If Web2 is considered a front-end revolution, then Web3 is a back-end revolution.
Web2 allows us to enjoy P2P interaction and create P2P economies within the platform's predefined management rules, but this comes at the cost of sacrificing user data. This is because Web2 specifies the transmission of data, not the storage method. The emergence of Web3 has reshaped the way data is stored and managed on the internet, providing a unique set of data. This unique state layer enables the internet to have a native value settlement layer without intermediaries, supporting true P2P transactions.
The book "Token Economy" mentions a concept: Web3 represents a set of protocols with a distributed ledger as the backbone, where data is collaboratively managed by computers in a P2P network. The management rules are formalized in the protocols and protected by the consensus of the majority of network participants, who are incentivized by network tokens. This protocol formalizes the governance rules of the network and ensures that people who are unfamiliar or distrustful of each other can reach agreements and resolve protocols through the network.
What problems is Web3 trying to solve?
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Data ownership: Data is stored on a public network rather than a centralized third-party institution.
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Information transparency: The blockchain is a shared, trusted, and public transaction ledger that can be viewed by everyone.
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Trust and security: The design of consensus mechanisms ensures that network nodes can reach agreements and resolve protocols through the network, even if they are unfamiliar or distrustful of each other.
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Equal rights: All network participants can access the same data equally and almost in real-time, and transactions are collectively managed.
What is the relationship between blockchain networks, P2P networks, and Bitcoin networks?
A blockchain network is a specific type of P2P network (decentralized network). It is built on the principles of P2P networks and provides a universal dataset that every actor can trust, even if they may not know or trust each other.
The Bitcoin network is an instance of a blockchain network. The Bitcoin network introduces a mechanism that makes the cost of duplicating digital value prohibitively high, and the new form of distributed data management solves the "double-spending" problem on the internet.
(Note: The current design of the internet allows a person to consume the same value issued in digital form multiple times because digital information can be copied, and copies of the same digital file can be simultaneously sent from one computer to multiple other computers. This is the "double-spending" problem.)
Blockchain is not the only technology required for a decentralized network. The blockchain network serves as the processor for decentralized applications running on Web3, acting as a distributed ledger that records all token transactions and executes computations. In addition to computation, we also need file storage, messaging, identity, external data (oracle), and many other decentralized services.
References:
English version online reading: https://github.com/sherminvo/TokenEconomyBook/wiki
Chinese version online reading: https://github.com/Token-Economy-Book/ChineseTranslation/wiki/0.1-Introduction