Web3, Bitcoin, Metaverse, and AI in 2022: A Retrospective Look at the Key Technology Trends of the Year

At the end of every year I reflect on the magnitude of society's technological achievements and predictions for how they will perform in the year ahead. 2022 was monumental and will be remembered more than most. So, this time around I am sharing this information more publicly. The macro-trend of the next decade will be de-globalization and I'll share my thoughts on that in the new year. Until then, enjoy my 2022 recap and please let me know your thoughts.

Humanity will never be the same after 2022. What could possibly have happened in just one year to shake things up so drastically?

Some breakthroughs, fusion comes to mind, have taken decades of research and are still not ready for widespread application so they just doesn't excite me. Not because there isn't wonder... more because tomorrow never seems to come. Meanwhile the ones I get involved with tend to have similar scale promises but can be felt and built upon today. This year I want to talk about two that I love and two that I loathe - Bitcoin, web3/crypto, the Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence. Read on to see which is which :)

TLDR;

• Web3 and most of crypto has proven to be the bust as it was destined to (with a few exceptions)
• Bitcoin was created to be, and is becoming a cornerstone to, the sound money for our next generation tech-dependent civilization
• The lack of user buy-in makes the future of the metaverse looks bleak without a complete re-imagination
• Society still hasn't grokked the profound growth rate of AI and 2022 was our last year without it
• The continual growth of technology means the creation, processing and consumption of data needs to be taken seriously

Web3 & Crypto - A Few Rainbows in a Never-Ending Storm

Web3 has promised more control over our own data and online interactions. This promise makes the web3 moniker a genius move - take something that mostly works (the web) and announce that its flaws can be fixed by the tool you are shilling, likely a derivative fork of a blockchain. However, web3 has proven to be more of a centralized penny-stock casino than a reinvention of the pillars that built the Internet and the web. This is largely due to the frothy crypto dependency that could (potentially) give users more control through the use of tokens. That reality has not come to fruition and the current incentive models show that most projects will only benefit a few insiders and leave the rest to wither. I can't see a future where web3, based on the current philosophy of crypto, will bring society to new levels.

However, there are a few bright spots in web3, such as projects focused on carbon credits and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), that show promise in solving real problems.

• 2022 review: Web3 promised a lot, delivered very little, and is plagued with scammers.
• 2023 projection: Zombieland and boiler-room hustles will push web3 to a dark fringe of the Internet with no projects gaining widespread adoption and only some will create value for specific industry use cases.

Bitcoin - The One True Cryptocurrency That Still Needs to Decouple from Everything Else

It is unfortunate that people think "crypto" and Bitcoin are the same thing. Bitcoin is the purest form of sound money and one that could allow communities from around the world to build prosperity (defined as wealth, health and education) and break the shackles of failing governments. Proof of work, despite the media doom and gloom, is incredibly efficient and I believe that over the next decade the world will come to realize this. In 2022 the manipulation of Bitcoin by large institutions was dramatic and done with intent. A good example are some of the Bitcoin miners that were overleveraged and g0t r3kt.

Despite the bumps in the road the Bitcoin community is vibrant and continues to build additive value on top of a network that has proven time and time again to work reliably and securely. Bitcoin does need to decouple from everything else in the crypto space in order to truly realize its potential.

• 2022 review: The Bitcoin builders marched forward despite flawed media portrayal that Bitcoin is bad and will die. Sorry Warren, you are on the wrong side of this one.
• 2023 projection: More of the same really. Inefficiency will kill some of today's players, there will be more focus on non-industrial mining, the price of Bitcoin won't change until institutions really get on board instead of arbitrage trading.

Metaverse - A Lack of User Buy-In Spells Doom

What a ****show. Similar to web3's relative position enhancing the web experience, the metaverse promised to be the singular virtual world where we can buy digital sneakers and have the freedom of being any avatar we could dream up. It's reality fell short... like really really short. Users aren't using it. Many companies are building their own closed worlds instead of an open integrated world. The experience still feels rudimentary - straight out of the 80s movie, Lawnmower Man. The metaverse(s) are often littered with 'buy this token to get started' vibes that are a huge turnoff. In short, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

To me this problem isn't about ill-targeted early adopters and technology teething pains. It is a complete lack of interest and failure of market adoption that will likely prevent this generation of the metaverse from crossing the chasm of despair. Without a complete re-imagination of the concept, it is difficult to see how the metaverse will gain the widespread adoption necessary to thrive.

• 2022 review: #fail. There couldn't have been more wind in the sails for the Metaverse - huge corporate investment, a lot of people looking to escape the current economic hardships and societal dramas of COVID yet it didn't work... at all.
• 2023 projection: Companies are going to double down on the metaverse investments to buy their way out but it isn't going to gain adoption anytime soon. It is going to take a LOT of progress to rebuild on the back of the broken user experience promises that were made.

Artificial Intelligence - Society Still Hasn't Fully Grasped Its Profound Growth Rate. Buckle up!

At the start of the year I was blown away with the advancements in AI. Wow, I did not expect just how much ground it could cover in a year. Those first image generators were toys compared to what we have now at the end of the year. We have reached a capability that is still only the beginning of AI yet this year will be known as the last time humans were independent. Everything in our world will be, in some way, run by AI. By when you ask? Well forget Moore's Law - AI is evolving so fast, in ways we can't understand by the way, that we should see a fundamental rewrite of society in less than a decade. The chat interface of AI made it accessible to the masses and is providing a huge data set on how these models need to iterate. While one path of AI can work on artificial general intelligence, the more immediate impact will be felt on how AI will design robotics and software together to do both repetitive manual work as well as repetitive knowledge work.

Yes this is scary stuff. It has the potential to blow up in our faces for sure. However, I'm in the camp that AI gives us the opportunity to cure cancer, discover free energy and build a collective intelligence that reshapes every aspect of humanity.

• 2022 review: HUGE year of growth. Massive adoption by people, companies and industries. This year set the stage for more powerful models that are build by AI for specific use cases.
• 2023 projection: There will not be enough datacenters to store and process the needs of AI (not to mention the other specialized computing use cases). AI will be exponentially more sophisticated 12 months from now. I believe we will see the first major breakthrough because of AI by next year... maybe not a cure for cancer but something big, really big.

That's A Wrap!

In summary, 2022 has been a year of major technological and societal shifts, and it is clear that humanity will never be the same after this year. The epic failures of crypto exchanges that we have seen is only the beginning of the house cleaning leading towards a better Bitcoin future. AI will be the basis of almost industry going forward. As we enter troubled economic waters and more uncertainty than ever we have a lot of work to do to build the tomorrow we desire. We will likely do that work without web3 and definitely not in the metaverse.