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Comment by deepu256 | Hacker News Reader

Web3 is just getting started. Every new paradigm has 2 cycles often both running in parallel. Building Cycle, where developers and enterpreneurs envision and build awesome products and necessary infrastructure. Capital Cycle, Speculative & Growth capital goes into such projects leading to bubbles and busts.

What happened recently is Capital cycle bubble broke. Building cycle is well and truly on.

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It's still really hard (or impossible) to find people using any web3 offers in real life though. And the only place web3 is thrown into my face is hacker news. It seems to continue to be a small underground thing ("crypto nerds").

Yes web3 is way too early. Infra is still barely matured to do anything interesting. But some nice infra projects entering production stage in few months. I really expect some nice web3 projects in mainstream before 2024.

You don't have to field this Q, as it seems fairly large. But perhaps you could point me to some sources of info (and if not, all good).

Basically, I'm super skeptical, and anyone who claims there will be use-cases often don't point to any projects. And the use-cases they offer seem to be easily dismantled (perhaps by a lack of vision and imagination and understanding on part of the critics).

But I do think that perhaps in 10-15 years, IF blockchain tech lasts, that it will become implemented to the point where people will be using it whether or not they know it.

But I also think that it can't gain mass adoption without a TON of infrastructure, because as is it just looks like it is piggybacking off of already existing tech (which is understandable).

All that being said... what infrastructure do you think needs to be set in place for mass adoption to gain traction, so that the tech is at all relevant to anyone and everyone?

I may be wrong but the following are what I am bullish on. Specific Usecases are tough to predict but I can point to THE big problem to be solved by all this infra. Every year we(younger people predominantly)spend more and more time in Digital spaces (currently they are Twitter, HN , Tiktok etc). But we don't own anything we do in these places. One of the biggest behaviour shifts we will have in near future (esp among youngsters) is that we will start owning digital artefacts. The best places to store these are neither the government nor corporate databases but public decentralised blockchains. Infra wise I feel Blockchains need to be modular. Wallets have to be better designed for non-tech savvy people. The following infra changes is what I am bullish on 1) Zk rollup based chains which will hyper-specialise on certain execution workflows but end up settling data on popular blockchains. (IMX among recent launches and upcoming StarkNet launch by year end for general ZK proof rollups) 2) Wallets will be embedded inside every Web3 app and drastically reduces the friction . Example Stepn's app popularity.

Thank you for the reply. I'll def poke my head around in the things you pointed to, not that I would be able to understand much.

I'll be frank: I don't necessarily see how owning digital artifacts is what younger folks are seeking, but I'm not entirely closed off to this being the cause of the potential sea change. Just because I don't see it/ get it right now doesn't mean it isn't massively appealing to people if given the right tools and platforms.

Perhaps I'm only seeing things cynically, but that level of granular ownership seems like it could become kinda tiresome, restrictive, and limiting (in the sense of who would be able to see and engage with what you decide to share and put out there). But I fully admit I'm at a loss for imagination right now, and many things I thought seemed silly, even with Web 2.0 stuff, I'm now using quite frequently.

You don’t think kids are gonna want a TikTok-esque thing on their phones with a gambling element?

> And the only place web3 is thrown into my face is hacker news

actually i dont think you will find many crypto fans on hn. at least not in the comments

Yeah it's because HN is engineering focused, and somehow "crypto" is not supposed to be upheld to the same standards as everything else. Everything is always a few years away, mass adoption right around the corner, killer apps and new paradigms of finance, you just have to wait a bit, we're almost there. But nothing of value has been created in a decade.

In my mind it has one good use, darknet markets, but that doesn't justify this whole nonsensical ecosystem somehow worth billions of dollars around it which does basically nothing, apart from being a huge casino. Cryptocurrencies have worked fine before all the finance bros and gurus came in and hijacked the whole space.

> nothing of value has been created in a decade.

A good summary.

Yup darknet markets were how crypto got started and we have yet to find a better use case

i think its much bigger than darknet. the crypto world brings together a mix of libertarianists and high risk investors. banking is one of the most hated industries and crypto seems to give it good competition. also a lot of bureocracy can be dealt with efficiently with smart contracts

I think there are plenty, but this is just not a productive environment to discuss anything crypto related.

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