By the time you feel you’ve nailed crypto, something fresh appears — or a once-old invention returns to prominence. Since the last Crypto Winter melted away, we’ve had a DeFi Summer, climbed the battlements of an NFT upheaval, and then signed into Discord for a DAO revival.
As excitement around prices fades into BUIDLing protocols and platforms, it’s a good moment to stop and consider some of the major ideas, movements, and research areas in crypto and web3 over the past several months.
Looking ahead to the second half of 2022, here are seven pieces on Future that describe the possibilities of a decentralized future and what is needed to build it:
7 Essential Ingredients of a Metaverse by Liz Harkavy, Eddy Lazzarin and Arianna Simpson / a16z crypto
Web2 mainstay Facebook went all in on the metaverse this year, even going as far as renaming itself Meta. At the same time, crypto-native firms are doubling down on a decentralized, open source vision of the metaverse. So the race is underway to build the internet’s next phase, one that’s — as Liz Harkavy, Eddy Lazzarin and Arianna Simpson describe it — “more social, immersive, and far more economically sophisticated than what exists today.” The authors lay out the seven elements needed to turn that into a (virtual) reality.
DAOs, A Canon by Sonal Chokshi, Zoran Basich, Guy Wollett / a16z crypto
After spending years gestating, DAOs, or “decentralized autonomous organizations,” broke into public view with a $40 million bid to purchase a copy of the U.S. Constitution at auction. Today, they’re all the rage — even if plenty of people still aren’t certain what they are, what benefits they provide, and where they’re headed next. Here’s the definitive reference guide.
Decentralization for Web3 Builders: Principles, Models, How by Miles Jennings / a16z crypto
Decentralization has been a battle cry for web3, but there is no single model that fits every case. In this piece, Miles Jennings seeks to “guide web3 builders tackling what decentralization means in practice” by first offering a framework for understanding the technical, economic and legal design of web3 systems.
DeFi Gives Financial Privacy — Will Regulation Take It Away? by Eugene Volokh / UCLA
U.S. regulators and lawmakers are moving toward a more specific set of rules for crypto companies. A common focus has been decentralized finance because it eliminates intermediaries — which in theory help lower risk in the system because they are regulated. Here, Eugene Volokh cautions policymakers that “banning such technologies (or requiring that they be set up in a way that does forfeit the Fourth Amendment right) would violate the Fourth Amendment privacy right.”
“Fantasy Hollywood” — Crypto and Community-Owned Characters by Cuy Sheffield / Visa
When you purchase a trading card, you don’t own the rights to the person pictured on it. Crypto is creating a different model. Visa Head of Crypto Cuy Sheffield says DAOs, NFTs and other web3 developments can “enable a new model of character development and ownership” in which communities control valuable intellectual property.
A Guide to DeSci, the Latest Web3 Movement by Sarah Hamburg / LYNX
At their heart, blockchains are about disintermediation. Knowledge work also has intermediaries — from modest writers and editors to endowment-padding universities. Decentralized science, or DeSci, has not yet gone mainstream, but the DAO movement has given scientists, researchers, and academics a new venue for pushing progress.
The Missing Link Between Web2 and Web3: Custody by Mahesh Vellanki / Rally, Forte
Decentralized protocols have their benefits but can feel daunting to the uninitiated, who are used to web2. Here, Rally and Forte co-founder Mahesh Vellanki argues for a middle path in the crypto custody debate. The concept: first onboard crypto users, then slowly steer them toward more decentralized choices.
Around the web:
Cryptocurrency’s Role in the Russia-Ukraine Crisis by Aidan Arasasingham / Center for Strategic & International Studies
A brief explainer on why cryptocurrency exchanges aren’t driving sanctions evasion.
How the Metaverse Could Be a Game-Changer for NFT Gaming by David Z Morris / CoinDesk
An opinion piece on where three major tech trends intersect.
ImpactDAOS – The Building Block of Regen Web3 by Kevin Owocki / Gitcoin
A videotaped talk on regenerative economics from the founder of Gitcoin.
Newton’s Alchemy, by Packy McCormick / Not Boring
An explanation of why failure—for crypto protocols or anything else—can be useful for scientific progress.
Soulbound, by Vitalik Buterin / Ethereum
A look at non-transferable NFTs and related governance rights.
What to anticipate from Future:
It’s impossible to know which paths creators, developers, and community members will choose for web3. As builders get to work, we’ll cover web3’s possibilities by going deeper into areas like NFTs, the metaverse, DeFi, and uses that have not yet taken form. We’ll also explain how to join the ongoing shift from web2 to web3 by surrounding readers with crypto’s ethos, including decentralization and disintermediation along with the habits and practices that support it. If you have a sense of where web3’s future is heading, pitch us here.