For Web3 to be adopted at scale, it must go beyond blockchain

Two days ago, I published my outlook on the Web3 landscape in 2024, which made the point of moving away from the "fundamentalist decentralization". Because "decentralization" is a banner of the blockchain that is widely spread, I say that to get rid of decentralization means to go beyond the blockchain. This point of view came out of the mouth of me, a long-time evangelist in the blockchain industry, and it did make some people feel stunned. In that article, due to space limitations, I did not expand on it, and some friends wanted me to introduce it in the past two days. This question is not complicated, so I can expand on it.

My argument is certainly not to abandon blockchains or return to centralization, but to put them in their place. Blockchain is just one tool in the Web3 toolbox, and decentralization is just a viable way to solve a certain type of problem, neither of which is Web3's all, but just a specific tool to solve a specific problem. Treating blockchain and decentralization as "two whatevers" has actually constrained the development of Web3 innovation and large-scale adoption.

1. Web3 is a trusted internet premised on autonomy

The core value proposition of Web1 is interconnection and sharing, the core value proposition of Web2 is user experience, and the core value proposition of Web3 is trustworthiness.

The vision of Web3 is to create a trusted Internet of Value, or a trusted digital economy. What does it mean to be credible? In this network, any two people in the world interact according to rules and contracts, whether it is economic behavior or social behavior, everything is in order, no one can go back on their word, turn the clouds and rain upside down, people are equal in the sense of the contract, no one can break the contract, deceive and bully others at will. Everyone can feel very comfortable doing business with anyone they just met a second ago.

Web3 is secure and trustworthy, but that doesn't mean Web2 is all about being insecure and untrustworthy. In fact, Web2 has been working hard for more than three decades, and security and trustworthiness are also important goals. So while the core value proposition of Web3 is security and trustworthiness, Web2 can also improve the level of security and trustworthiness. What really separates Web3 from Web2 is the prerequisites.

Web2 is hosted, and Web3 is autonomous.

The premise of Web3 is autonomy, allowing you to own and control your own accounts, assets, social connections, and data. The security and trustworthiness of Web3 is the security and trustworthiness under this premise, which is completely different from Web2.

Web2 can also be used to manage and transmit value, and will also pursue security and trustworthiness, Alipay, WeChat and various online banking are based on the Internet to manage value, and constantly improve the level of security and trustworthiness. The Internet industry has worked hard for twenty or thirty years to make this system very mature, and the user experience is particularly good. However, none of them are autonomous. With these internet systems, you're effectively entrusting your money, your data, your social connections, and even your account and identity to someone else. Some Web3 proponents say it's not secure because it's hosted in someone else's hands, and that's not true. Objectively speaking, for most people, in most cases, it is safer to keep their money in the bank than to take care of it in their own hands.

However, the hosting architecture of Web2 naturally allows, encourages, tempts and even forces the party in a strong position to breach, cheat, bully, and deceive the weak party, and the strong party must work very hard, be very restrained, be very self-disciplined, and be very inhumane in order not to breach the contract, cheat, deceive, and bully the weak party, and the weak party must be very lucky, very lucky, very lucky, very lucky, very lucky not to be breached, not to be cheated, not to be bullied, not to be bullied. The four "very lucky" used here are not clerical errors, but because in the natural structure of Web2, the weaker party wants not to be breached, cheated, deceived, or bullied, and can do nothing but pray for luck.

The technical architecture of Web3 naturally protects the rights and interests of both parties in the contract equally, and the legal rights of users in Web3 are protected, which is not given by one party out of goodwill or self-discipline, but by the natural determination of the entire technical architecture, which is helpless for anyone who wants to accept it. In the final analysis, this is determined by cryptography, by mathematics, by God, and does not depend on anyone's kindness or self-discipline.

What does Web3 autonomy really mean? It means true freedom in the digital world. We know that in the modern value system, freedom takes precedence over all other values. It is safest for a person to shut himself up in a basement and never see the light of day if he only emphasizes safety and does not think about freedom. A society that emphasizes only security and does not think about freedom is safest to put all the people in prison. This is obviously ridiculous. In modern society, without freedom, everything else is meaningless.

