lives up to its ideals, when funding is plentiful. What are we going to do in bear market ? When forced to compromise to survive. Or when hammers of protectooors really fall down hard on crypto. Can you name three web3 projects that embody crypto ideals. That are actually decentralized, censorship resistant by default. Owned by users. Did not raise early rounds at far lower valuation from VCs who will inevitably dump or retail. With tokenomics that makes sense and won't inevitably lead to down only chart at some point. That give users full self custody. Respect user privacy to as much as possible given realities of blockchains. Bonus points if they are open source with MIT of GPL licence. Not rhetorical, tweet at @web3d3v or leave comment here.
Meanwhile in the Normyverse (real world). West is gradually giving up on its foundational values. Communist and wanna be again Communist challenging established world order. Truckers, keep in mind, these are the working class families. They are likely to have very little savings and to live from pay check to pay check. Have bank accounts frozen without any *due process* simply for protesting. When people donate to them via woke Silicon valley platform, that platform is all too happy not to give them the money. Because it does not like their politics. All this goes on to the tune thunderous applause of half the country. Other half would likely be clapping if the shoe was on the other foot. Rule of law and equality before law seems old fashioned now. Alongside free speech and right to privacy. One ill advised tweet can end decades long distinguished career. Its not just the truckers of course, bank accounts are being closed left and right. For our own protection of course. Evil men do evil things to buildings. Let's let three letter agencies now spy on all our communications. Evil men attack peaceful country, we surrender our right to transact freely. Arc of history appears to have taken a left turn towards oppressive dystopia. If you disagree, you are simply not paying attention Anon.
Do you know what. Gimme the bloody rugs, pump'n'dumps, VCs and scammers, Defi and NFTs. Gimme the wild west of web3. It is freaking amazing that is it is possible to trade assets completely permissionlessly, on chain. Bitmex founder spent years on run from the feds. For crime or running derivatives exchange. One did not use fiat at all. #ArchieDidNothingWrong. Now we've got dozens of on chain derivatives platforms. And on landing and options and so much more. I'm pretty NFTs will have important use case by the time next cycle rolls around. And blue chips one will appreciate in value. It is not just financial speculation either, this stuff helps real people, in real trouble.
I'm told dot com was very much the same type of mania. Crazy valuations, products that did not make sense. Twenty some years later. Pets.com is multi million dollar business. I have been part of mobile revolution. Remember Fart app and Yo app and I am rich app and valuation and the mania. I do. Of course mobile has taken over most of the consumer computing. I think need for web3 is obvious to anyone who cares to look at the state of Normyverse. Services where users are not the product, Services that don’t ban users on a whim of owners or politicians. Yes web3 falls short of its ideals. But what epic ideal they are. Only force that is pushing for more freedom with some success is web3 / crypto. We can't afford mess this up. We shan't let it happen. Join us on the journey to try to embody crypto ideals, inevitably falling short, likely failing altogether. At least doing so earnestly, while daring greatly.