I’ve never been a huge crypto nerd. I vaguely heard about Bitcoin in 2012 when friends were making questionable purchases on Silk Road, and that cemented my perception of crypto being sketchy.
When I moved to the U.S. in 2016 though, it was hard to avoid the topic, especially in business school. I read the Bitcoin whitepaper and I dug into books about the blockchain. It was interesting to me in an academic way but I still didn’t think Bitcoin was viable as a currency or as a source of value. I stayed out of the fray.
Fast forward to 2021. A steady build-up of pandemic boredom seemed to explode with GameStop in January and Dogecoin in May. I couldn’t help but wonder if my financial conservativeness was leaving me behind, especially as friends in the Bay Area speculated wildly and made thousands (on paper, anyway).
Then came NFTs and with it web3, and a whiplash of nostalgia.
I’ve written about this tangentially in the past but my journey on the interwebz began with Neopets when I was eleven. For the uninitiated, Neopets was a virtual pet community with ‘free games, shops, auctions, chat and more!’ that took off wildly in the early 2000s. It was my first introduction to a community of like-minded peers that was built around art and creativity. I learnt how to use Photoshop and figured out how to write HTML/CSS to one-up other pre-pubescent teenagers on this website. My ‘real life’ was in Hyderabad, India but my ‘online life’ was where I had friends across the world.
Today, this is what NFT communities feel like.
Because I’ve lived through this in the past, I don’t question its appeal now in the slightest. NFTs are bringing women along for this crypto ride much earlier than Bitcoin ever did. Yes, there is a lot of grifting and yes, the prevalence of ‘girl boss wagmi’ crap gives me the heebie jeebies, but if you cut past the fat, there’s meat here. There’s cool art being made, and more importantly there are real communities emerging around this art.
Just like Neopets was never about pets, NFTs aren’t really about the art. It’s hard to get past the initial ‘NFTs are dumb, why is a monkey jpeg worth millions’ take unless you actually see how NFT communities are bleeding through the real and virtual worlds.
The experience of web3 too, it feels both new and familiar. The key differentiator that is touted is that web3 is built on the blockchain and is decentralized. To me, that feels like an implementation detail most users don’t need to care about.
Having a single, potentially anonymous identity that gives you unfettered access to web and commerce however is wild to me. Never having to create another account or sign up for a service. Never having to remember passwords. Not having to authenticate every single time. Not having to enter credit card information. One wallet, one identity. Tokens and reward systems which translate online presence into real monetary benefits—we haven’t even begun to understand the implications of where this can go.
None of this is perfect, just like the internet in its infancy was clunky. The ‘proof of work’ required to record transactions on the blockchain is environmentally fraught. ‘Gas fees’ on most transactions in web3 are a huge barrier to access for users. There is a proliferation of scammers, thieves, and swindlers in the space.
But. But. The wild wild west will eventually get tamed, whether it’s through regulation or self-governance. ‘Proof of stake’ replacing ‘proof of work’ will eventually lower environmental and gas costs. I believe most of the commonly cited problems will dissipate as the tech improves and smarter builders enter the space.
As someone who sat out for a very long time, 2021 was the year I ‘index-invested’ into cryptocurrencies and bought my first NFT. I’m bullish on the communities (particularly those bringing in women and underrepresented minorities) being built around NFTs. I’m also bullish on the potential of web3 and the new age of internet experiences it can unlock. I suspect that the currency itself (bitcoin, SOL, ether, whatever) will fade into the background as a boring detail (as boring as fiat). I also think the average user won’t give a crap about whether the website they’re on is using a key-value database, a NoSQL database, or a blockchain.
Almost two decades after I first discovered the internet, I have a front row seat to this new wave of the internet as a product person based in Silicon Valley. I’m super excited for the ride, even though I don’t quite know how I will actively participate. But suffice to say there’s no dearth of innovation happening at Google and I’m keeping my eyes peeled.