The premise of Web3 is to guarantee each user's freedom under the contract through digital autonomy. The main freedom here is the control of one's own private assets in digital form (identity, accounts, property, social connections, data, etc.) according to a fair contract. And this dominance, Web2 categorically cannot give you, which is determined by the technical architecture, human nature, environment, and centralized platforms to reduce operating costs and business competition. Isn't it possible for Web2 to meet the highest standards of user freedom and rights on the basis of hosting, through incomparable respect for users' sovereignty and super trustworthiness? Extinguishing selfish desires, not only is the technology super invincible, the security ability is flawless, proficient in various economic theories and the cultural customs of various religions and ethnic groups in various regions, and the operation resources are unlimited, the character is noble, the external royal magnates, the internal punishment of thieves, the upper is not afraid of power, the eyebrows are cold, the lower children are not bullied, bow down to the cattle, the rich can not be lewd, the poor can not be moved, the mighty can not bend, for the principle of the mountains and seas, the moon and the turtle, all efforts for all sentient beings, the sacrifice is also worthwhile, become an immortal and become a god, transcendent into the holy, no Amitabha Buddha in the south. Does such a platform exist? Of course it doesn't. So in the real world, all Web2 platforms either force users to sign a deed of sale, or all kinds of breach of contract bullying, or more commonly, they have already made you sign a deed of sale, and they have to constantly break through the agreement in the deed of sale to bully you.

Because classical Internet platforms can't give users autonomy, Web3 has to start anew, not because they have nothing to do and deliberately stand out from the crowd.

2. The core technology of Web3 is modern cryptography

To be secure and trustworthy on the basis of autonomy, it must be supported by technology. This core technical underpinning of Web3 is modern cryptography. Modern cryptography here refers to the entire system of cryptography after asymmetric cryptography.

People think of Web3 because of asymmetric cryptography. Without this technology, people would have been asleep in digital slavery.

Generally when it comes to cryptography, everyone's mind is the bridge in Liu Yunlong's spy war drama. However, the cryptography in those spy war dramas is symmetrical cryptography, and a key is mastered by several parties. This cryptography can only be used as communication encryption. Ordinary people don't know about modern cryptography, so they don't know that in fact, the application of modern cryptography has long surpassed communication encryption, and its most important and far-reaching application is as an identity authentication mechanism and authorization mechanism in the digital world.

In the asymmetric cryptography system, we require everyone to keep their private key, and never need to show or share it with others, which makes the private key a tool that can identify individuals, just like fingerprints, iris, and DNA. Web3 can be an autonomous system because of the use of private keys. Web3 is about how to achieve secure computing, trusted value management, and other goals such as better user experience, higher performance, and scalability in this autonomous digital system based on asymmetric cryptography.

It's easy to understand that the core technology of Web3 is cryptography rather than blockchain. As long as it is based on modern cryptography mechanism, using private keys to identify and prove identity, and using private keys to control digital assets such as accounts, property, and data, then the autonomy of users can be guaranteed, and on this premise, a secure and credible application system is constructed, then it is Web3.

3. Blockchain is a necessary component of Web3, but not the whole story

If cryptography is at the heart of Web3, what role does blockchain play in Web3?

Blockchain is an indispensable basic component of Web3 and represents an important paradigm for Web3 applications, with the following characteristics:

• The core system is run by multiple computing nodes controlled by equal subjects, each node runs exactly the same instance, and each instance synchronizes and backs up with each other, and the state is consistent at the macro level.
• With the highest degree of redundancy and tamper-proof mechanisms, data is permanently trusted to be stored.
• All information is globally publicized, extremely transparent, and extremely symmetrical.
• All nodes form a consensus based on the same knowledge and information in the form of equal voting.
• To a certain extent, any third party may conduct audits and oversight based on publicly available information.

This paradigm is suitable for application scenarios with the following characteristics:

• The data value density is high, and the high storage and management costs are worth it.
• There is a great temptation to make profits, and it is necessary to ensure that no one cheats in a way that is extremely transparent and open to oversight.
• All parties involved can accept the setting of equal rights and symmetrical information.
• The overall system software is not too large, does not require high performance, and can sacrifice efficiency for safety and fairness.

The blockchain industry around the world has been looking for ten years and trying for ten years, and it has been found that there are not too many application scenarios with the above characteristics, and only the system of managing high-value digital assets such as financial assets, identities, accounts, and key social relationships is suitable for blockchain.

It may sound discouraging, but in reality, it's precisely this kind of system that is ubiquitous in Web3. Web3 is largely the Internet of value, and all Web3 applications have more or less value creation, transfer, and derivation. That said, high-value digital asset management is actually a protocol layer of Web3. Blockchain doesn't have to do anything, as long as it does a good job in high-value digital asset management, it is already one of the indispensable pillar components in Web3, and it has become an epoch-making great innovation in the entire history of computing technology development.

