The internet we use every day is what we now call web2. It is the era of platforms: you create an account, and your photos, messages and purchase history live on the servers of a single company. Convenient, until the rules change or your account disappears.
Web3 proposes a different balance of power. Instead of trusting a single company, you rely on an open network maintained jointly by thousands of independent computers. A record in such a network is public, permanent, and does not belong to any one party.
Three things web3 changes
- Ownership. A web3 account is a pair of cryptographic keys controlled by you, not by a service provider. You decide who gets access.
- Portability. Your identity and funds are not locked inside one app. The same wallet works in many places.
- Verifiability. Instead of taking someone's word for it, you can check for yourself what happened and when.
What web3 is not
It is not a get-rich-quick machine, nor a promise that everything will be free. It is a set of tools, and tools can be used well or badly.
The most important skill in web3 is not trading. It is understanding whom and what you trust.
In the articles that follow, we break these concepts down piece by piece: how blockchain works, what a wallet is, and how not to get scammed. We start with the fundamentals, because good decisions come from understanding, not from haste.