In order to understand the future of blockchain and the great influence that inter-chain technology will bring, we will review the history of Internet development. From 1996 till now, the Internet has experienced two complete stages of change, namely, from web 1.0 to web.2.0, Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.
- from Web1.0 to Web2.0: the evolution of Internet
The Internet was born to connect you and me, so as to generate great value in interaction.
Web 1.0 Era
Before social networks and online video streaming, the Internet existed. Web 1.0 existed even before Google appeared in the 1990s. At that time, the Internet was dominated by Altavista and Netscape. The web page is “read-only”. Users can only search for and browse information.
Web 2.0 era
After web 1.0, the second iteration of the Internet is called Web 2.0, which is the “read-write” network. In the 2.0 era, users are not only limited to browsing, they can also create their own content and upload it to the web.
In this era, a question and answer type, interactive portal, such as blog, Wiki encyclopedia, was born. The most obvious change is that information is no longer from official to individual, but expanded to produce interactive content. Information is no longer difficult from individual to platform to individual.
The main goal of Web 2.0 is to make the Internet more democratic and user-friendly wherever possible. Web 2.0 makes social interaction and online economy shine. Of course, Web 2.0 is also beginning to overload information. According to the data of the United Nations, the number of Internet users has increased from the latest 738 million to 3.2 billion. The huge number of users and the exponential growth of data have caused challenges and crises.
2.2. Why Web3.0 is needed
Traditional network value is based on user interaction, such as telephone, social network. Here we introduce a formula to measure the network value, Metcalf’s Law (Metcalfe’s Law): the network value is directly proportional to the square of the network node (user). This relationship is based on the so-called “network effect”, that is, the more users the network participates in, the greater the value of the network.
Chris Dixon said the growth of technology platforms that rely on network effects follows an “S-shaped curve.”. In the first few days of product launch, platform growth depends on the number of users. With the growth of the company and more and more users joining the platform, the growth curve began to become smooth. In the later stage of the company’s development, it only focuses on creating more profits and pursuing the maximum benefits from the network users.
When companies reach the top of the S curve, their relationship with network participants changes from positive sum to zero sum. The easiest way for the platform to continue to grow is to get data from users and compete with competitors for users and profits. Platform and developers, content creators and merchants are also gradually moving from cooperation to competition. Monopoly has brought damage to users, as well as the evils of centralized platforms, such as Baidu’s access to user information, Baidu’s extensive contact with companies, so that everyone can submit information to him, convenient for users to search. Now if you don’t pay, the company’s official website can’t be found on Baidu. In order to make money, baidu diverted patients to Putian hospital, and countless scams ranked top in search engine caused great damage to users’ property and life safety.
The decentralized blockchain can change the monopoly situation of Internet platform. Because blockchain is decentralized, an economy maintained by an open and transparent consensus. The greater the contribution of network participants, the greater the corresponding rights, but no individual can control the overall situation.
In this regard, Gavin wood once made a famous speech and made the following outlook for Web3.0.
Web 3.0 will create a new global digital economy, create new business models and markets, destroy platform monopoly together with Google and Facebook, and generate a lot of bottom-up innovation. Cheap government attacks on our privacy and freedom, such as extensive data trawling, censorship and advocacy, will become more difficult.
Web3.0 will reshape the Internet from the following aspects.
Web 3.0 will adopt “cellular” structure to realize P2P economy
From the above analysis, we can see that the current Internet is over centralized, which leads to many problems, such as rent-seeking, power abuse, public opinion impact. Amazon and Microsoft control more than 60% of the network storage capacity, and they also control most of the identity login information. These monopoly oligarchs make use of the Internet technology dividend and accumulate wealth for their own enterprises.
The P2P architecture of Web3.0 has led the fourth industrial revolution, because the means of production have been simplified. People can provide services by themselves (music, video, news industry can meet the needs of the free profession), or produce goods by themselves through 3D printing. In fact, the marginal cost of people’s extra products is becoming lower and lower. For creative economy producers, most of their labor will be rewarded accordingly. Artists and journalists may even become the key elements to change the rules of the game.
For example, in the current Internet model, personal labor can not be directly converted into economic incentives for writing on content platforms such as Zhihu and tieba, and even the content copyright belongs to the platform side and other overlord terms. The popularity of the application of web 3 technology, such as decentralized content writing, will make personal labor achievements directly into economic value.
Web3.0 brings more democratic Internet Governance
Web3 gives governance power to users, not centralized oligarchs. Because of the powerful encryption function, users no longer need “mediation”. With Web3 effectively preventing the double spending risk of digital assets, we can safely exchange value with strangers, and the trust level of signing contracts, voting, exchange value and other transactions will be greatly improved. When a digital system is used all over the world, trust will increase.
Decentralized identity systems allow people to self manage identity information. At present, monopoly oligarchs such as Google and Facebook control the user identity information on the Internet. Internet oligarchs can control the data without the permission of users. The key is that there are often data leakage events. The decentralized identity system of Web3.0 allows people to manage their own personal information and decide what can be authorized, so as to solve the ubiquitous privacy leakage And other information.
Smart contracts and cryptocurrencies provide a fast, seamless trading experience
The former Internet lacked monetary structure. In the digital field, the Internet still has great friction in dealing with traditional “legal currency” funds. The cost of “moving” money from the real world to the digital world is still very high. For example, the handling fees for credit card transactions are as high as 5%, and according to the world bank, the cross-border transaction costs are not low (the average rate is 7%), while the time costs and fees for international remittance are even higher. Since the 1970s, interbank transfers have relied on swift, the electronic settlement system of the global Interbank Financial Telecommunication Association, and have not changed.
Payment tokens on the Web3 infrastructure can help new users get rid of the current closed-loop constraints of the bank, and encourage the development of innovative blockchain services, such as the use of credit products based on blockchain and encryption mode to provide loans. Paying tokens will significantly reduce transaction costs and even eliminate overdraft problems, because it is impossible to provide excess funds on the blockchain.
2.3 future status of inter-chain technology
Web3.0 is the blockchain world after the inter-chain technology matures. Relying on the inter-chain technology, the multi chain integrates without barriers, breaks the information island, realizes the real value exchange and the interconnection of everything, reshapes the current Internet form, and solves a series of problems in the Internet 2.0 era.
About ChainX
- Official website: https://chainx.org
- Wiki: https://github.com/chainx-org/ChainX/wiki
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- Medium: https://medium.com/@chainx_org
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- White paper: https://chainx-static.oss-cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/chainx_en.pdf
- Desktop wallet: https://github.com/chainx-org/chainx-wallet/releases/tag/v1.0.3
- Official Wechat: interchain
