Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new

iteration Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration. ...

of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

which incorporates concepts such as

decentralization Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and gi ...

, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. This is distinct from

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

's concept of the

Semantic Web The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable. To enable the encoding o ...

. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, a ...

, in which they say

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...

is controlled by a small group of companies referred to as

Big Tech Big Tech, also referred to as the Tech Giants or Tech Titans, is a collective term for the largest and most influential technology companies in the world. The label draws a parallel to similar classifications in other industries, such as "Big Oi ...

. The term "web3" was coined in 2014 by

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (abbreviation: ETH) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-s ...

co-founder

Gavin Wood Gavin James Wood is an English computer scientist, a co-founder of Ethereum, and creator of Polkadot and Kusama. Early life Wood was born in Lancaster, England, United Kingdom. He attended the Lancaster Royal Grammar School. He graduated from ...

, and the idea gained interest in 2021 from

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

enthusiasts, large technology companies, and

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firms. The concepts of web3 were first represented in 2013. Critics have expressed concerns over the centralization of wealth to a small group of investors and individuals, or a loss of privacy due to more expansive data collection. Billionaires like

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

and

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American businessperson, who is a co-founder of Twitter, Inc. and its CEO during 2007–2008 and 2015–2021, as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairman of Block, Inc. (deve ...

have argued that web3 only serves as a

buzzword A buzzword is a word or phrase, new or already existing, that becomes popular for a period of time. Buzzwords often derive from technical terms yet often have much of the original technical meaning removed through fashionable use, being simply ...

or marketing term.

Background

Web 1.0 and

refer to eras in the

history of the World Wide Web World Wide Web, The World Wide Web ("WWW", "W3" or simply "the Web") is a global information medium that users can access via computers connected to the Internet. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet, but the Web is ...

as it evolved through various technologies and formats. Web 1.0 refers roughly to the period from 1991 to 2004, where most sites consisted of static pages, and the vast majority of users were consumers, not producers of content.

is based around the idea of "the web as platform" and centers on user-created content uploaded to forums,

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

and networking services,

blogs A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

, and

wikis A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

, among other services. Web 2.0 is generally considered to have begun around 2004 and continues to the current day.

Terminology

Web3 is distinct from

's 1999 concept of a

, which was also sometimes referred to as Web 3.0. While the Semantic Web envisioned a web of linked data, web3 in the

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

context refers to a decentralized internet built upon distributed ledger technologies. Some writers referring to the decentralized concept usually known as "web3" have used the term "Web 3.0", leading to some confusion between the two concepts. Furthermore, some visions of web3 also incorporate ideas relating to the semantic web. The term "web3" was coined by Polkadot founder and

co-founder

in 2014, referring to a "decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain." In 2021, the idea of web3 gained popularity. Particular interest spiked toward the end of 2021, largely due to interest from

enthusiasts and investments from high-profile technologists and companies. Executives from venture capital firm

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

traveled to

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, in October 2021 to lobby for the idea as a potential solution to questions about regulation of the web, with which policymakers have been grappling.

Concept

Specific visions for web3 differ, and the term has been described by Olga Kharif as "hazy", but they revolve around the idea of decentralization and often incorporate blockchain technologies, such as various

cryptocurrencies A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership records ...

and

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

s (NFTs). Kharif has described web3 as an idea that "would build financial assets, in the form of tokens, into the inner workings of almost anything you do online". A policy brief published by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

defined web3 as "the putative next generation of the web's technical, legal, and payments infrastructure—including blockchain,

smart contract A smart contract is a computer program or a Transaction Protocol Data Unit, transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objective ...

s and cryptocurrencies." Some visions are based around the concept of

decentralized autonomous organization A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), sometimes called a decentralized autonomous corporation (DAC), is an organization managed in whole or in part by decentralized computer programs, with voting and finances handled through a decent ...

s (DAOs).

Decentralized finance Decentralized finance (often stylized as DeFi) provides financial instruments and services through smart contracts on a programmable, permissionless blockchain. This approach reduces the need for intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or ...

(DeFi) is another key concept; in it, users exchange currency without bank or government involvement.

Self-sovereign identity Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is an approach to digital identity that gives individuals control over the information they use to prove who they are to websites, services, and applications across the web. Without SSI, individuals with persistent ...

allows users to identify themselves without relying on an authentication system such as

OAuth OAuth (short for open authorization) is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords. Th ...

, in which a trusted party has to be reached in order to assess identity.

Reception

Academic researchers, such as Tomer J. Chaffer and Justin Goldston in 2022, have described web3 as a possible solution to concerns about the over-centralization of the web in a few "

" companies. Some have expressed the notion that web3 could improve

data security Data security or data protection means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach. Technologies Disk encryption ...

scalability Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work. One definition for software systems specifies that this may be done by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that ...

, and

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

beyond what is currently possible with

platforms. ''Bloomberg'' states that skeptics say the idea "is a long way from proving its use beyond niche applications, many of them tools aimed at crypto traders". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported that several investors are betting $27billion that web3 "is the future of the internet". Some Web 2.0 companies, including

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

and

Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...

