Web3 Foundation
The Web3 Foundation, a non-profit organization, is dedicated to funding researchers and development teams that are working towards building the foundation of the Decentralized web. The term Web3 refers to the next generation of the internet that emphasizes decentralized systems and tokenized economies.
Joe Petrowski, the tech lead at Web3 Foundation, said that Polkadot’s interconnected web of blockchains will require “a totally different application programming paradigm.” Polkadot is one of Web3’s leaders with a vision to create a better version of the internet—such a version to put absolute power in the hands of its users. Decentralized systems eliminate the forces of 3rd parties who have controlled the system since its inception.
Before the idea of Web3, there were Web1 and Web2, which refer to the first two eras of the internet. Both eras had their distinctive attributes. While Web1’s era spanned the period between 1991 and 2004, its technology was limited to a read-only mode which made it static and far from dynamic. Its users were controlled as what they could do was very limited.
The advent of Web2 addressed the issues of Web1, which introduced dynamic technology that made users participate and not just consumers. Users could monetize their content as is standard for the modern internet. This era saw the rise of social media, blogging, E-commerce, video sharing, applications, etc. The era began in 2004 and is still what we are in to this day.
What Is Web3?
Just as Web2 filled the lacunas of web1, web3 will build up on existing internet advances. Web3, tagged the future of the internet, will be decentralized and driven by the p2p technology that will eliminate 3rd parties.
The founder of Polkadot and co-contributor to Ethereum, Dr. Gavin Wood, coined the term Web3 as far back as 2004. His proposal is purely based on freedom and eliminating such tech giants and companies like Google, Amazon, and the like. Ever since, there has been the creation of numerous companies, such as Kusama, aimed at driving the advent of web3.
Unlike Web2, which runs on multiple databases, Web3 will be run on numerous databases spread over many networks that adopt the system of p2p for communication. Every piece of information on Web3 will be organized, making it very difficult to be manipulated or hacked.
The Leaders of Web3
Gavin Woods founded web3 Foundation in 2017. The major objective of the foundation is to achieve the goals of Web3. It is committed to funding research and development teams and has made several investments so far. One notable one is Evercity, a platform aimed at the automation of maintaining sustainable finance.
Ethereum.org: Ethereum has been predicted to outpace Bitcoin in the future because of the approach it took in its design. It was developed to accommodate new systems. There are a whole lot of applications built on Ethereum. Currently, a whole lot of Web3 games and projects are built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Polkadot: This is the invention of Woods, also a co-founder of Ethereum. It is believed that Polkadot is the closest invention to actualizing the Web3 vision.
