The Real Web 3.0

Marty's Bent

via Primal

I've explained a few times why the Web 3.0 meme that took hold during the 2020-2022 cycle is cringe and laughable from an implementation perspective. For those who don't recall and who aren't paying attention to what is reemerging, those who are confused about what's happening and/or shamelessly trying to swindle unsuspecting retail noobs out of their hard-earned money by pushing "creator tokens", "tokenized content", "meme coins", and a slew of other nonsensical Rube Goldberg machines that bamboozle the naive with technobabble.

All of the proposed "solutions" for content or task monetization on the internet by the crypto sphere has always devolved into "spin up a token for it!"

Publishing a podcast? Tokenize it and let your audience determine the value of it by letting its value float on the free market!

Posting a hot take? If you can tokenize a podcast episode, why not a social media post? Issue a token!

Have a fan base? Tokenize your brand and let those fans have a dick measuring contest and determine the winner by finding out who is willing to pay the most for your "soul token". Oh, did you say something controversial or become a "lame"? The winner of the dick measuring contest becomes poor in a matter of minutes.

All of these "solutions" have failed to understand the root of the problem they're trying to solve; an incentive aligned value for value exchange that makes sense for the creator and the consumer and is anchored to the logical first principles of economic reality. Creating a token for everything turns everyone into degenerate speculators who are forced to adopt extremely high time preference behavior by attempting to time the market of individual markets they're speculating on.

When will a podcast episode reach it peak as determined by click through rate, views per hour and average views per day 90 days after it was published?

Who will be the focus of the 24-hour news cycle today and can you develop the researching skills to buy their token during the first minute of their 15-minutes of fame?

You only have so much money and content production is seemingly infinite. How will you determine the opportunity cost of buying IShowSpeed's token over Adin Ross' when they're both having a "fire content day"?

Did all of that sound retarded to you? That's because it is, and it is the snake oil that crypto people are selling when they pitch their version of "Web 3.0".

No one in their right mind would want to live their lives attempting make all of these decisions and transactions to participate in the digital economy.

As I said earlier, the problem that needs to be solved is an incentive aligned value for value exchange that makes sense for the creator and the consumer and is anchored to the logical first principles of economic reality. This was an incomplete explanation of the problem. And the incomplete explanation was missing the most important detail of the problem. Both content creator and consumer need to be able to solve that problem in a peer-to-peer fashion. The best way to solve this problem is by combining bitcoin with open source content distribution protocols like RSS and Nostr.

We've talked about Podcasting 2.0 and Nostr many times in this newsletter. Podcasting 2.0 combines bitcoin over the lightning network and RSS to make podcast monetization peer-to-peer. Apps like Fountain make this is as easy as possible for both podcasters and listeners. Nostr is a more robust. The protocol enables you to create censorship resistant content of many types; tweet-like notes, long-form written content, video content, and physical goods that can be sold on peer-to-peer marketplaces on Nostr.

The screenshot above was taken earlier today during the Rabbit Hole Recap livestream. Primal pushed their latest update which enabled Matt and I (and any other livestreamer) to livestream via Primal over Nostr. The beauty of Nostr is that Primal isn't the only client that was sharing our livestream. Zap.stream, which have been using for over a year was streaming the show. Nostrudl was streaming the show. Many other clients were streaming the show. Each individual client has their own dedicated team building their own version of a visualization of the Nostr network. They choose how to filter the notes flowing through Nostr and how to present it to you. A fan of the show can choose their preferred client, watch the stream, and tip us in bitcoin if they find the content valuable.

It's a beautiful thing. Post to the protocol and have your content surfaced and monetized on any client built on top of the protocol.

What's even more beautiful is that the content can be monetized on Nostr. However, there's no need for a podcast episode token or "soul token" for people to speculate on because Nostr has integrated bitcoin as its native payment token. Instead of trying to complicate things by ignoring the double coincidence of wants problems by creating an infinite amount of speculative tokens just give the people what they want (and unknowingly need); bitcoin. It's simple, really. Unfortunately for those in crypto it's not as flashy, exciting, or exploitive as being able to monetize via degenerate tokenization.

Surprisingly, this is incredibly contrarian at the moment despite how clearly asinine degenerate tokenization is. There are literally millions upon millions of people who are being completely bamboozled by this narrative and burning their money for believing the bull shit.

This is very unfortunate for those who don't know better and very shameful for those who do know better, yet persist on trying to make others believe there is some fundamental value in this model.

I am supremely confident that the Rube Goldberg machine Web 3.0 version will fail miserably and the less flashy and "boring" implementation via the combination of open and distributed content protocol and bitcoin will succeed massively in the long-run.

And these aren't just words. Myself and the team at Ten31 have put our money where our mouths are by supporting companies making the less flashy, more practical and more tactical implementation of Web 3.0 a reality.

Will Institutional Adoption Turn Bitcoin Into Gold 2.0?

Matthew Mežinskis warns that institutional adoption could fundamentally alter Bitcoin's nature, transforming it from a decentralized monetary network into "Gold 2.0" - a captured asset class. He points out how Bitcoin Treasury companies using excessive leverage create cascading liquidation risks that could rival traditional finance blow-ups. The government nationalization theory I brought up regarding MicroStrategy illustrates how authorities could potentially acquire massive Bitcoin holdings through corporate takeovers, similar to the Intel equity stake but with monetary implications.

"If Bitcoin turns into growth rates like [traditional finance]... that might be good for Bitcoin holders... but that might not be good for the world." - Matthew Mežinskis

Mežinskis emphasizes that heavy KYC requirements and withdrawal restrictions could push Bitcoin onto an exponential growth curve rather than its current sustainable power law trajectory. Our defense remains unchanged: maintain self-custody, run nodes, and ensure mining decentralization. Without these fundamental practices, Bitcoin risks becoming just another financial asset controlled by the same institutions it was designed to route around.

Check out the full podcast here for more on power law trends, four-year cycles and free banking futures.

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Headlines of the Day

El Salvador Acquires $50 Million Gold - via X

Mara Mines 705 Bitcoin Holds All - via X

World Liberty Freezes Sun's $3 Billion - via X

Bitcoin Addresses 95% Profitable - via X

Warren Questions Trump Fed Nominee - via X

SEC Chair Eyes Crypto Regulation Framework - via X

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Ten31, the largest bitcoin-focused investor, has deployed $200M across 30+ companies through three funds. I am a Managing Partner at Ten31 and am very proud of the work we are doing. Learn more at ten31.vc/invest.

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Final thought...

Rain delays are good for writing.

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