The Case against Web3 🤔
Is the FUD true? Stripe don’t think so.
Welcome to the 4 new people who subscribed to my newsletter since last Thursday. I am very grateful for every single one of you. Thank you for your support!
On December 21, 2021 the former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted this:
You don’t own ‘web3.’
The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.
Know what you are getting into…
It’s fair to say his words started a raging debate on whether Web3 is more than just a clever marketing scheme developed by the venture capitalists and their incumbents.
In the past week another prominent critic poured fuel on the fire with her in depth analyses of the Web3 state of affairs.
At this point, a critical reader should be wondering why Andreessen Horowitz - a venture capital firm that has backed (and continues to back) some of the largest Big Tech firms, and whose entire business model relies on accruing value to themselves and their investors - would be interested in something that was truly ‘community-governed’ where ‘value accrues to network participants’.
According to Molly White, Andreessen Horowitz’s newest State of Crypto report is an incredibly shameless piece of propaganda showing the extents to which the VC firm is willing to manipulate facts and outright lie, hoping to turn the sentiment on the crypto industry back to where retail investors were providing substantial pools of liquidity with which they could line their pockets.
While I appreciate the contributions of people like Jack Dorsey and Molly White to this conversation, I also find their points of view incredibly one-sided and biased against Web3.
I’m afraid you won’t be able to make a clear judgement on the progress and innovation blockchain technologies have brought by only reading what the loudest critics are saying.
Web3 wants to take politics as we know out of many things but not to be ‘neutral’ but to take democratic rights and rules for participation away. When only the code decides and there is no place for debate and political struggle, how do the disenfranchised get heard? How do the powerless organize and revolt?
Politics is about struggles. About people having different interests and fighting for them and often against their political opponents. Web3 doesn’t want to ‘stay out of it’, it wants it to stop.
On March 19, 2022 a popular Youtuber posted a rather long exposé on the topic at hand. She starts by showing the peculiarities of Web3 culture but quickly paints the picture in political colors. If you watch the video until the end, you’ll see the quote above and realize this Youtuber’s lack of objectivity when talking about everything blockchain.
One might say this was not münecat’s goal at all. Nevertheless, I find her video essay amusing and entertaining.
Stripe expands access to its crypto onramp with a new hosted option.
Stripe’s hosted fiat-to-crypto onramp makes it easier for Web3 companies to help US-based customers purchase crypto. The embeddable onramp is helpful for these companies that want to fully customize the branding and customer experience, while the Stripe-hosted option provides an even easier way for users to get started.
My name is Petar Kashev and I’m a marketing professional from Bulgaria 🇧🇬 You can follow me @petar on Warpcast or message me @petar on Telegram.