KEEN ON Web3
Five truths you can take to the bank about the Web3 revolution
So here are five truths you can take to the bank about Web3, the latest mania gripping Silicon Valley.
How can you be so sure? some of you will, no doubt, ask.
The truth is that i’m no surer than anyone else about what Web3 will look like. Certainly no more certain than either my old friends Chris Schroeder and Keith Teare who came on KEEN ON today to imagine the Web3 revolution of cryptocurrency, DAO’s (distributed autonomous organizations) and the other blockchain driven disruptions now attracting billions of dollars of speculative investment.
But what they both seemed to suggest is that if the Web3 revolution, what Chris Schroeder calls the “global unleashing”, ever happens, then 20th century traditional banks will be replaced by 21st century networked financial organizations. In the future, therefore, there won’t be any banks for you to take my Web3 truths. In other words, these five predictions, like most futurist cant, have no real value.
Don’t spend it all at once.
FIVE WEB3 TRUTHS TO TAKE TO THE BANK
TRUTH ONE: Something is happening. Back in 1968, another year of both real and imaginary revolutionary ferment, Manchester’s version of the Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, recorded a hit entitled “Something Is Happening”. And something is definitely happening in terms of Schroeder’s unleashing of disruptive Web3 forces. Crypto, the legitimacy crisis of many western democracies, our general age of anxiety, the imminence of AI, increasing inequality, the questioning of the value of work…. all these things are pieces of this perplexing puzzle. To borrow some particularly wise words from Leonard Cohen, “everyone knows that the boat is leaking.”
TRUTH TWO: Nothing much will change in the short term. So, yes, we live in revolutionary times. But as history teaches us, particularly revolutionary years like 1968 or 1848, revolutions rarely succeed. Or, at least, they never work out as we expect. And the same will definitely be true of Web3, a self-styled disruption that employs similarly egalitarian language as the Web 2.0 revolution. And we all know how Web 2.0 turned out. Moreover, as Keith Teare put it today, today’s Web3 technology is installing the core infrastructure - what the Yorkshireman called the “plumbing” - for the revolution. So don’t hold your breath about the Web3 revolution: nothing much will change in the short term.
TRUTH THREE: Everything will change in the long term. Keynes remarked, half jokingly, that in long run we are all dead. Although some - like the venture capitalist Sergei Young, a KEEN ON guest from last August - might even dispute that. But I’m pretty sure that Web3’s disruptive political, economic and social consequences - everything from revolutionizing the our financial system to rearchitecting the traditional corporation - will eventually be unleashed on the world. My guess is that this disruption - like the Web 2.0 revolution - will actually result in the opposite of what its proponents imagine. But everything will eventually change. You can take that one to the (non-existent) bank too.
TRUTH FOUR: WEB3 is all really about the future of the state: Web3 is a libertarian revolution and so the thing that is most in its crosshairs is the centralized political state. Crypto, in particular, challenges both national currencies and the economic authority of the state to determine monetary value. And the other profound Web3 infrastructural changes - Keith Teare’s 21st century economic and political plumbing - will similarly challenge the authority of the traditional nation-state. By the end of the 21st century, we might be on the brink of world government or we might see a return to the jagged localism of the Middle Ages. Perhaps both, simultaneously. But the nation-state - the thing lying between world government and medieval localism - will be squeezed.
TRUTH FIVE KEEN ON is keen on Web3: Sorry, couldn’t resist. In all seriousness, however, I think that the Web3 revolution - with its focus on the future on power and authority - is just about the most consequential story in the world right now. And so expect a lot more interviews about crypto, DAOs, blockchain and the libertarian ideology of the Web3 crowd. Tomorrow, for example, I’m interviewing the Union Square Venture partner, Albert Wenger, about his important new book The World After Capital. Then on Wednesday, I’m talking to Sebastian Mallaby about The Power Law, his equally important new book about how venture capitalism is shaping our collective economic future. And on Friday, i’m interviewing Christopher Leonard about The Lords of Easy Money, his account of how the Federal Reserve “broke” the American economy. So if you’re not already a KEEN ON subscriber, then please subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. You can even watch my daily interviews live on Twitter, LinkedIn or on Lithub’s Facebook page.