Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Web3: The Promise of a Blockchain-Based Internet of Value

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I've been getting email suggesting I be more critical of blockchain and web3 technologies, though I would observe, with Irving Wladawsky-Berger, that "in their early years, major new technologies are generally accompanied by a mixture of excitement, speculation and confusion, as people sort out what the technology might be about and how it's likely to evolve. Something important is going on out there, but it takes time and marketplace experience to sort things out." Still - and here is where I think most criticism comes in - I have zero interest in what is called here an 'internet of value'. While it may be true that "contracts, transactions, and the records of them are among the defining structures in our economic, legal, and political systems," I don't think they should be, and there are many more important things in the world. But this isn't a problem with the technology, it's a problem with a world view that see things exclusively in terms of money, laws and power. Image: Tapscott, on Altoros.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 02:06 a.m.

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