The Internet is Getting F***ing Exciting
Yes, another thing about web 3.0
Welcome to everyone who wasn’t here last week! I enjoyed writing about Titan, and if you missed it, read here: Titan Democratizing Wealth Management.
I woke up this past Monday morning and saw Packy’s new edition of Not Boring, Crypto Bezos, and it got my brain running.
Not often does an opportunity like web 3.0 stare you right in the face.
I’ll summarize Packy’s newsletter for you in a few sentences.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon because he saw a stat saying the internet was growing at 2300% a year and he wanted to be a part of that growth. Web 3.0 is growing faster, so what would Jeff Bezos build if he was 30 today?
I had a lot of ideas, so instead of just responding to Packy’s tweet, I thought I would write a newsletter response.
My mind immediately went a few directions, but one that stuck out was the NFT space. The NFT space recently has been looked at as a bubble, with random images of rocks selling for millions of dollars. While I believe some of the NFT space is a massive bubble, I also believe that there are some serious opportunities with this technology.
Looking fundamentally at NFTs, they provide proof of ownership on the blockchain. The only reason I am in the Gambling Apes locked discord channels is because connecting my metamask proved that I was an owner of one of the apes. The future for NFTs though goes way beyond art. Think about concert tickets. Why wouldn’t artists sell concert tickets as NFTs? One thing that I forgot to mention is that the creator of an NFT keeps a % of secondary transactions. Let’s say an artist sells concert tickets as NFTs for $50 and someone goes and resells that ticket for $100. Right now, the artist sees none of that sale value, with an NFT the artists can receive 5-10%. This is just an example.
So What Would Jeff Build?
Well, like Amazon I think the idea is to start simple. Amazon sold books because you couldn’t build a bookstore with 3 million books, but online you could. Amazon also had a hyper-focus on customer experience.
I believe that this customer experience lacks a little within a few NFT projects. From my experience, which isn’t a lot, the experience for owners is a little underwhelming. For example, in the Gambling Apes discord, I am in the verified channels that only verified ape holders are in… but that’s it. Yes, we have exclusive events and more utility down the line, but for right now, just a separate discord channel feels underwhelming. I bought into this society, I want to be able to look up who my fellow ape holders are and more, almost like a country club. This leads me to a discovery on Twitter from the other day… Metalink.
From sneak peek looks, Metalink looks like a discord but for NFT communities. To enter, you link your metamask or other wallet and boom you’re in. This is just the V1 for this product, but I’d imagine and am guessing they can go a lot of different places from here. Anywhere from building online “country clubs” to hosting community events. What if ownership of an NFT gave you access to a co-working space? Maybe a DAO through BAYC that buys up 3 vacations houses on an island that everyone has access to? Who knows.
Anyways, Metalink serves the customers very well. Discord can’t do it all so developing the “Discord for NFTs” simply makes sense.
Beyond Metalink what else can be done? What is hard to do on web 2.0 that web 3.0 can make a million times easier? To be honest that’s not exactly where my brain is thinking.
I Was Thinking of The Mountain
I think one of the biggest transitions of our lives will be moving from web 2.0 to web 3.0, but how that is going to happen for the normal person I feel is still up in the air.
Buying Crypto used to be a scary endeavor.
Coinbase brought it to reality and made it easy.
Right now, I think Web 3.0 feels like this
Web 3.0 feels like a tall mountain to climb for the average person. Web 2.0 is where the person is now at the bottom of the mountain, the average user needs help from companies similar to Coinbase to get to the top.
@Alex on Twitter recently wrote a GREAT piece about this relating to NFTs.
“…all this is to say that I like buying art and I think NFTs are good fun. But the on-ramp to actually getting one is too high. Perhaps that’s why OpenSea has added 107,000 active users in the last week, per DappRadar, instead of, say, a few million. Folks who want to eventually climb through the software web required, and the huge fees that must be paid, will manage. But if NFTs want the more regular types like yours truly, the barriers need to come down a little. Or at least the fees.”
Alex echos some amazing points that I agree with, the barriers are too high right now. Starting with one of the first and simplest applications of web 3.0, NFTs, it is very hard for the average person to go out and participate in the NFT market. This is a problem, if web 3.0 wants to be a good customer experience, the barriers and hurtles need to go down from the start.
Where does this get solved? Well, I don’t know yet. I am personally a big believer in Solana ($SOL) as the “currency of the people”, whereas $ETH is the currency for institutions and whales. Solana right now has little to no fees and is lighting fast. Minting an NFT with SOL vs minting an NFT with ETH is a black and white experience. Now I know this is just a temporary problem for ETH and that hopefully, ETH 2.0 will fix gas fees and transaction times, but for now solutions like Solana are helping advance the web 3.0 agenda for the average person.
In my mind, Bezos would focus here. Building a tool for the masses that makes the transition to web 3.0 easier. Whether it be a better wallet, a better service to buy ETH using your credit card, an easier NFT marketplace for consumers, whatever it is would have a heavy focus on the consumer and making the transition to web 3.0 easier.
It is no doubt going to be an exciting next 10 years, if you know any of these products making the mountain easier to climb, post them on this Twitter post below!
Last but not least, it is Ryder Cup weekend, let’s go USA!
If you ever need a 21 y/o to look over any projects or beta test anything, let me know and I would be happy to take a look! thomas@genzvoice.com.
Disclosures: I currently hold a position in both $SOL and $ETH.