5 Exciting Developments in Web3 for 2023: It's Time to Build Great Products!
Nicholas White
</digitalExplorer> | Navigating Blockchain & AI | Strategic Investor in Emerging Technologies ??? ? ??
Web3 has come a long way, and there is a lot to be excited about in 2023. As someone with about 7 years of experience in the blockchain space, I wanted to share some of the tools, products, protocols, and real-world use cases that are production-ready today. These are areas that will see significant progress in 2023 as we enter the year of building great products.
One of the most exciting things about web3 is the introduction of permanent and immutable storage solutions. Companies like Instagram have chosen to implement features that are simply not possible through other centralized architectures. With newer protocols built on top of Arweave, like BundlrNetwork, exmbuild, and warp_contracts, the barrier to entry for users and developers has gone down drastically. It's now trivial to build high-quality applications on Arweave with better and easier-to-use APIs and gateways with improved UX.
2. Messaging
When I first joined the web3/blockchain space in 2016, there wasn't much actually possible outside of DAO's, crypto exchanges and digital payments. While these are interesting use cases, digital payments were the only one that might be compelling to the "average" person in the world.
Fast forward to today, one of the most exciting new protocols launched in the past year is XMTP - a protocol for implementing encrypted and secure messaging. If you need messaging in your app, or maybe you just want to build a new messaging app that has some cool new features that doesn't exist anywhere else, you can now tap into XMTP and leverage not only a high-quality service - you also inherit the users of all of the other apps that have ever built with XMTP.
3. Account Abstraction (AA)
Scalability, accessibility, and UX are the biggest obstacles to adoption for blockchain technologies. Account abstraction helps solve two of these challenges head on (accessibility and UX) and has quickly become one of the most prioritized features in protocol roadmaps, and popular topics in the blockchain community.
领英推荐
Protocols like fuellabs are being built from the ground up to treat account abstraction as a first-class citizen, while specifications like EIP4337 allow existing protocols to build account abstraction into existing protocols traditionally dependent on EOAs. With gasless transactions and cheaper and cheaper execution environments, developers and teams can start to consider treating blockchain infrastructure the same as we've been treating traditional cloud infrastructure.
4. Zero-knowledge proofs and ZK-SNARKS
One of the most exciting developments in web3 is the emergence of zero-knowledge proofs and ZK-SNARKS. These technologies allow for the validation of information without revealing any underlying data. This has huge implications for privacy, as it allows for secure and private transactions and communication. In 2023, we can expect to see more and more projects leveraging these technologies to provide enhanced privacy and security for their users.
5. Decentralized Social Graphs
Decentralized social graphs are another exciting development in web3. These networks, like LensProtocol, allow for the creation of a decentralized and open social network where users have full control over their data. In 2023, we can expect to see more projects leveraging these networks to build decentralized social media platforms, messaging apps, and more. Decentralized social graphs have the potential to disrupt the traditional centralized social media landscape and give users more control over their data and privacy.
By creating an open and decentralized social graph, users can connect with others in a way that is not controlled by any single entity. This will give users more control over their data and privacy, and will lead to the creation of new, decentralized social applications.
These are just a few examples of the tools, products, protocols, and real-world use cases that are production-ready today. I'm excited to see what the future holds for web3, and I hope this article has given you a glimpse of what's to come.
BlueRing Solutions | Certificate Engineer United Airlines
1 年Great stuff, the ownership of your data on web3 is huge, once it’s more widely adopted we will see some awesome innovation.
Very informative article Nick, especially for the average Joe with limited understanding of blockchain applications outside of crypto. My only suggestion would be using more expanded definitions when referencing acronyms for those of us less conversant with the terminology. Overall, great article!
Founder and CEO of Melanion Capital | Launched a unique BITCOIN EQUITIES ETF - BTC FP, BTC IM | Founder of the First Dividend Future Hedge Fund | Melanion Foundation | Bored Yachts
1 年Interesting article, let's hope 2023 is filled with prosperity and innovation in this space.
Retropreneur | Startup Founder | AI Applications Developer | Chief Product Officer | Author of "The Two But Rule" (Wiley)
1 年With the exception of the notion that people will ever use blockchains as though they are cloud/server compute, which will only be true when blockchains cease being blockchains and “Web3” turns into “Cloud2” (a bunch of subnets with a patina of cross-net eventual-consistency…Avalanche, Dfinity and L2s being a harbinger of this), I thought this was a reasonable piece (though a bit gushy. I’ve become hypersensitive to the gush after a decade of hype. ;)