Zhejiang geely holding group philippines.Enjoy Free 888+200 Daily Legal Bonus

When you think of modern technologies that aren’t gadgets and gizmos, you probably think of the Web, and with it, the Internet.

If so, you aren’t really thinking of modern technologies.

We are entering a new age. We’ve moved from the “Read-only Web,” which had little functionality for interacting with content, to the “Read-Write Web,” which offered seemingly endless collaborative opportunities, from sharing things with friends and family to shopping at your favorite brands. But the profusion of cyberattacks, data hacks, and online profiling have left many of us to view digital life as a Faustian bargain in need of a major rethink.

That rethink is Web3, the “Read-Write-Own Web”—a decentralized Internet where individuals own their own identities and can securely trade assets like money, securities, intellectual property, and art, peer to peer. Made possible by blockchains, the foundational technology of bitcoin. Web3 promises the biggest shake-up of business since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping in the Middle Ages. It is the Internet’s new frontier.

It brings with it a new lexicon and vocabulary for concepts and tools like blockchains, the metaverse, NFTs, DAOs, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity. In this episode, Alex Tapscott will serve as our guide and interpreter of this brave new world.

Alex is the author of the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail Bestseller Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier. He is also an entrepreneur and seasoned capital markets professional focused on the impact of emerging technologies, such as Web3, AI, VR/AR, the Metaverse, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, on business, government, and society.

Alex is the Managing Director of the?Digital Assets Group at Ninepoint Partners, one of Canada’s leading investment firms with more than $8 billion in assets under management. Ninepoint launched the world’s first carbon-neutral Bitcoin ETF and recently the Ninepoint Web3 Innovators ETF.

Alex is also co-author of the critically acclaimed best-seller, Blockchain Revolution (with Don Tapscott), which has been translated into more than 19 languages and has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. He’s also written two other modern classics, Financial Services Revolution (2020) and Digital Asset Revolution (2022).

Alex is sought after world-wide, for his expertise by business and government audiences. He has delivered well over 200 lectures and executive briefings to business audiences at firms like?Goldman Sachs,?Google, Allianz, IBM, Microsoft and Accenture, to name just a few. (Here are a few select speeches by Alex.)

He is consistently ranked as a top influencer in the blockchain industry. His TEDx talk, Blockchain is Eating Wall Street?has been viewed over 820,000 times, and his writing has been featured in?The New York Times,?Harvard Business Review,?The Globe and Mail,?The Financial Post,?TIME,?Fortune, and many other publications, and he is the cohost of the podcast, DeFi Decoded, with Andrew Young.

In 2017, Alex co-founded the?Blockchain Research Institute, a global think-tank investigating blockchain strategies, opportunities and use-cases. Alex is a graduate of Amherst College (Cum Laude) and is a CFA Charterholder.

It was Alex’s father, Don, who first introduced us, so I asked him to share a bit of his family history and the years between then and now. We then shifted into his newest book, Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier, published by Harper Business, but before I did, I shared what others have said about it:

Larry Summers, Former United States, Secretary of the Treasury, said, "Web3 is a breathtaking innovation that holds great promise but also peril for those who dismiss the future. Tapscott has written a book we need as we enter a new epoch, for computing, and for society."

Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder of Apple said, "With?Web3, Tapscott has captured the zeitgeist. We are on the brink of an extraordinary new era where technology can reimagine everything. With clarity of thought and deep insights, this book explores Web3's immense potential."

Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal said,"Web3 will have a profound impact on the global economy and our society. Alex Tapscott has once again stepped up with timely and essential guidance to help us navigate the tremendous change underway—and the challenges and opportunities ahead."

And Klaus Schwab, Chairperson of the World Economic Forum (a friend and colleague of mine, who kindly authored the Foreword to three of my books) said, “With the rise of generative AI, the metaverse and the next generation of blockchain, Web3 is now a breakthrough platform for innovators to rebuild the world of business and the global economy for a new era of prosperity. This extraordinary book shows how.”

Well-deserved high praise from some pretty heavy hitters. As this is a complex topic, I started off with some basic-101-the-training-wheels-are-still-on questions, such as what are the most significant differences between Web3 and the current internet infrastructure? Also, I asked him to give some real-world examples where Web3 technologies are already making an impact. And we covered some of the common misconceptions.

A great deal of the business and popular media is a buzz with AI. I loved how, in Chapter 2, Alex had Chat-GPT write the part about Chat-GPT in that chapter (so meta). Alex noted that for AI to reach its full potential, it will need Web3 tools.

