How will Web3 impact the world?
Right now, the transition from a centralized Web2 to an open and decentralized Web3 is underway. What makes this transition unique is that it is dominated by users rather than big technology companies. Web3 is the first stage in the development of an internet that allows individual users to monetize their activities and interact on a level playing field, without intermediaries.
In 2021, over 34,000 new developers joined Web3 projects, and more companies are continuing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in this area.
What is the internet of the future and how will it change the economy and the lives of ordinary users? We’ll take a deeper look in this article.
Moving to the metaverse
In the summer of 2021, the introduction of metaverses by corporate tech giants breathed new life into Web3. This happened after Mark Zuckerberg announced the beginning of Facebook’s transformation into a metaverse, which will be a three-dimensional internet, combining physical, augmented, and virtual reality.
Soon after this, Epic Games, Microsoft, Tinder, and other companies announced their metaverses. According to forecasts by Grayscale Investments, the annual income of this sector could soon reach $1 trillion.
These metaverses are expected to become complete digital worlds with their own blockchain-based economies. Users will connect using VR headsets and navigate via their own digital avatar.
“The Metaverse is a new level of infrastructure that is being created as the digital and physical worlds converge. The merger will give developers more space to realize their creative and technical potential in the metaverses because all objects of the digital world are lines of code. I definitely think they are a huge opportunity. The Metaverse is where we will start using cryptocurrencies instead of money.”
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
How to leverage Web3 and live in the metaverse
One key advantage of Web3 is the ability to make money on internet services, not only for their owners and shareholders but for everyone. There are already many Web3 projects underway, so it’s high time to explore this new world and identify the best opportunities it brings.
Startups and investors
The Web3 space is already very attractive to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists: in 2021, investments in crypto projects amounted to more than $30 billion. Blockchain-related projects managed to achieve an average of $20 million raised per new startup.
The sector opens up a variety of opportunities for newcomers: from the digitalization of business processes to creating distributed systems and multi-blockchains. Everything related to DAO has great potential while distributed networks ensure the secure interaction between millions of different systems.
Technical specialists
Coding will be the most in-demand job for Web3. According to Electric Capital, large communities (Etherium, Bitcoin, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, NEAR, etc.) attract 250+ programmers per month.
There are two key areas of programming: the actual development of network protocols and the development of communities. The latter includes creating decentralized applications, documentation, wallets, and everything that contributes to the growth of specific platforms.
As it expands, this new field will require more and more employees who specialize in working with technological products. Not only developers but also specialists in marketing, sales, and other areas.
Creators
Web3 is based on programmable trust and will help create the capacity for global mass collaboration, thus contributing to more direct democracy. As a consequence, Web3 opens the door to more opportunities for content creators. They will now be able to monetize their work using tokens or NFTs, effectively assigning a unique mark to content to make it tradeable. It will be possible to trade these personal assets on a decentralized internet of the future without intermediaries (who dictate their own rules and charge fees for transactions).
Creators will finally be able to achieve secure and quick transactions.
“The internet is not bad for creative people. Web2 is bad for creative people.”
Chris Dixon, internet entrepreneur and investor
DEIP focuses on creative industries and creating the most advanced decentralized protocol for the creator economy. The platform aims to unlock the full potential of creators around the world.
How Web3 will affect the economy
Experts say the main difference between Web3 and Web2 is that it is an economic protocol, not an informative one. It provides reliability and security for a large number of new solutions. In the beginning, this will affect the financial industry and its products.
Users can monetize personal data on a decentralized internet and buy and sell goods and services directly without intermediaries. The result will give rise to private money and financial systems that operate independently of states and their monetary policies.
The impact of Web3 goes far beyond the internet. With the development of its features, we will see an increasing rate of economic digitalization and decentralization.
In Web2, digital services already existed, in the form of various subscriptions for example. But in Web3, you can buy digital goods with tokens. There are more niches and growth opportunities for startups too in this sector. Consequently, the degree of monopolization is decreasing even in the financial sector.
To sum up
The role of ordinary users is also changing. We are entering an era in which everyone is able to reap the rewards of their participation. Web3 does not need consumers, but users who will take an active part in creating a new system and receive profit for doing so. But for this to happen, innovations need to be promoted and their benefits highlighted so that everyone can learn at the same pace. Change is the only constant, and its pace has just shifted into top gear.
