19th August 2022 > > The Metaverse.

tl;dr

Web3 is not about centralisation, though some wish it were.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

The much longed-for (by me anyway) short squeeze has not materialised, and shorts have started taking their profits, and/or longs are getting themselves leveraged up.

It is now two full months since we were last decisively about $25k. That psychological barrier is proving very difficult to shift.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The Metaverse

Everyone is having a laugh at Mark Zuckerberg’s foray into the Metaverse, an experiment that has cost Meta (the platform previously known as Facebook) a tidy $10bn in development costs so far:

I have been told that there really isn’t a giant man-and-Eiffel Tower eating caterpillar in the background of Zuckerberg’s adventure into his own Metaverse, but none of my other sources could confirm or deny that rumour.

Web3 is about so much more than this, but first and foremost in most peoples’ minds when thinking about Web3 is the Metaverse.

…

There are some people who do not wish to think too hard about Web3.

A prime example is the journalist (unattributed here to save her embarrassment but I promise you this is a true quote) who wrote this comment in her role as a house reporter about cryptos:

“Web3 is just the newest way of serving up the same old crypto bullshit, and it stinks just as badly as ever”.

Apart from the obvious bias in that comment, it just doesn’t strike me as being particularly professional. But perhaps the world has moved on and I failed to notice.

I will also refrain from naming the publication too, but it is one that worships at the altars of centralisation and control and is dismissive of personal liberty, in my opinion. I have it on good authority that this newspaper is pejoratively known as “The Pink Un”, for reasons that entirely escape me.

…

Meanwhile, the CCC research team is deep diving into the possibilities and potential of Web3, far beyond the limited imaginations of Zuckerberg et al.

Some of the issues and topics we are looking at include:

- Ownership of one’s identity.

- Compliance with KYC (Know your customer) and AML (Anti-money laundering) rules using zero knowledge proofs, which could revolutionise banking and other industries.

- Corporate engagement with customers.

- Collapse of the Tech titans, for those who believe cryptos replace fiat.

- Collaboration with the Tech titans, for those who believe cryptos complement fiat.

- Gaming and gambling.

- Impact on the crypto ecosphere.

- The Metaverse, natch.

These are just a small handful of the myriad ways in which Web3 is already starting to improve our lives.