4 ms·

‘Web3’ is just new window dressing on the same old crypto casino. “Get rich quick!” is the selling point

Animats 5y ago
Exactly. If Bitcoin had not gone "to the moon", all of this would be a tiny niche, like Chaum's DigiCash was. The problem is all the junk riding Bitcoin's coattails. At some point, probably soon, the bottom will fall out of at least part of this. NFTs are already crashing. That's not too visible, because there's no "market price" across different items. But you can look at sales on OpenSea, and notice that the resale prices are mostly lower than the previous price.[1] Smooth Love Potion [2], part of the Axie Infinity Ponzi, already crashed. The big moment will come when Tether comes un-tethered. It cannot survive a net outflow, because it has very little asset backing. Something is going to crack in the Tether/Binance area. Binance is giving some people 200x leverage.[3] That never ends well. [1] https://opensea.io/collection/collectvox?search[sortAscending]=false&search[sortBy]=LAST_SALE_PRICE&search[toggles][0]=HAS_OFFERS https://opensea.io/collection/collectvox?search[sortAscendin... [2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/smooth-love-potion/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/smooth-love-potion/ [3] https://www.coalexander.com/post/the-tether-binance-axis-and-the-great-crypto-crash-of-2022 https://www.coalexander.com/post/the-tether-binance-axis-and...
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > Exactly. If Bitcoin had not gone "to the moon", all of this would be a tiny niche, like Chaum's DigiCash was. I don't think "if this didn't happen then this wouldn't have happened" is a real argument, it's just a statement. True for just about everything. It's possible I'm misinterpreting and you just mean it as a statement?
  - moolcool 5y ago
    "If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike"
- wyck 5y ago
  Chaum works on https://xx-coin.io/ https://xx-coin.io/ which has some interesting tech, and no it's not about going to the moon.
davepeck 5y ago
Original author here. Totally. I’m old enough to remember when Web 3 was the semantic web, so I guess I don’t put much stock in the label. And, personally, I’m really interested in crypto-less federated systems like Mastodon and some of the stuff the Indie Web community has built. I have no idea if those are, uh, web3 enough for web3.:-) As for the question of casinos, I think @pinboard’s description of Web 3 as “an unregulated casino with a hip bar scene” (sigh) strikes me as… about right?
- riffic 5y ago
  The web3 movement should be be inclusive of IndieWeb and federated ActivityPub ecosystems. Interoperability and open standards paved the way for all of this, and it'd be a shame to toss that out of the window for some pie in the sky vapor. edit: by inclusive, I mean adoption and funding. The wheel does not need to be re-invented, poorly.
  - wyck 5y ago
    This is so wrong it's astonishing, web 3 is build build using principles and designs that are decades in the making, literally 30-40 years of cryptography, zero knowledge proofs, game theory, and advanced mathematics. It's incredible that these ideas and academic papers are finally becoming real. The web 3 movement is very inclusive, but technology moves forwards not backwards.
    - riffic 5y ago
      decentralization doesn't need a blockchain. A web3 which doesn't recognize this is a web3 I don't want any part of.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    Do usenet newsgroups meet the definition of web3?
- wyck 5y ago
  I'm old enough to remember web 1, web 2, and web 3 , thinking web3 is a casino is ridiculously immature, it's how get rich quick moonboys and the mainstream media view blockchain, without actually spending the time researching the technology and understanding basic economic principles.
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
It needs a new protocol: ponzi://

Exactly. If Bitcoin had not gone "to the moon", all of this would be a tiny niche, like Chaum's DigiCash was. The problem is all the junk riding Bitcoin's coattails. At some point, probably soon, the bottom will fall out of at least part of this. NFTs are already crashing. That's not too visible, because there's no "market price" across different items. But you can look at sales on OpenSea, and notice that the resale prices are mostly lower than the previous price.[1] Smooth Love Potion [2], part of the Axie Infinity Ponzi, already crashed. The big moment will come when Tether comes un-tethered. It cannot survive a net outflow, because it has very little asset backing. Something is going to crack in the Tether/Binance area. Binance is giving some people 200x leverage.[3] That never ends well. [1] https://opensea.io/collection/collectvox?search[sortAscending]=false&search[sortBy]=LAST_SALE_PRICE&search[toggles][0]=HAS_OFFERS https://opensea.io/collection/collectvox?search[sortAscendin... [2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/smooth-love-potion/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/smooth-love-potion/ [3] https://www.coalexander.com/post/the-tether-binance-axis-and-the-great-crypto-crash-of-2022 https://www.coalexander.com/post/the-tether-binance-axis-and...

cinntaile 5y ago
> Exactly. If Bitcoin had not gone "to the moon", all of this would be a tiny niche, like Chaum's DigiCash was. I don't think "if this didn't happen then this wouldn't have happened" is a real argument, it's just a statement. True for just about everything. It's possible I'm misinterpreting and you just mean it as a statement?
- moolcool 5y ago
  "If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike"
wyck 5y ago
Chaum works on https://xx-coin.io/ https://xx-coin.io/ which has some interesting tech, and no it's not about going to the moon.

davepeck 5y ago

Original author here. Totally. I’m old enough to remember when Web 3 was the semantic web, so I guess I don’t put much stock in the label. And, personally, I’m really interested in crypto-less federated systems like Mastodon and some of the stuff the Indie Web community has built. I have no idea if those are, uh, web3 enough for web3.:-) As for the question of casinos, I think @pinboard’s description of Web 3 as “an unregulated casino with a hip bar scene” (sigh) strikes me as… about right?

riffic 5y ago
The web3 movement should be be inclusive of IndieWeb and federated ActivityPub ecosystems. Interoperability and open standards paved the way for all of this, and it'd be a shame to toss that out of the window for some pie in the sky vapor. edit: by inclusive, I mean adoption and funding. The wheel does not need to be re-invented, poorly.
- wyck 5y ago
  This is so wrong it's astonishing, web 3 is build build using principles and designs that are decades in the making, literally 30-40 years of cryptography, zero knowledge proofs, game theory, and advanced mathematics. It's incredible that these ideas and academic papers are finally becoming real. The web 3 movement is very inclusive, but technology moves forwards not backwards.
  - riffic 5y ago
    decentralization doesn't need a blockchain. A web3 which doesn't recognize this is a web3 I don't want any part of.
- bawolff 5y ago
  Do usenet newsgroups meet the definition of web3?
wyck 5y ago
I'm old enough to remember web 1, web 2, and web 3 , thinking web3 is a casino is ridiculously immature, it's how get rich quick moonboys and the mainstream media view blockchain, without actually spending the time researching the technology and understanding basic economic principles.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

It needs a new protocol: ponzi://