However, blockchain isn't all there is to Web3. Other technologies that meet the characteristics of Web3 include ZK (which is also related to blockchain), VC, DID and other cryptography technology components. These components can work with blockchains or centralized systems to solve the problem of secure and trusted computing under the premise of autonomy.

4. Web3 must go beyond blockchain for mass adoption

Blockchain is only suitable for solving the problem of high-value digital asset management, and while it has given it a shining status, it cannot be a catch-all solution. Problems that do not fall within this category are very awkward to be solved with blockchain.

Most problems in the real world do not fall into this category and are not suitable for blockchain solving. And this kind of incompatibility is not because the real world is too backward and modern people are too conservative. Not now, not in the future, and not in the age of AI and robots.

Why?

First, in most cases in the real world, information is not evenly distributed, not only is it not, but it is not evenly distributed. Some people must know more about a thing, some people know less, some people want to study in depth, form conclusions, and even make decisions, and some people just need to understand it briefly. If we eat the "big pot of information" and practice absolute symmetry and equal distribution of information, then there will be no division of labor and cooperation, no exchange, and no modern economy. Like blockchain, everyone has to know as much about everything and vote together, which is not in line with the way most things in the world are handled.

Second, private information exists in the vast majority of cases in the real world. The asymmetrical distribution of private information is not the same as the information asymmetry described above. Information asymmetry means that the information is not necessary for everyone to know, while private information means that the information cannot be known to everyone. The market economy is built on the basis of competition, and competition is based on the privacy right of each subject to protect its private information from being disseminated at will. Like blockchain, any information must be compulsorily disclosed, then competition will be eliminated. This does not correspond to the reality of the real world.

Third, in most cases, in the real world, not everyone is equal, there is authority, and absolute fairness and security are sacrificed for efficiency. Therefore, people establish order, establish a division of labor, recognize authority, and empower a subset of people to make decisions and act within the boundaries of their own contracts, rather than consulting everyone at every step. If, like the blockchain, everything has to be voted on, then the real world will not be able to move an inch, and nothing can be done.

Fourth, in most cases in the real world, the value density of data is not high, it does not need to be stored permanently, it does not need to be ensured that it cannot be tampered with, and even the vast majority of data is discarded after use. If, like the blockchain, all data is redundant and stored in hundreds or thousands of copies permanently, then the cost will be too high for anyone to afford.

So blockchain is really not suitable to solve most of the problems in this world. This is the fundamental reason why blockchain has not been successful in real-world applications over the past decade. Blockchain is a diamond, but most of the work in this world is not porcelain work, but all kinds of nails. If Web3 has to use the diamond diamond of blockchain to hammer a nail, then it can only hit the nail.

In the past decade, many blockchain projects have faced the contradiction between the real world and the blockchain paradigm, and have actually engaged in a slashing of their responsibilities and dogmatically preached that the blockchain is a "more advanced" "future digital economy paradigm", which you can't accept because you are backward in your thinking. Actually, this is. This set of paradigmatic rules applies only to the area of high-value digital asset management. And the problems outside this field, as long as the basic rules of the economy are still in play, as long as humans (and AI) still need to divide and cooperate, it is not suitable to be solved by blockchain in the past, it is not suitable to be solved by blockchain now, and it is not suitable to be solved by blockchain in the future.

If the blockchain is the only diamond in the Web3 toolbox, then the game is over, and Web3 will never be applied on a large scale in the real world. Fortunately, there are other tools for Web3, such as ZK, VC, DID, and more and more tools (MPC?FHE?) in the future. These tools can be applied to a wider range of application scenarios, can solve a large number of real problems in the real world, and can be used as a bridge to stitch together real-world applications and the Web3 value layer controlled by blockchain. Combining these tools with blockchain can solve many real-world problems.

Therefore, for Web3 to be applied on a large scale, it is absolutely impossible to rely on blockchain alone. Cryptography researchers must constantly add new tools to the Web3 toolbox, and Web3 innovators must constantly combine these new tools to solve a variety of real-world problems.

This is where our confidence in Web3 triumphs over Web2 comes from. Because tools are evolving at a rapid pace, there are more and more problems that can be solved, and the value that can be embodied is becoming more and more certain. We have seen and preliminarily demonstrated this in the innovative practice of ERC-3525 semi-fungible token (SFT), so we are particularly optimistic.

Nowadays, most people in government, academia and the classical Internet really still look down on Web3 very much, thinking that it is just a bunch of people speculating on coins and not using it in practice. It's a pity, but it's also a good thing. The eventual rise of Web3 would be too lacking in pleasure if it could not cause a wail of "invisible, despised and incomprehensible, and too late".