, have explored incorporating web3 technologies into their platforms. On November 8, 2021, CEO Jason Citron tweeted a screenshot suggesting Discord might be exploring integrating cryptocurrency wallets into their platform. Two days later, and after heavy user backlash, Discord announced they had no plans to integrate such technologies and that it was an internal-only concept that had been developed in a company-wide

hackathon A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of '' hacking'' and ''marathon'') is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 h ...

. Some legal scholars quoted by ''

The Conversation ''The Conversation'' is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who faces a moral dilemma when his recordings reveal a potential ...

'' have expressed concerns over the difficulty of regulating a decentralized web, which they reported might make it more difficult to prevent

cybercrime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or Computer network, networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cyberc ...

online harassment Cyberbullying (cyberharassment or online bullying) is a form of bullying or harassment using Electronic communication network, electronic means. Since the 2000s, it has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers and Adolescence, a ...

hate speech Hate speech is a term with varied meaning and has no single, consistent definition. It is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as ...

, and the dissemination of

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

. But, the news website also states that, " ecentralized webrepresents the cyber-libertarian views and hopes of the past that the internet can empower ordinary people by breaking down existing power structures". Some other critics of web3 see the concept as a part of a cryptocurrency bubble, or as an extension of

-based trends that they see as overhyped or harmful, particularly NFTs. Some critics have raised concerns about the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Cryptocurrencies vary in efficiency, with

proof of stake Proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols are a class of consensus mechanisms for blockchains that work by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency. This is done to avoid the computational cost of ...

having been designed to be less energy intensive than the more widely used

proof of work Proof of work (also written as proof-of-work, an abbreviated PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party (the ''prover'') proves to others (the ''verifiers'') that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended ...

, although there is disagreement about how secure and decentralized this is in practice. Others have expressed beliefs that web3 and the associated technologies are a

pyramid scheme A pyramid scheme is a business model which, rather than earning money (or providing Return on investment, returns on investments) by sale of legitimate product (business), products to an end consumer, mainly earns money by recruiting new members ...

, co-founder and former CEO of

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, dismissed web3 as a "venture capitalists' plaything". Dorsey opined that web3 will not democratize the internet, but it will shift

power Power may refer to: Common meanings * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power, a type of energy * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events Math ...

from players like

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

to venture capital funds like

Buzzword

Liam Proven, writing for ''

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'', concludes that web3 is "a myth, a fairy story. It's what parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to become economists". In 2021,

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

and Tesla CEO

expressed skepticism about web3 in a tweet, saying that web3 "seems more marketing buzzword than reality right now." In November 2021, James Grimmelmann of

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

referred to web3 as

vaporware In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer Computer hardware, hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late, never actually manufactured, or officially canceled. Use of the w ...

, calling it "a promised future internet that fixes all the things people don't like about the current internet, even when it's contradictory." Grimmelmann also argued that moving the internet toward a blockchain-focused infrastructure would centralize and cause more

data collection Data collection or data gathering is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established system, which then enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes. Data collection is a research com ...

compared to the current internet. Software engineer Stephen Diehl described web3 in a blog post as a "vapid marketing campaign that attempts to reframe the public's negative associations of crypto assets into a false narrative about disruption of legacy tech company hegemony."

Decentralization concerns

Kevin Werbach, author of ''The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust'', has said that "many so-called 'Web 3.0' solutions are not as decentralized as they seem, while others have yet to show they are scalable, secure and accessible enough for the mass market", adding that this "may change, but it's not a given that all these limitations will be overcome". In early 2022,

Moxie Marlinspike Moxie Marlinspike is an American entrepreneur, cryptographer, and computer security researcher. Marlinspike is the creator of Signal (messaging app), Signal, co-founder of the Signal Technology Foundation, and served as the first CEO of Signal M ...

, creator of

Signal A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

, articulated how web3 is not as decentralized as it appears to be, mainly due to consolidation in the cryptocurrency field, including in blockchain

application programming interfaces An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build su ...

which are currently mainly controlled by the companies

Alchemy Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

and Infura; cryptocurrency exchanges which are mainly dominated by

Binance Binance Holdings Ltd., branded Binance, is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously created high-frequency trading ...

Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's bigge ...

, MetaMask, and

OpenSea OpenSea is an American online marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah. It facilitates the buying, selling, and minting of NFTs across a range of blockchains. Headquartered in Miami, OpenSea sup ...

; and the

stablecoin A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency where the value of the digital asset is supposed to be pegged to a reference asset, which is either fiat money, exchange-traded commodities (such as precious metals or industrial metals), or another cry ...

market which is currently dominated by

Tether A tether is a cord, fixture, or flexible attachment that characteristically anchors something movable to something fixed; it also may be used to connect two movable objects, such as an item being towed by its tow. Applications for tethers incl ...

. Marlinspike also remarked that the new web resembles the old web.

References

{{Authority control Web3 2020s in Internet culture Blockchains Decentralization 2014 neologisms