He shared how he envisions Web3 shaping the future of global economies, particularly in terms of addressing inequalities and promoting financial inclusion. This is related to his point of Web3 being a steamroller in the so-called “flat world.” The concept of decentralization is central to Web3, and he wrote how this shift in power dynamics may affect individual autonomy and collective governance structures.

There also seems to be a large gulf in peoples’ opinions as to tokens, digitized assets and so called “cryptocurrencies” which he’s said is actually a misnomer, and he explained what he meant by that and clarified the meaning/concept of a “token.” In his book he offers an updated token taxonomy of digital assets, in fact.

We went deep into NFTs, or Non Fungible Tokens, with what I found to be one of the clearest explanations I have heard. Alex predicts that Web3 will usher in the greatest transformation to financial services. From there I asked him to also explain the difference between FinTech and DeFi.

Skeptics argue that blockchain technology has limitations, such as scalability and energy consumption. But Alex writes about Web3 in the context of the so-called “Green Economy” and decentralized physical infrastructure or DePin. In his book, he explains how Web3 addresses these concerns, along with the developments he sees on the horizon to overcome them. I found it surprising that 37 percent of underbanked individuals own and use digital assets to make payments, invest, and use other DeFi services, and 44 percent of digital asset holders are people of color. One of the unintended consequence risks, however, is the further “dollarization” of the world economy.

We also discussed DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations – what they are, how they work, and why Alex calls them the “killer app” for our digital economy and the dominant model for businesses. In that vein, smart contracts are often touted as a key feature of Web3. Alex gave examples as to what smart contracts are and how they work, along with their potential implications for various industries.

In preparation for our conversation, I had clipped the prior Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal cover article about Tether being used to sidestep sanctions and smuggle arms parts. The piece said that it’s one of the world’s default black-market payment methods, and as a stablecoin, it is the most traded cryptocurrency with as much as $120 billion changing hands a day, and $10 trillion in 2023, similar to that of Visa’s payment processing volume. They were noted as to have begun freezing digital wallets of those connected with entities under sanction, so I asked Alex how this could be.

I also think Alex’s book design is quite elegant and clear. At the end of each chapter, he uses the convention of “Conclusion and Takeaways,” which I found very helpful, and honestly, his history lessons were very helpful in understanding context and technology adoption. In particular, his concluding chapter provides a great historical context.

We ended with his perspectives on governmental regulation of digital assets and Web3, and that the US is not in the pole position, regulation-wise. So perhaps the US may be a follower of what Singapore and Dubai leads with? He wrote that decentralized does not mean disorganized.

His book showcased entrepreneurs on 5 continents that are using Web3 tools to flatten the earth, or level the playing field. And he has a sort of call-to-action as to what we, as readers, can do now, like launch a DAO with friends and see where it goes, as well as other possibilities.

Alex is masterful in communicating via both the written and spoken word as to complex topics that are critically important to our future and living fuller lives. As he wrote “In the Read-Write-Own Web of Web3, we are not merely spectators; we are authors of our digital destiny, reclaiming control over our identities and assets.” This episode is not to be missed if you want to better understand what the future holds and how it will impact us all and society.

You can listen to our conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, SoundCloud, YouTube Podcasts, Pandora, iHeartRADIO, and pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts, or download here. Please subscribe on your favorite platform and never miss an episode or sign up for our monthly notification. It’s like a gym membership for your brain.?Here are the show notes.

The “Living a Life in Full” podcast is the conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED talk, or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about.

This show is for the intellectually curious. You want to not just know more about the interesting and the innovative, but also what makes them tick, and maybe even what makes them laugh. It’s graduate-level conversations with those making a difference in the world and the lives of others.

We bring you new ideas and approaches so you can live a life in full. Interviewees are a who’s who of high-performance athletes, bestselling authors, high-caliber leaders, world changing humanitarians, innovative researchers, amazing startup founders, clever life-hackers, paradigm busting thought-leaders and global innovators.

The show is equal parts information and inspiration, but without the aphorisms and Pablum. We cover a wide range of topics in an engaging way — from Burning Man to The Renaissance Weekend, from the United Nations to top universities, Nobel Laureates to astronauts — we have an amazing Rolodex.

Living a Life in Full provides durable insights and actionable knowledge, along with a dash of fun. We bring you new ideas and approaches so you can live a life in full.

#?????????#?????????#

If you'd like to learn more or connect, please do, just click here. You can join my email list to keep in touch. Tools and my podcast are available via https://ALifeInFull.org. And be sure to click here for a free subscription to join 157,000 other subscribers to our monthly LinkedIn Newsletter, Tools for Change.