Everyone is talking about it and placing unprecedented hopes, it is called a “revolution” in the Internet and a combination of the real and virtual universes. But is everyone really interested in the development of Web3, who will benefit from its implementation, and who will lose billions of profits? With the rest, where to invest if you are an average investor and not the owner of a multinational company? Reasonable answers to all these questions are given by BeFund experts, a company that has been working for years in the development of projects for the future of the Internet.
What preceded the emergence of Web3?
First, let’s clarify, or recap, what Web3 is in general. To put it very briefly, this is the concept of a new round of Internet development to replace, as you can understand, the modern Web2. This stage has been going on since 2004 and replaced Web1, the characteristic feature of which was the unilateral consumption of content by users: you get what the resource owners offer. This principle was called “read-only” and did not involve the interactive participation of users. That is why no authorization was required.
Another thing is Web2, where users were given the opportunity to independently enter arbitrary content. Now it is common for each of you to leave a comment on a post or a review about an establishment, upload a photo or video — all these are the consequences of the concept redesign. Thanks to her, social networks appeared, payment services started working and, in general, everything that we have already managed to get used to. In order for the system to understand who is using it, authorization is necessary, and each of us has many accounts, personal accounts, and profiles. Over time, authorization through other systems became possible, when, say, you can access any system that supports third-party authorization with just one Apple account. Convenient, simple and affordable. Therefore, almost all people on Earth willingly provide their personal data, which is required for authorization.
Both Web1 and Web2 are centralized systems, that is, somewhere there are servers that store the databases of those systems that are deployed on them. The owners of the equipment, and therefore of their electronic content, are very specific people or companies. And this constitutes the main contradiction of both concepts, that is, the total dependence of users on the policies and plans of those who have the information and the tools for its processing in their hands. The five world leaders of such companies are united in GAMAM (Big Tech) — Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. It is clear that almost everything depends on them, but there are also smaller data owners who are also able to play their game. And if you realize that you can put an equal sign between the concepts of information and money, then it is not difficult to understand what actually controls absolutely all centralized systems.
The idea of Web3 appeared not only in opposition to the hegemony of global corporations, but to a large extent because of it. The concept envisages a decentralized Internet architecture, where databases are contained in distributed lists on independent servers. All this is built on blockchain technology, and therefore uses all its advantages: anonymity, lack of intermediaries, security and the like. The system is managed by the users themselves through Decentralized Organizations, and cryptocurrency is used for calculations. Sounds like an ideal environment with wide prospects, doesn’t it? But, unfortunately, not everyone likes it.
Contradiction of Web3 with other IT players and the others
Does Web3 already exist in its pure form? Yes and no: there are currently various blockchains that run various decentralized applications. Every day there are more and more applications and platforms, but this does not mean that Web3 is displacing its younger brother Web2 from the world stage. And there are several reasons for this:
- The transition to Web3 should be a consolidated decision by the majority of participants, which is simply not possible at the moment;
- Owners of transnational servers have an unreal amount of information about users, sharing which means losing trillions in revenue;
- Web3, or rather blockchain, fundamentally changes almost all modern work methods and “throws” out of the game other participants, for example, financial institutions, the need for which practically disappears. And they don’t want it;
- As of today, the Internet is not yet ready to abandon the protocols and standards on which it operates in favor of new ones — in addition to ideological ones, there are still many technical contradictions;
- There is a large segment of users who do not want any changes, even if they are for the better. It’s like in the film trilogy “The Matrix”, where it was said that there are people who will fight for the world, which is broadcast into their brains by machines, instead of freedom in real life;
- After all, blockchains themselves are still a fairly young technology, the possibilities of which have not been fully disclosed and are only gradually being studied by developers. The BeFund team has extensive experience in blockchain development, but almost every quarter there are new progressive ideas that need to be taken into account in order to create effective solutions.
Thus, the transition to Web3 will not happen as quickly and painlessly as it was from Web1 to Web2. At that time, the whole system was striving for development, since there was no change in the main concept, which involved the use of centralized solutions. But changes are inevitable and even GAMAM understands this: companies are interested in their own Metaverses, the creation of which is impossible without blockchain.
How to invest in Web3?
Investing in cryptocurrency and tokens is the easiest way to bring the global transition closer. BeFund experts are not talking about specific coins – the strengthening of the cryptocurrency as a whole provides the basis for the development of the rest of the decentralized networks, as it is, so to speak, the fuel for the whole process. Many modern dApps run on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that the development of this decentralized network will have a positive effect on all the projects working in it.
Investments in the DeFi segment can be called a more specific direction. As we have already said above, a significant obstacle on the way to the transition to Web3 is money, or rather its distribution among centralized organizations. Whoever controls cash flows controls the economy and all related processes. The development of decentralized finance solves several issues at once:
- Enables calculations in and between blockchains, makes it possible to build a virtual economy as efficiently as a real one;
- Reduces associated costs in the form of numerous commissions to possible intermediaries for whom interest collection is the main form of earnings;
- Makes the financial sector transparent, as any transaction on the blockchain can be tracked and verified;
- Deprives financial monopolists of leverage to implement policies beneficial only to them;
- Virtually erases the boundaries between calculations in the real and virtual world.
The next method to profitably invest in Web3 can be called investment in NFT. Do not rush to immediately look for good collections – now it is no longer about pictures, but in general about irreplaceable tokens. As we know, it is possible to create a virtual asset from almost anything in both the virtual and real world. NFT allows you to confirm the user’s ownership of a specific asset and trade it on exchanges. It’s not very easy at the moment, but more and more DAOs offer the ability to sell and buy unique tokens. For NFTs, the rule of long-term investment works and tokens gain more and more value over time. That is why we consider investing in NFTs not too fast, but the most attractive investment methods.
The number of interested users plays a big role in the transition to Web3. After all, let’s remember that revolutions are always made by people themselves who believe in common ideals. Therefore, it is important to develop decentralized organizations and increase their authority. To become a member of a DAO, you need to own the assets of such an organization, which gives the right and opportunity to influence the development of the community. This is clearly visible on the example of cryptogaming platforms: participants who own the appropriate tokens participate in voting for the development of updates, changing the rules of the game, and much more. Of course, the more assets you have, the more weighty your vote will be. But this is a fairly simple democratic rule, valid for the management of any real joint-stock company. Therefore, if you have a defined circle of interests and an opportunity to be an active member of some community, do not ignore this opportunity and bring the world revolution on the Internet closer.
Finally, let’s note another promising direction — the development of dApps. For ordinary users, such applications on the Internet are practically no different from the billions of modern web applications that we all use in the browsers of computers or smartphones. But from a technical point of view, these are radically different programs that work with distributed databases on the blockchain. Therefore, it is safer and more reliable to use such platforms. And if, say, your favorite Instagram was a decentralized application, the administration or attackers would not be able to arbitrarily delete your favorite photo uploaded: a copy of the dApp database is located on many nodes at once, so the blockchain will not accept changes made by a third party without your knowledge and restore the lost content Thus, if you have ideas for your own business online, try to implement them not in the usual way, but at the expense of available Web3 technologies. This is better for many of the reasons we listed above. Therefore, the answer to the question: “When to invest in Web3” is simple – start right now. BeFund specialists will be happy to help you with this.
